Page 74 of Goal Line
I’m about to ask if he’s concerned about my safety or the quality of my performance, when Lynette, our new skating coach, sees us and waves us over. As we walk along the first row of seats next to the glass, she nods toward the little kids finishing up their skating lessons and says, “Let’s get ready to go so we can make use of every second of ice time once they’re done.”
As I sit there, lacing up my skates and then pulling the wide bottoms of my pants over the heel of my boot, I get the same nervous feeling in my stomach that I had when we arrived at my parents’ house the other night for dinner. Given how things turned out then, I seriously hope this isn’t a premonition.
Next to me, Christopher nudges me with his shoulder. “You ready?”
I close my eyes and take a breath, inhaling a scent that’s so familiar it feels like home. It’s impossible to describe how an ice rink smells—cold air mixed with ice, rubber mats, metal steps, plastic seats—they all combine to create a distinctive aroma.
“Ready.”
My stomach flips over again, but I don’t feel nervous anymore. I feel anxious to start. I always feel anxious to get back to the ice when I’ve been off it for a while, and I probably need to think more about what it will be like once Iretire from competition. But for now, as Christopher takes my hand and we step onto the ice, listening carefully to Lynette’s instructions for our warmups, I breathe in again, determined to enjoy every minute of my last season of skating.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sliding across the ice on my butt for at least the tenth time in a row, and Christopher groans as Lynette says, “Maybe we need to take a break.”
Twenty minutes, and I’m fucking exhausted and sore already.
“How long has it been since you skated, again?” Lynette asks, as I plop down onto the bench and grab the water bottle from the side of my bag. When we met, I told her I hadn’t skated since the end of our season. I didn’t mention the one time I skated with Luke and how I tweaked my back. But it’s as if she can’t believe I was competing on the international stage just last month. To be honest, I can’t believe it either.
“Three and a half weeks.” I pop the straw up from the lid and take several long gulps of my water.
“And have you done any conditioning in that time?” she asks.
I glance at Christopher, and he looks pissed. Honestly, I’d be pissed too if my partner showed up woefully unprepared.
“Not much. My body needed a break, but I’m afraid I gave it too much of one. I’m not normally this out of shape.”
“You’re not normally pregnant,” she says. “Go easy on yourself during this re-entry period. You can’t expect that your body is going to feel and perform like it did before pregnancy.”
My eyes are suddenly full of tears, and I look up at themetal rafters so they don’t spill down my cheeks. This response could not possibly be more different than my mom’s was the other night, or than Jessie’s would have been if we were still training with her. “Thank you.”
Christopher swings his arm over my shoulders and gives me a squeeze, before he looks up at Lynette, where she stands in front of us, leaning against the boards. “I don’t think anything involving jumps is happening today.”
“No, that doesn’t seem like the best use of our time right now,” she agrees. “I think we should switch to running through your routine and focusing on the footwork and synchronicity. From watching your performances over and over in preparation for working with you two, the only area—aside from jumps—where there’s any room for improvement is on the footwork in the more artistic segment near the end of your routines.”
I grab the protein bar from the front pocket of my bag and take a bite. I’m going to need to start eating like an athlete training for competition. No more lemon cupcakes or peach rings. Lots more protein and complex carbs.
Maybe I need to reach out to my nutritionist. Weeks ago, I told her I needed a break and that she could stop coordinating my meals and having them sent to me. I might need to start that up again, but I don’t want to go through my mom to do so, even though she’s been in charge of that part of my training for my whole career.
I make a mental note to talk to Luke about it, as Christopher and Lynette chat about our routine and I eat half my protein bar.
“You feel like you’re ready to try again?” he asks, once Ifold the wrapper over the open end and shove the rest of the bar back into the pocket it came from.
“Yeah,” I say with a decisive nod, realizing that I’m wasting our valuable—and expensive—ice time, not to mention our coach’s time. “Let’s do this.”
Christopher and I take a few laps around the rink, going through the steps of our normal warmup again, and this time, it feels much better, much more natural, than it did half an hour earlier. And as we go through the different sequences of the artistic portions of our routine, I settle in. It’s as if my body is waking up and remembering that it knows how to do this.
Thirty minutes later, I’m sweating and spent. My legs are lead and I feel like I need a nap in order to have the energy to walk out of here. But we had thirty productive minutes of practice, so that’s a win.
“What’s he doing here?” Christopher asks quietly as we skate toward the open door at the edge of the rink.
I follow his gaze up into the stands. There are a few families with little kids decked out in hockey helmets, sitting around and waiting for their practice to start now that we’re done. I wonder if they realize that above them, an NHL goalie is sitting back in his seat, watching me like a hawk follows its prey.
The possessive and almost jealous look he wears as he notices Christopher’s hand on my lower back has my stomach swooping low. I’m not trying to make him jealous, but the thought that he might be is doing funny things to my body.
“He’s here to pick me up.”
“He doesn’t trust that you can make it four blocks back to his place?”
“Given how tired I am right now,” I say with a sigh, “it’s probably good he can give me a ride home.”
