Page 8 of At the Edge with You

Oh, how easily I lie.

But the older lady doesn’t have time for my lies. “You two on the ice is still my favorite sight in the world. You being so graceful and stunning, him all rugged and strong for you.”

“Here we go,” I mumble, and her grin widens. “It was twenty years ago, Bea. We went our separate ways.”

“But I remember everything.”

I do too, but I don’t tell her that.

Not when the past doesn’t matter, not when it was her great-grandson who didn’t want to skate with me anymore. Everyone always seems to forget that. That he wanted to play hockey, not be my partner. We could have won for years to come, but instead, I did it solo. He left me, like everyone else. But he’s her golden boy, so I don’t say anything as she reminisces. Instead, I listen as she recounts the best four years of my life, in her words, and I wish for something I never thought I would.

To go back and relive it all.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Jett

I am fully convinced music stopped being good after 2006.

I take that back. Noah Kahan is a lyrical genius, but this damn mumble rap that the kids go bananas for gives me a fucking headache. I lean my elbows on the steering wheel of Big Buck as I wait for the ice to clear while some rapper yells about big stepping or something along those lines. Trash music, in my opinion. Why don’t kids listen to Snoop Dogg or Eminem? Hell, put on some Tupac! Now, that’s rap. Not this crap. But the kids love it, all of them smiling and excited as they gather their sticks and water bottles.

I let everyone have the day off, so the whole place is empty of the regular chatter from the people who usually gather for coffee and snacks while they wait for their kids. The front desk is shut down, and even the gym is closed. Coach Liam made this a closed practice for his 16U team, so it’s just him and the players. I wanted to cancel the practice, but the boys have a tournament up in Cleveland this weekend, and I couldn’t let them down. I wish I hadn’t had to leave Phillip’s memorial early, but I had no choice. I owed it to the team.

“Boys, make sure you have all your stuff. We will not leave a mess!”

I look up from where I’m sitting on the Ice Thistle’s Zamboni, which is painted like the view of the mountains, including a huge buck that Phillip is convinced he saw. Hence, the name Big Buck. A wave of grief hits me as I watch the boys gather their stuff, Coach Liam smacking each boy on the head the way Phillip used to do to me.

I grin when I notice Liam’s adult daughter and his co-coach, Chelsea, passing out Gatorades and orange slices in little baggies. That was Bea’s and Hazel’s job when I was a teen. They always had snacks.

Probably the reason why I am a snackaholic.

I’m lost in thoughts of the past when Liam calls out to me. “Thanks again, JT!”

I wave at him and then to the boys as they thank me too. When Liam throws his arm around his daughter, I shake my head. Liam and I are the same age, and while I was tearing up the ice, he was raising his daughter at just sixteen. There isn’t much to do in Thistlebrook if you don’t like hockey or mountains, so there were a lot of teen pregnancies back in my day. Kids nowadays may have shit taste in music, but at least they’re smarter than we were when it comes to sex.

Once the ice is cleared, I fire up Big Buck and start onto the ice. The scrape of the brushes, the water sloshing, eases my grief-stricken heart. Phillip would be the one doing this if he were here. He was our Zamboni guy, but now that job is mine. I could hire someone, but I’m pretty sure Phillip will haunt me if I let anyone else drive Big Buck. As I take my first turn, I think back to the last person to show up at his funeral.

How the sun played off her hair.

How her dress clung to her body.

How I know damn well I saw ink on her inner thighs.

While I was at the memorial, I found myself watching her as she sat by the windows in the kitchen. She had a blanket across her legs, so I didn’t get to confirm what I thought I saw, but knowing her, she wasn’t cold. No, her blanket obsession is to keep her safe from things she doesn’t want to feel. She has done that since we started skating together, and when I saw the blanket, a wave of nostalgia hit me hard.

I wonder if she still has thatGoofy Movieblanket Bea got her?

I wonder what she would have said if I’d gone up to her.

Would we have fallen back into easy conversation like when we were kids, or would it have been awkward? I don’t know, but damn it, I wish I had given myself the chance to find out. I wonder if she’s staying long—though, I highly doubt it. She hasn’t set foot back in this town once since she left.

After we won in Salt Lake City, she moved to Colorado to train with past Olympic skaters. I only was able to watch her on TV until social media hit the world, and then I was able to watch her on MySpace. I never made it into her top ten, probably because she didn’t even know I had a MySpace, and I never had the balls to ask her to be friends when Facebook hit. No, it was when Instagram came around that I was truly able to watch her from afar like the creep I am.

As I take another turn, I hear my phone sound in my pocket. I know by the notification tone that it’s from my group chat with the three ladies who raised me. There are two reasons I shouldn’t look at my phone. First, I’m driving a Zamboni. And second, I’m sure it has something to do with the ice princess.

Which is why I pull out my phone.

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