The locker room was empty, but the lingering scent of athletes and their body wash remained. I glanced at my father’s office and saw the light off with the door shut.
“What are we doing in here?” I asked.
Aasher opened his locker and pulled out his practice jersey, along with a face mask and pads. His smirk was a permanent fixture on his face as he walked over to me with confidence. He dropped the gear at my feet.
“We’re gonna skate tonight, baby.” He winked, and the amount of nerves that filled my stomach was enough to make the blood drain from my face.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Aasher dropped the shoulder pads onto my tiny frame and I stumbled backward. The door opened, and another pair of hands flew to my waist.
“Good thing I was here to catch ya.” I turned around to see Berkley holding me steady. “You ready to play?”
“Play?” I spun around and glared at Aasher, but his eyes were on Berkley’s hands around my hips instead of the confusion that was absolutely evident on my face.
Berkley backed away and disappeared when Ford came through the locker room door next, slurping on his milkshake from The Bex. Sutton pushed him out of the way a half-second later, stealing the milkshake from his hand and sucking the last few remnants down. “I hear we’re playing hockey.”
“No, we’re not,” I corrected, glaring at Aasher. I knew I looked ridiculous because I was standing there in my skinny jeans with oversized pads draped on my shoulders.
“Wasn’t aware you were a quitter.” Aasher was in front of me, and the ghost of a knowing smile was the only thing I focused on. I almost stepped on his foot because I was pissed that he was putting me in this position, but I was sort of appreciative too. Aasher knew that the last thing I wanted was to become a spectacle again and to lose my shit on the ice in front of anyone else.
He knew I was nervous, and he was aware that he was pushing me out of my comfort zone. I could tell by the way his hands brushed my hair away from my face gently before pulling the face mask down. Sutton was pulling on the same gear from Ford. She fake-bit his finger when he tried to help her.
“Relax,” Aasher whispered, pretending to mess with my mask. His bright-green eyes shifted between mine. “It’s just another baby step. No one is asking you to do a quadruple axel out there. This is for fun.”
“It’s not fun for me.”
He tightened my helmet. “Exactly. That’s our goal for tonight.”
“And how do you even know what a quadruple axel is?” I tried adjusting the pads on my shoulders after Aasher pulled his practice jersey over my head.
His attention shifted, and I was half tempted to place my hand on his jaw and turn his face to mine like he always did to me, but there were too many eyes.
“Did you…research figure skating terms?”
“So what if I did?”
A tiny smile fell to my mouth.
Aasher rolled his eyes before stalking over to another locker and grabbing some more gear.
I continued to grin all the way to the rink, because it was kind of cute how dedicated he was, but as soon as the skates were dangling in my peripheral, my lips fell, and if there wasn’t a mammoth-sized hockey player blocking the exit, I may have turned around and pretended to be sick to get out of this.
“I hear someone needs a goalie.”
Emory, the best goalie in the NCAA—something my father bragged about—was standing behind me, blocking my only plan of escape. A petite girl popped out from behind him and began pulling her blonde hair up into a pony. I vaguely remembered her from the party.
“And an extra player for the girls team!”
Emory rolled his shoulders and glared at her. “She wouldn’t stay put.”
She walked toward me while talking to him. “It was the perfect excuse to leave dinner with our parents.”
“Hey! We haven’t officially met. I’m Taytum.” She smiled at me. “Are you ready to put these guys in their place?”
Her arm wrapped around mine, and she pulled me on light feet. Sutton dipped her head in between Taytum and me and whispered, “I’m not good on the ice. Just a fair warning.”
I snorted because, truthfully, I wasn’t sure I was either. Not anymore.
“Look at them, already planning and scheming together.” Ford scoffed.
All four guys stood there, and their smiles danced with mirth. They each had on their knee pads and skates and were holding out a pair for us to take. Sutton took her pair from Emory because Taytum walked right past her brother as if he didn’t exist. Taytum took hers from Ford, and I had no choice but to take mine from Aasher because he pushed me to sit and began lacing them up for me.
“I kind of hate you right now,” I said between tight teeth, hoping he could see the irritation through the overly big mask on my face. “I’m not ready.”
He didn’t even look up. “You are ready, and you don’t hate me.” My ankle jerked when he tied my skates even tighter. “You know this will be good for you.”
I sighed, and he glanced up, showing off his smooth features and sincerity. “I’m gonna win our bet, and I’m gonna cheer you on from the stands when you’re back in action.” He winked, and my stomach flipped.
“Listen up.” Ford was on the ice, skating circles swiftly and without any difficulty. “This is totally going against our pregame rituals.”
“Here we go,” Taytum mumbled, stepping onto the ice. It took her a few seconds, but she was skating around just as swiftly as Ford. “Your stupid pregame rituals.”
Berkley climbed on next, right after Sutton. “It’s in our DNA. We’re hockey players.”
Emory shook his head like he didn’t agree. He had on more gear than the rest of us, but that made sense because pucks were usually flying at his face. Being a goalie was tough, but it suited him. He was the rugged one of the team, and I knew for a fact that he had a temper, because my dad had to clean up several of his “messes.”
“Here’s what I propose.” Ford said.
“A bet?” I snarked, unable to help myself. “Should I call the rest of the team? We all know how they like to make silly ice bets.” I smirked as I threw the dig out into the open space, and truthfully, I had no idea who was aware of the bet and who wasn’t, but if they were, they now had an inkling that I knew.
Aasher growled from behind me and put his hands on my hips, shoving me onto the ice. “Knock it off.”
“Wait, what? An ice bet?” Taytum asked, halting her skating.
Her voice faded when I felt the ice under my skates. A taste of familiarity stained the back of my tongue, and I felt the cold seep into my blood. “Breathe, Riley.” Aasher’s voice came from close by, and his skates appeared in my vision. I waited for him to put his hand on my chin and tip my face to his like usual, but he didn’t touch me.
“Eyes on me.”
I fell for it. I looked right at him, and his lips twitched.
“I knew that would work. Does this part of the rink look familiar to you?”
A rush of adrenaline forced a breath from my tight lungs, and suddenly, I was thinking about what we did several nights ago, because this was the exact spot where he made my back arch with his fingers deep inside of me.
“It does to me.” He winked, skating past to meet Ford at center ice. “In fact, it’s all I can think about.”
I was left standing near the opening with a flushed neck and face. He was so good at pushing my buttons.
“Poker? That’s what you guys do the night before a game?” Taytum tightened her ponytail before taking a stick from Berkley. He held one out for me, and I took it hesitantly before catching up with their conversation.
“Yeah,” I answered for them, holding on tightly to my stick to ground me. I skated—just a little—toward her, pushing back on the anxiety squeezing every muscle in my body. “They’re loud and rambunctious too, playing until well after midnight.”
“If we win tomorrow night, you girls have to come over and play poker with us instead of going to Rush’s for the party. To make up for tonight.” Ford wiggled his eyebrows.
Berkley skated to center ice and pointed his stick at us. “And this will become the new pregame ritual?”
“Yes!” Ford snapped his fingers.
“Deal,” Taytum said. “Now let’s play.”
Aasher skated forward as Ford twirled the puck in his hand with a shit-eating grin on his face. “We play half-court. Emory is the goalie.” His eyes snapped to me, and I gulped. “Riley and I will do the face-off.”
I shook my head, but there was no point. Aasher would get me over there one way or another, and with Sutton and Taytum cheering me on, as if we were truly on our own hockey team, I pushed past anxiety and thought of what he’d said to me.
No one is making you do a quadruple axel.
I had been skating since I was old enough to walk.
The skill didn’t just disappear.
It was all a mind game.
I put one skate in front of the other, and although everyone was in their own conversations, shit-talking each other, I knew that Aasher’s eyes were stuck to me like glue. I slowly skated over to him, and the slight splitting of his lips was all the encouragement I needed. When we both placed our sticks on the ground, waiting for Ford to drop the puck, he said something that took me by surprise.
“I’m proud of you.”
“Wha—”
“And I expect you in the stands tomorrow night. I want you as close to the ice as possible.”
