Page 14 of Rookie Season
“Ahh. And you get to stay stuck in your ways?”
My foot makes contact with the ice, and I slide into him, grabbing at him to avoid falling.
I find his forearms, my fingers digging into corded muscle. “We’re not talking about me,” I grit out.
“You’re good at listening to everyone else’s problems,” Ryan murmurs. “Who listens to you, bartender?”
His eyes lock with mine. Awareness starts in my chest, sends tingles that ripple outward.
“LOOK OUT!”
A mass of limbs collides with me in the form of Nova and Brooke. We collapse in a pile of mittens and earmuffs and combat boots, and I’m saved having to answer.
After some time on the ice, Ryan’s spirits are high once again.
“Dinner?” Atlas comments.
“You’re always hungry,” Jay counters.
“Course I am. How else you think I stay big enough to block the guys who come at you, huh?” He beats his chest.
We trudge through the woods back toward the cabin.
“All I’m saying is I was promised a feast.”
“And a feast you’ll have, big guy,” Ryan proclaims. He’s still wearing his Santa hat. “But satisfy yourself on my epic hot chocolate first. Anyone says it’s not the best they’ve ever had, I’ll fight them.”
He’s being completely ridiculous, but I can’t resist smiling.
The forest is actually beautiful and quiet in a way the city never is. Snow feathers across branches and drifts lazily when the wind picks up. The sun sets and we pause to watch it.
“That’s really pretty. Better than the view from our place,” Nova says.
“Sounds like a vote for the perfect Christmas,” Ryan starts.
Clay holds up a hand. “Not yet.”
Brooke looks between them. “What’s the big deal? You can’t admit he did something right?”
“First, he’s not responsible for the setting sun, no matter how much he’d like you to think so. Second—” Jay spins around. “What’s that sound?”
We all go quiet.
It’s Chloe who speaks next. “I didn’t hear?—"
This time there’s a crack.
“It was a mile away at least,” Jay decides. “It’s quiet up here, so everything sounds closer.”
“It was closer than that.” Atlas cranes his neck to look. Being the closest to the sky, he probably has the best chance of catching sight of anything.
“Let’s go back and make dinner,” Ryan says.
We all head back to the cabin and shed our snowy layers. Miles lunges for the fireplace, getting the flames going in record time. Ryan makes hot chocolate, and I run point on cocktails.
Mile High is the watering hole for the team and its fans, only a few blocks from the stadium. My dad opened it more than two decades ago. I’ve worked there since I was old enough and practiced long before that.
I started by building an encyclopedic knowledge of drinks, but the people have always fascinated me as much as the cocktails. The margarita was probably invented by a woman. The mojito was originally medicinal. The negroni supposedly came to be when a count wanted his Americano stiffer, so he added gin instead of soda water.
