Page 66 of Like A Daydream
Or how much it cost him to rent the rink out for an hour so that the three of them could be completely alone. He doesn’t flash his money around often, but when it’s warranted, it’s nice to be able to.
And the current rink manager is a Canes fan, so he gave Andrew a decent price. Not many people are skating in July. They’re there to experience the rink, not actually use it.
If she likes being on the ice, he might have to get her a pair. He’s already got a set on the way for Harper.
This is a big deal for him, and not only because he’s teaching the girls he’s started to think of ashis, how to do his favorite thing in the world. It’s also a big deal because of where theyareand what happened in this building almost forty-five years earlier.
Andrew is about to skate on the Herb Brooks Arena ice. Something he had only ever dreamed of when he was a kid. Something his dad had talked about for years, as if the USA v. Russia game had only happened the day before. His grandparents had known Herb Brooks, since he’d grown up in St. Paul, but had lost touch with him after he’d moved to Sweden and then on to coach NHL teams in the 90’s.
Andy had never met him, only heard the stories.
JT had grown up skating in this rink, so it wasn’t such a big deal for him. But for Andrew, someone who had watched the highlights of that game religiously as a kid, this was a dream. As someone who had parents who followed Herb Brook’s teams, no matter who he was coaching, this was a big deal.
That team and this rink were a huge part of his history as a player, and part of why hockey ishissport to begin with. Every morning when he’d woken up, he’d seen the words "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours” scrawled in messy ten-year-old writing across his bathroom mirror.
When he went to college he’d taped a paper with the quote on it on the wall next to his bed. It was the first thing he’d see in the mornings when he’d drag himself out of bed for early practice, and the last thing he’d see at night when he got back from a late game.
He’d written them at the back of his locker at PNC, kept an index card with them on the dash of his truck.
They were words that he’d lived and breathed by for almost his entire life. Herb Brooks, in a way, was responsible for the player he is.
This is also only the second time he’s been on ice in over a month. He cannot understate the gravity of this moment for him. Core memory being formed, if core memories are a thing when you’re over thirty.
Today is a good day. He’d woken up next to Danielle, after spending the entire night kissing and talking and laughing before falling asleep. He doesn’t think he’s ever done that with a woman.
He’s never evenwantedto. Not when he was well aware that most women in his life, since he had been in college, at least, had only been using him as an elevation of their status.
Or as a prize to be won and paraded around, touted as a one-night escapade to get their fifteen minutes. He liked to think that he was better than, and worth more than, fifteen minutes. For them, it was just to get in the papers the next morning when they would leave the front door of whatever hotel they’d been at.
He’d chalked it up as part of the thrill of being in the NHL, part of the expectation. A millionaire playboy who had a different girl every two weeks and never seemed to let it bother him. They’d only ever wanted a piece of him, like he was a trophy, and until recently he’d played right into their hands.
Danielle is different, and she’s been different since the moment he’d walked into Spine Crackers for the first time. He didn’t feel like he had to perform, and she didn’t pressure him into anything more than kissing and falling asleep. So, he’d given her the same respect because she was a woman and deserved it, and they hadjustdecided to give a relationship a try.
Even though she’d had him like putty under her hands and he would have gone wherever she wanted to.
Now he gets to teach her how to skate, to share the most important part of himself with her.
He helps Danielle stand and get her balance with a grin. “Think you can walk?”
“Walk on razor blades?” she asks, holding onto his elbow as she gets used to the feeling. “Sure. If I can manage stilettos, I can do this.”
“You have stilettos?” he asks, letting his mind wander, very briefly, to what she would look like in heels like that.
She glares at him, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking.
“In the back corner of my closet,” she replies, “where I don’t have to look at them so I can pretend I don’t have them at all.”
“Damn,” he says, under his breath. Danielle hits his chest with the back of her hand and he laughs. “I think I like you better in skates, anyway. Harper, are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready for twenty minutes,” Harper says, rolling her eyes. “You guys are taking forever.”
“Hey, yell at Aunt D, not me,” Andrew says, holding his hands up in surrender. Danielle laughs, wobbling a little before catching herself and tightening her grip on his elbow.
He leads her out to the rink slowly, making sure she has her balance as Harper runs in front of them to the door. It’s sitting open with a folding chair next to it for them to use, as well as a cone, and he grins. It’s just like when he learned how to skate.
“I’m going to go cut up the ice a little bit before I take you guys out there,” he says, looking at the glassy surface. “It’ll be easier for both of you.”
He also wants to have his moment, but he doesn’t say that.
