Page 1 of Love and Other Penalties
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The Briarwood IceArena welcomes me like an old friend at five-thirty in the morning, smooth and pristine under the arena’s fluorescent lights. I breathe in the familiar scent of the cold—it totally has a smell—from the ice and the leather from my skates.
I lace up Hope and Glory, and if my ankle can keep up with my ambition, today will be a very good day. I breathe out, truly able to feel a tiny bit of relief, because my mother won’t be here this morning.
She attends my afternoon sessions, though, and those are filled with tight ponytails, turned-down lips, and tension. Both hers and mine.
This morning, I wear my dark hair in a loose braid that I actually put in last night after I showered. That way, it’ll be curly when I show up at my dad’s cupcakery for my shift.
I stifle a yawn at my dawn until dusk schedule and remind myself that I don’t have anything else to do, except feed a pet fish each day. Sometimes the loneliness that seems to sweep acrossWisconsin gets way down deep in my lungs, and I can’t help wondering what I’m doing with my life.
What I’ve done—which feels like a big fat goose egg most days. Nothing. Nada.
After all, I have no Olympic gold medal, no boyfriend, and if my father didn’t own a popular cupcakery in town, I’d have no job.
When my thoughts spiral like this, the best place for me is on the ice, and I push myself to a stand and breathe in and out one more time.
“You don’t have time for a boyfriend, Ivy,” I tell myself as I swing my arms up and down and around to stretch out my shoulders.
I pull one arm across my body and hold it there. “You love working at the cakery and don’t want another job.”
The last void in my life is harder to appease with a stretch and a self-affirmation. My mother has three gold medals from her time as a figure skater in the Olympics, and I grew up with the taste of glory in my mouth.
I do want a gold medal, and I’ve been working for more than half my life to get one. I’m close to qualifying for the next Olympic games, and I have one last major qualifier coming up.
So as I rotate my wrists and then work out the kink in my neck, I remind myself that I’ve scheduled ice-time at five-thirty in the morning every day until I need to be on the plane to Nagoya.
I finish stretching my upper body, and I leave the alcove where I’ve been warming up in favor of the ice. For the next two hours, this is all mine.
I glide onto the rink, a smile moving onto my face as my muscles start to work, my mind already cataloging the elements I need to nail in my routine. Triple lutz, triple toe loop, that tricky footwork-step-sequence that should flow like water.
The December qualifier is three weeks away. Three weeks to prove I deserve a spot on Team USA. Three weeks to silence every doubt, every whisper, every disappointed look from my mother after Nationals two years ago.
The fall that changed everything.
I shake off the memory and push into a crossover, building speed around the perimeter. The arena is tomb-quiet except for the whisper of my blades carving fresh lines in the ice. Perfect. I need this peace, this focus, this?—
Swish-swish, swish-swish.
Pure adrenaline rushes through me, sending my perfect skating into a sputter as I look over my shoulder for the additional source of sound.
The sound of someone else’s skates onmypristine ice.
He breathes in time with his hockey skates, and a moment later, a blur of royal blue, black, and gold rockets past me, so close the wind from his speed ruffles the end of my braid.
I slam on my toe pick, spraying ice shavings as I screech to a halt. The hockey ruffian doesn’t even look at me, but he had to have seen me. I may be petite, but I’m not invisible.
The man in full hockey gear, stick in hand, puck dancing at the end of his blade like it’s attached by invisible string, executes a sharp turn that would make my mom weep with envy and glides to a stop twenty feet away.
Dark eyes meet mine through the cage of his helmet, and something electric shoots straight through my chest.
He pushes his helmet back, and my word. Does he execute that move in front of a mirror to make sure his hair is so adorably messy? He’s frowning, and he obviously doesn’t know how it only adds to his allure.
“You’re on my ice,” he says, his voice unmistakably irritated.
“Your ice?” I plant my hands on my hips, which is harder than it looks when you’re balancing on quarter-inch blades. “Ihave this rink reserved from five-thirty to seven-thirty every day this week. Check the schedule.”
