Page 101 of Goal Line
We come up for the finale, both breathing heavily, even though it was the shorter, pregnancy-friendly version of our free skate routine. And when I drop my arms after our final pose, I can feel my legs shaking and heart pounding as I try to regulate my panting. Christopher wraps his arm around my hips, skating me over to the boards while I cling to him.
Goddamn, I’m tired. I need to get more sleep, which would be easier if I wasn’t sharing a bed with Luke. Because try as we might, we can’t seem to keep our hands off each other, no matter how exhausted we are. Maybe this weekend, staying at his parents’ house after the polo match, we’ll both get a full night of sleep? Whoknows how thin the walls are in that old house.Probably best if we’re not having sex for his whole family to hear.
I glance up at the stands, and sure enough, Luke is waiting for me like he does any day he isn’t at his skills practice. It’s a relief to see that he doesn’t look jealous at the way I’m clinging to Christopher. Instead, his forehead is etched with worry lines.
I rest my elbows on the top of the boards as Lynette talks about what she wants us to focus on next week based on what she just saw in this performance. Then, as Christopher steps through the door onto the mats, she takes her hand and smooths it over my bent head. “You sure this isn’t too much for you with your blood pressure?”
I see the same worried look on her face that I saw on Luke’s.
“I’m fine. I just tire much more easily now.”
“Let’s keep an eye on that. We can move to off-ice practice whenever you need to. We have the mats for practicing our lifts, and we can practice the jumps and run through the routines off ice, too.”
“My god,” I say with a deep sigh. I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. “Have I mentioned how happy I am that you’re coaching us now? Thank goodness Lauren encouraged me to reach out to you.”
Her cheeks wrinkle as she lets out a small laugh. “You haven’t, but I’m glad, too. You and Christopher are going to do great things this winter. I can feel it.”
“I didn’t know how much I needed a coach like you until you came along,” I tell her, pushing myself upright so I can step off the ice.
“You’re in a tough situation, Eva, and anyone incapable of handling it sensitively doesn’t deserve to be your coach.”
My eyes water, and I don’t know if I want to cry from gratitude or exhaustion. “Thanks.”
“It’s funny what a small world figure skating can be,” she muses as I step onto the mats and bend to place my skate guards over my blades. “Who would have thought someone I coached in singles over fifteen years ago would meet a pairs skater in need of a coach and recommend me?”
“It’s hard to believe it was that long ago,” I say. “I remember watching Lauren skate like it was yesterday.”
“It’s such a shame.” Lynette shakes her head and her lips dip into a small frown. “She had all the potential, but that accident shook her confidence to the core. To think that she was once our number one Olympic hopeful, and then she never got back on skates again.”
“Wait!” I say, reaching out and grasping her arm. “Never?”
Lauren had said she doesn’t skate anymore, but I didn’t realize that meant she hadnevergotten back on the ice after her accident. That’s an entirely different thing!
Lynette shakes her head again and lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. “It’s a thing that happens, unfortunately. Sometimes, an athlete gets too much in their own head and can’t move past some mental block. We know so much more about all of that now than we did when Lauren was a teenager—there are therapists and mental exercises, and...just so much more we can do to help now.”
I think about Luke and Game 7, about how he felt when it happened, compared to how much better he seems to be feeling now.
His session with Chloe seemed to help, and he’s meetingwith her again this week. But I suspect the team aspect of hockey factors into the improvement in his attitude and mental health, too. He’s been seeing his teammates more, and Colt’s been at the skills practices. Whereas Lauren, as a singles skater, would have shouldered all the pressure herself, not even sharing it like Christopher and I can with pairs skating. And she wouldn’t have had a whole team behind her like Luke does. It just makes me...sad for her.
She was obviously terrified of getting back on the ice, which makes me worried that maybe I shouldn’t have asked her to skate with me. And yet, skating was such a crucial part of her life that was stolen from her...and I can’t help but wonder if I could help her reclaim it?
Chapter Forty
LUKE
“How do you feel about that?” Chloe asks after I give her the PG-rated description of the changes in my relationship with Eva since we last talked.
My long exhale loosens my shoulders. “So fucking relived.”
“And how’s hockey going now?” She pushes a pair of tortoise-shell glasses up the bridge of her nose, and I wonder why she wasn’t wearing them last time. Does she normally wear contacts? It’s such a silly thing to think about, but it’s also a reminder that I don’t really know her at all. Normally, that would make me way more hesitant to talk to her about anything important. But somehow, she makes me want to keep talking.
“Good, I think. Colt said something to me at practice the other day that I can’t stop thinking about.”
“Colt’s the other goalie?” When I nod my head, she asks, “So, what did he say?”
“Two things, actually. First, he pointed out that I’m flawless in practice. Which got me thinking...if I’m flawless there, then the issue isn’t that I need to get better, it’s that I need to harness that level of focus and performance when the moment calls for it.”
Her lips curve up at the ends. “So you need some strategies for maintaining your focus in high-pressure situations. We can work on that. What was the second thing?”
