Page 124 of Thrown for a Loop
I do it, and we fall into an easy rhythm, skating laps around the rink, brainstorming ideas.
And somehow it’s easy again. Just the two of us.
Chapter 41
March
Winter bleeds away. And on an ice rink somewhere outside Vancouver, I watch Chase stumble through one of our snazzier footwork passages. “That was almost it!” I cheer, shutting off the music. “So close!”
He looks less enthused. “This is what you get when you make me skate before I’ve had coffee.”
“Uh-huh. If you’d gotten up earlier, we wouldn’t be in this predicament,” I point out.
Chase gives me a guilty smile, reminding me why he didn’t get out of his hotel bed earlier. Yesterday, I flew out here to watch a junior hockey showcase, joining the team in the middle of their West Coast road trip. As soon as I landed, Chase informed me that veteran players don’t have roommates at the team hotel.
So, with Darcy snickering at me, I slipped out of our shared room just after curfew and snuck upstairs to sleep with Chase in his king-sized bed.
Or, well,sleepisn’t exactly the right word for it. Which might be why he’s a little tired right now. Caffeine has been critical for both of us these past few weeks, as we make up for lost time together.
In the cool light of morning, though, I’m all business. I had to ask Coach Fairweather’s permission for this ice time, and I don’t want to waste it.
Which brings us back to Chase’s footwork failures. The passageis a series of side-by-side chassés and rocker turns. It’s not that complicated, it’s not dangerous, and I know he can do it. “Come on. Twice more and you’ll have it.”
“Fine, fine.” He gestures tiredly toward my phone. “Rewind the music.”
I cue up the right section, and we join hands at center ice. This time he nails the footwork, and we advance to my toe loop combination. Since Chase isn’t allowed to jump, he takes a couple of simple turns instead. We hit it in sync, and I land cleanly.
Suddenly there’s a cheer from the bench—other players arriving early for practice.
“Shit,” I mutter.
“Ignore them.” He shrugs. “Let’s go once more and link it to the death spiral.”
“Just don’t drop me, or you’ll never live it down.”
“I would never.” He grins.
I restart the music and take his hand, which makes the bench snicker. Ignoring them, we pick up speed and then segue into the footwork. The whoops and hollers from the bench grow louder as we twirl in unison.
After I land my jumps, Chase beckons with a little smile that makes my heart flutter. His expression saysWe got this. I take his hand again and ease into the death spiral, leaning back into a one-footed position, trusting him to hold me off the surface as I lean way back, carving an arc across the ice.
“Holy shit! Be careful, Coach Carson!” someone shouts from the bench. “Don’t fumble, Merry!”
But he doesn’t, and when I rise at the end of the death spiral, the cheering is loud. “Okay, boys! Who else wants a turn?” I call.
There aren’t any takers. And as we leave the ice, the hockey playersglide out to warm up. Chase and I sit down on the bench side by side and unlace our skates. “Come over later?” he asks under his breath.
“You bet,” I whisper. “I have costume options to show you.”
He laughs. “Do they sparkle?”
“Like Vegas after dark,” I tease. “Want me to find you a cup of coffee for real?”
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “That was just some gratuitous whining. Go write up your scouting reports. See you at lunch?”
“You know it.” Chase glides off in his hockey skates a couple of minutes later before I break down and kiss him goodbye. But that’s a good thing. Chase’s secret girlfriend has to be careful.
On one hand, being with him is so easy again. Every time I walk into a room where he is, I feel happy. But secrecy is tricky, and I’m not sure I’m good at it.
