Page 87 of My Last Dance

“Bunga huh?” His face cracked.

“I’ll get you some,” I said quietly, forcing myself to stand.

“Cool, thanks.” He busied himself searching for the clicker on the couch.

I moved to my room, but when my hand reached for the doorknob, I paused. “Kappy…”

His warm brown eyes met mine.

“Why are you doing this? You can’t actually want this. Mastering a whole other sport? Why?” I asked, desperate for the truth.

“Why can’t you accept that I just want to?” he asked, his brown eyes never wavering from mine.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Because this is just…it’s too…”It’s too much. I shook my head. “It’s crazy.”

“Maybe.” He gave a soft smile. “But it’s my choice. Relax and let me do the worrying, babe.”

He called mebabethrough the years, so I knew not to take it to heart, but it hit me right in the chest anyway.

And for some reason, I clung to the comfort of his sentence, his voice, and it eased my worry, at least for the night.

_______

Hans thankfully gave us keys to the back rink in the Coliseum for us to use anytime we wanted. The back rink, which was reserved as the Windy City Whalers’ practice ice, usually sat empty all summer while the team enjoyed their offseason, so no one even knew we were using it.

But that was about the only thing going smoothly for us.

After two weeks of spending every waking moment focused on bringing Kappy up to speed, things were still extremely shaky.

“You guys just aren’t gelling,” Patrick assessed from his spot in the team box on Friday morning.

My shoulders fell. Patrick was right. We were colliding every two seconds—I had the bruises to show for it—and then arguing about it every three seconds.

“Ow! We were supposed to go left,” I argued, holding my sore side.

“That was left.” He wiped sweat from his brow.

“The actual left, not your left.”

“What are you saying?” His hands went to his head. “Left is left.”

“God! You’re stupid! This is your left, this is my left! Left! How can you not see it!”

His face reddened with rage. “I’d love to see it your way, but I’m not flexible enough to stick my head up my own tight ass!”

“Okay, okay,” Patrick chided. “Let’s just calm it down.”

Covering my face, I let out a frustrated growl. Part of the problem was that I was used to skating with Patrick, who could practicallyread my body language like a book. Starting over with Kappy made me feel like a beginner again, which was depressing.

Smoothing my hands on top of my head, I grumbled, “I think we need to be done for the day.”

Patrick’s shoulders fell with a sigh before he waved me off.

Without another glance back at the guys, I hightailed it to the opening in the boards, but instead of turning into the locker room, I continued power walking through the rink until I was at the back of the pro shop facing Hans, who was busy sharpening skates.

Seeing that he had company, he powered down the skate sharpener and waited for me to talk.

“Why give us the ice and go along with this insane plan?”

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