Page 16 of Goal Line
“Oh my god!” Hannah shrieks through her laughter, with her hand pressed to her chest.
“Dude,” Reese says, shaking his head but laughing. The two of us played hockey together all four years of high school, and against each other twice a year in college. “Just hand over your man card already.”
“Very secure in my manhood, my friend.” I punch his shoulder extra hard for good measure, because fuck that sexist shit. There’s nothing even remotely normal aboutanyone,of any gender, dressing up in a too-small Mrs. Claus costume and prancing around with bells on their feet.
“So, how was this an Elf on the Shelf situation?” Jonathan asks.
“Oh!” Eva says. “Because he decided that he looked morelike the Elf than Mrs. Claus, so he started freaking perching on everything. The piano, the back of the couch, the post at the bottom of the stairs?—”
“My ass still hurts from that one,” I say. I think that if Eva hadn’t pursued figure skating like she did, she’d be an author—probably penning smutty rom-coms like the ones she reads on long trips and in between training sessions—because she can always weave a funny story out of thin air.
“When he decided he was going to try to sit at the top of the twelve-foot Christmas tree, his brothers finally put a stop to the nonsense.”
“Please tell me you took photos?” Hannah asks. “I need to see this with my own eyes.”
Eva rolls her eyes. “I would never let someone document my best friend’s drunken escapades.”
“I wish I’d taken a selfie or something,” I say, “because I’d love to see what I looked like. I barely remember any of this happening, but I’m sure I looked hot doing it.”
“Man, to embarrass yourself like that in front of your future teammates. You have balls of steel,” Reese says, apparently changing his mind and deciding that this behavior somehow makes me more manly?
“Nah, they were all gone by then. It was just family and close friends left.”
I’m sure most of my current teammates would totally believe this story. Not because I get drunk and do stupid things often, but because—outside of hockey—I generally don’t really care what people think of me.
Eva says it’s the confidence of growing up secure in the knowledge that I was completely loved, never feeling like I had to prove myself in any way. And maybe she’sright...maybe my parents’ unwavering support, and her parents’ endless pressure, is why we have such different perspectives on other people’s opinions.
“Speaking of drinking too much, I think I need to get this lightweight home,” Eva says, nodding her head at me. “We’re on the ice in, like, six hours, and I have a feeling I’ll be skating circles around him.”
With promises of “getting together again soon,” Eva and I turn and leave our high school friends behind. As we head to the door, I snake my arm around her hip, pulling her to my side. “The fucking Elf of the Shelf, Evie?” I laugh into her hair as I press a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re too much.”
“Pretty sure I’m just right, actually.” She tilts her head up and grins at me with a bright smile that pushes her cheeks up and scrunches her eyes. It’s the kind of smile that makes my whole axis tilt, forcing me to hold on to her tighter so I don’t stumble.
Because when Eva Wilcott smiles at me like that, I temporarily forget that she friend-zoned me a decade ago, fell in love with someone else, and is pregnant with a stranger’s baby. Because all I want—all I’ve ever wanted—is her.
Chapter Eight
EVA
“Itold you I’d be skating circles around you this morning,” I call out as I skate past Luke. Setting myself up for a double lutz with a long glide on my left back outside edge, I plant my right toe pick and use my left leg to propel me into the air with a quick double rotation, before landing on my right back outside edge.
“Holy shit, Evie,” he says, barely audibly. “How is that safe?”
“It was only a double,” I tell him. I could do any type of double jump in my sleep. Triples are a stretch, and I’ve never been able to do a quad. It’s a big part of the reason that I switched from singles skating to pairs when I was a teenager—not only do I prefer the more artistic and emotional nature of a pairs performance, but the expectations for jumps aren’t as stringent.
I’ve been a nationally ranked pairs skater since I startedwith Christopher right after high school, and I was never going to make it that far in singles. My mother was right about one thing: it was the logical choice.
I cross my right foot over my left as I approach him again, then swivel toward center ice, where I go into an upright spin. But I’m only a few rotations in, just starting to really pick up speed, when a wave of nausea hits me.Oh shit.
Uncrossing my legs, I set my outside skate on the ice to slow myself down, and then I lower my body to sit. My ass hits the ice harder than I expect, and I let out a yelp in response to the pain that shoots up the left side of my back.
Luke’s skates come to a skidding stop right next to me, and he drops to his knees, gripping each of my shoulders. “Shit, Evie, what happened?”
I close my eyes, breathing through my nose to keep the nausea at bay. The familiar scent of the ice is mixed with Luke’s scent—he always smells a little musky and a little sweet, like if you crossed sandalwood and vanilla ice cream. “Just got dizzy.”
“Is that . . . normal, now?”
“No. I never really got morning sickness or anything,” I tell him. It’s one of the reasons that I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was so far along—though maybe the food aversions and low-level queasiness should have clued me in.
