Page 50 of Safety Net
I worked hard to earn her smiles. But I'd done nothing to be in kissing territory.
When I got over the initial shock, all I could think of was whether this kiss was happening because she felt overwhelmed. I grabbed her hand and placed it on me. We were close enough to hear one another's heartbeats. And she'd been so nervous, so panicked. I was the only thing keeping her calm.
Celeste hadn't given me a single hint her mind had changed about me before our kiss. And I had been honest in letting the idea of us go. Because being even a small part of her life meant everything to me.
The idea of her kissing me because of fear didn't sit right with me. Enjoying it felt like taking advantage. I'd pulled away. And instantly regretted it because of the look of hurt in her eyes.
A talk was what we needed. And something we didn't get. After hours of rehearsal, Celeste's aunt called her away at the end of it. A couple of days passed, and I replayed everything forward and backward. We texted and finally found a gap in our schedule to meet before the next rehearsal to figure everything out.
Celeste's music carried me through a warm-up and thirty minutes of my session with Anthony before he noticed. Before he realized mentally, I was nowhere near the ice and had no intention of being there anytime soon.
"Lincoln!" he shouted, pulling me back into this icy abyss. "What the hell?"
I stared at him, obviously missing something. It took me a beat to put together that he's gotten his third puck past me, and I hadn't done much more than half-assed attempts at defense.
"You're good," I said. "Might even be a professional."
I could practically hear his teeth grinding from here.
"The plan this summer wasn't to use some guy's grandma as a cash cow," Anthony said. "But now, you're making this feel downright exploitative."
We're on our own today. No Henrik to be a buffer, sanding down our rough edges. I couldn't bury my lack of effort behind my friend's hard-earned skills.
"If it's any consolation," I said. "I plan to pay her back in full. So, you won't be exploiting someone's grandma but some jackass goalie."
"That so?" Anthony sighed, releasing the tension in his shoulders. At the beginning of every session, he was a walking and talking wall of nerves. He watched everything (including me) with such intense purpose that if I didn't know any better, I'd think he owed someone a ton of cash and was afraid of losing everything at the drop of a hat if things didn't go exactly as he had planned.
"I'm curious," Anthony said. "How exactly do you plan on doing that?"
I leaned on my hockey stick. "What do you mean?"
"Money. How are you making it? Because it's not going to be through any league I've ever heard of."
"I'm good at thinking on my feet," I said. "There's a plethora of jobs for guys who know how to do party tricks. Who knows, maybe I'll get into legal gambling. I do have firsthand experience on what not to do."
Anthony didn't crack a smile, just as expected.
"What a waste," he said under his breath.
I felt sucker punched. "What?"
"You," he said, louder and determined for each word to stick into me like push pins. "A waste."
He started to skate away, leaving me in the middle of the ice to wonder what the hell I did wrong this time. Out of all the othertimes I'd been a million miles away in some daydream, why was this time different?
"Hey!" I called after him, substituting my dismay for the frustration that was tearing me apart. I held out my arms. "What are you doing?"
"Salvaging what's left of my summer." He stopped at the exit to call back to me. "There's a guy in Wyoming. He's not as good as you, but he's been emailing me for months. No one will take a chance on him. He deserves a shot."
Because I've wasted mine.
My mouth was dry. He wasn’t just thinking of leaving; he already had a plan in place. And it wasn’t not just the fear of disappointing Sam that threatened to swallow me whole. My own fear of failure is upon me.
I couldn’t stomach this session ending like this. I couldn’t imagine going into next season and semester the same way I left last: coasting.
I hurried over to Anthony before he could step off the ice, nearly tripping over my skates to stop him. Something in me knew if he left now, that'd be the last I'd see him. And my panic told me it’d be the closing of a door—the end of my chances. I’d run out of luck. Out of favor with fate.
"Come on, man," I said, focusing hard on making my voice sound normal. Making myself sound like I could survive another disappointment. "I can defend, you know I can defend. Give me another round and I'll prove it."
