𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝄠 Last Resort – Papa Roach
“THIS IS HARD.”
As I skate backward on the ice, I watch Ollie, who’s clinging to the boards. “Nothing good in life is ever easy.”
The same goes for me. However, not unlike Ollie, I’ve been tutored by the best skater around—Liam.
With Bradley threatening to toss Ollie out of the program because he’s making no progress with his skating, Liam agreed to work with him after school twice a week on top of their other sessions.
I’m here for morale.
And the promise of sex in the Zamboni shed.
“You just need to find your balance,” the NHL god himself insists, but his tone is far more patient than mine.
Not that that comes as a surprise.
It’s way too early to think that he’ll be a great dad, isn’t it?
Yup, practically preemie.
Leaning beside Ollie, his arms across his jersey-covered chest, I watch Liam and try not to think about the things he’s been sharing with me in the dark of night.
Of both the good and the bad varieties.
Dads should be emotionally available, right?
Mine wasn’t, but he’s Polish so that means he cries at weddings and isn’t afraid of hugs. Eastern Europeans might look stoic, but get a vodka in them and sheesh, oversharing FTW.
Liam is a perfect blend of…
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Again.
“My balance is in the stands,” Ollie grumbles as he wobbles on his blades. “On the ground. I’ve been practicing for weeks and I still can’t do it—”
“Kid, you’re getting skating lessons from Liam Donnghal,” I snipe, annoyed at his whining. “Do you know how many fans would die to be in your skates?”
“Kill me now and they can take my place,” he mumbles, sounding far too old for his years.
Words like that are triggers for Liam.
His frown is immediate. “There are other sports, Ollie. We said we’d figure something out if this one isn’t for you.”
Ollie’s feet windmill beneath him though he didn’t even move an inch. With a yelp, he clings harder to the boards.
“I wanted to try this out,” he screeches. “But it’s impossible!”
When he screams the last word, I roll my eyes and skate toward him, letting flurries of snow shower his jeans. “You think everyone gets on the ice and just flies across it?”
“No,” is his sullen answer.
“So, why should you be any different?” Though I arch a brow at him, I ask Liam, “What happened the first time you were on the ice?”
“I fell over so many times that my mom thought I’d been beaten at school,” he says cheerfully.
Ollie frowns. “Why?”
“I had bruises on top of my bruises.”
His eyes flare before he ducks his chin. Which, of course, is when I get it.
Man, I’m losing my touch.
In my defense, I haven’t hung around my dipshit brothers for a while.
He’s embarrassed about falling on his ass in front of Liam.
“You fell the first time you got on the ice?” Ollie demands. “Really? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”
“I fell the second, third, and fourth times too,” Liam drawls with a snicker, but with a practiced ease, he leans back against the boards, elbows resting on the low wall like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
Considering he got off twice yesterday and once this morning, I guess he doesn’t.
Me either, for that matter.
I might be walking like I’ve been riding a horse for two days straight, but that’s a small sacrifice for the upper that is a Liam orgasm.
“I fell over too,” I concur. “All the time. When I haven’t been on the ice for a while, I still will. It’s not like riding a bike. Liam had to coach me too.”
“You haven’t fallen over yet,” Ollie accuses.
“Want me to fall on command?” I retort, hiding a smile when I think about how that was Liam’s tactic to get me to skate with him.
“No,” he mumbles because he’s kinder than I am. “But, just, I’ve been doing this for weeks and my ass has more bruises than when I’ve gotten a beating from Ma so, just, I dunno, don’t lie to me.”
“Why would I lie?” I insert, though my heart is pounding at that admission. How many beatings? How often? “I have no need to. Whether or not you make something of this practice is up to you, Ollie. I’m trying to give you options that take you off the path you were on—one that has you landing straight in juvie.
“What you choose to do is your own decision.”
Ollie blinks at that but, for whatever reason that probably only makes sense to teenage boys, he relinquishes the fierce grasp he has on the boards.
With a soft exhalation, he straightens up.
Almost immediately, gravity takes him under until Liam swoops down and catches him.
Man, he really does suck.
After we share a look, Liam commandeers control of the lesson, and after he saves Ollie, though the kid turns pinker than a beet in mortification, he seems to take direction better over the next forty or so minutes.
By the end of the session, he’s spent most of the time with his ass on the ice but he’s smiling, which I consider a win.
“You’re a total liar,” Liam tells me when Ollie, with his shoulders hunched, slouches on his way out of the stadium after gracing us with a quick wave goodbye.
We offered to have Hudson drive him home, but he prefers the bus.
I’m not going to push things too soon…
Not for a week.
At least.
“What am I lying about?” I ask absently, wondering how I can get Ollie to accept a ride home sooner rather than later.
He’s barely thirteen.
My mom thinks I’m too young to ride the damn bus in Manhattan and I’m sixteen years older than him, for God’s sake.
“Not caring what he does. That the whole thing is on him.”
“It is,” I argue, grumbling when he snatches my hand and tugs me along with him as he skates backward.
I’m no figure skater, but I flow with him as he draws me around the rink in circular patterns that mimic a dance.
“Is not,” he says. “If he decided he wasn’t interested, you’d be in his face, working to convince him otherwise. Especially after what he admitted.”
“Think she beats him often?”
He winces. “I hope not. From what he’s said, she seems more neglectful than…”
“Neglect is a form of abuse.”
“Yeah.” He rubs his nape. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Thank you.” I let him spin me around a few times before I admit, “Never heard of reverse psychology? It’s how we keep him in line. That’s the only thing that works on boys his age. You were the same. Don’t pretend that you weren’t.”
He grins at me. “I never said I wasn’t but I’m keying into your wiles, Gracie Bukowski.”
“What wiles?” I demur, fluttering my eyelashes at him.
“That this crinkles when you tell a lie.” He taps the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know how I missed it before, but I did. No more.”
“You’re just going to go around studying my nose for lies, are you?”
“Would you prefer me to study other parts of your anatomy?”
“How about my ass?”
“It’s one of your finer features,” he agrees with a twinkle in his eye as he finesses me into a twirl worthy of a waltz. That’s when his eyebrows start waggling. “Anyway, just to get you back on the ice again, the lesson was totally worth it. You need to come to West Orange again. It’ll make private ice time even more interesting.’
When I collide with him, hands settling on his chest, a sigh of pleasure escapes me as he spins us around with a freedom that’s only possible on this medium.
For all that I’d grown to dislike his sport, there’s no denying the simple joy of skating. Especially with him.
But that’s my trouble.
With the ice and with Liam—it’s easy to fall.
Hard.
Even he’s surprised when my skates fly out from under me. Just when I think I’m done for, he scoops me up and plasters me to his chest.
Nothing in this life is a certainty, definitely not with a pro hockey player, but it’s too easy to start believing that Liam will always be there to catch me if I fall.
Especially if it’s for him.
