“BEND YOUR KNEES.”
“I’m going to fall.”
“You’re not going to fall.” I hold her waist, guiding her from behind as she skates at a glacial pace, wobbling. “I won’t let you.”
On every side of us, people skate in a big circle around the community center while music plays. A disco ball scatters dancing lights across Hazel’s hair.
“Do you think he saw us?” she asks.
Her hair smells nice. Light and pretty, like vanilla or cookies or something. “Who?”
“Ward.”
Right. The whole reason we’re here. On the other end of the arena, Ward is in a roped-off section with a bunch of toddlers, teaching them to skate. They’re all faster than Hartley.
“He saw me taking photos with people when we arrived.”
She makes a noise of acknowledgement and keeps shuffling on the ice.
My eyes drop to her ass. Fucking hell, those yoga leggings. I think about her not wearing panties under her yoga clothes, and arousal tightens in my groin.
I’m a fucking asshole, but I’ve pictured making her come a thousand times. It would change my whole life, watching her unravel because of me. She’s so in control, and making her arch and melt and cry out in pleasure would make my fucking life.
“Miller.” My head snaps up, and she’s looking at me over her shoulder with a small smirk. “Were you staring at my ass?”
“Yes.” I grin. “It’s the leggings.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Gross.” I let go of her waist, and her eyes widen in fear. “Don’t.” Her hands come to mine, holding them against her, and my blood beats with pride. “I’m not ready.”
She’s so cute. “Hartley, you’re doing great. I’m going to skate beside you for a bit.”
She makes a strangled noise but lets my hands go free, and I move to her side. We’re the slowest people on the ice, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
Her eyes lift to my face. “You don’t need to look so pleased.”
I throw my hands up, laughing. “I’m not.”
“You’re gloating.”
“I’m having fun with you.”
It’s the truth. Hanging out with Hartley like this, I’m relaxed. She looks away, but she’s smiling. On her next step forward, her skate slips, and she gasps as she catches herself.
“You got this,” I tell her, hovering.
She slips her gloved hand into mine, and my heart jumps into my throat as I stare down at where our hands are joined. Jittery nerves coil in my chest.
“We’re supposed to be a couple,” she says, not looking at me. “And I don’t want to fall.”
“I know.” My pulse is going nuts.
She’s so pretty. Her hair is down around her shoulders. The other day in the shower, I jerked off to thoughts of running my nose along the column of her neck, skimming my hands over her hips to feel whether she was wearing something beneath those leggings.
A shudder rolls through me and I swallow, glancing at her plush mouth. Could I get away with kissing her here? Ward isn’t even looking.
She gives me a strange look as we skate. “What?”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“You’re being weird.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” Her head tilts as she studies me, and there’s another jump of nerves in my gut. “Oh my god. Are you nervous around me?”
I laugh, looking away. “No.”
She loses her balance, and my hands come back to her waist to catch her. “Yes, you are. You’re nervous.”
A smile creeps up on my mouth. “You’re terrifying.”
She snorts, and I love the way her lips tilt. “You know I’m not actually a dragon, right?” Her tone is soft and teasing, and it trickles down the back of my neck, warm like honey.
We start skating again, and I slip my hand back into hers. “Why do you teach on Zoom? I thought you taught in a studio.”
“Sometimes I do. The studios value seniority, so it’s tough to get classes.” Her mouth twists. “And it’s an accessibility thing, too. It’s easier for people to log in online than get to a studio. Elaine likes to travel but wants to keep up her practice. Clarence’s elevator is always broken, and with his hip stuff, stairs are hard. Vatsi’s about to have a baby, so her life is about to get busy. Hyung likes not having to commute all the way from the university, that’s like an hour on the bus each way. And Laura—” She stops abruptly. I catch a flash of fury in her eyes before it’s gone. “Well, Laura hasn’t had the greatest experiences with studios. Zoom yoga is the best option for a lot of people.”
The fire in her eyes lights me up. “You really love it, don’t you?”
“It’s my purpose,” she answers quickly, effortlessly. “One day, I want to open a fitness studio. We’d offer yoga, Pilates, dance classes, even physio and massage therapy. There’s this woman in the States who opened a body-positive studio. It’s in New York.” Her eyes sparkle. “They have Beyoncé dance classes. It’s so cool to see her videos of them all dancing. All ages, all genders, all body types.” She shrugs. “I want to create that here.”
Something taut plucks in my chest. I should feel that way about hockey, and yet I don’t.
Our eyes meet, and her expression stills. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
I hate that her walls are back up. “I’m glad you did.”
I want to stay here forever with her, listening to her talk about the things she loves.
“I assume rooming with Connor went okay,” she says.
What he said about waiting for me to fuck up so he can swoop in replays in my head. “It was fine.”
If I tell her, it’ll just upset her.
“He tried to piss me off, but I gave as good as I got.” I wink at her.
“If anyone can get to him, it’s you. You’re cut from the same cloth.”
My brow furrows. She’s joking, but she’s not joking. “What do you mean?”
“You know.” She shrugs. “You guys are the same.”
My frown deepens. “No, we’re not.”
She gives me a derisive look, like who are you fooling? and the ugly feeling settles inside me.
“Hartley.” My voice is low. “We’re not the same.”
“You’re a hockey player.” There’s a slice of something honest and angry in her gaze. “You have everything. You don’t need to care about other people. Women fall all over you and no one’s ever said the word no to you.”
“I care about other people.” The words come out more terse than I mean for them to, and I try to force a teasing smile, but I can’t. I hate that she thinks we’re the same. “I’m not McKinnon, and I don’t like being compared to him. I’ve never cheated. I’m not like that.”
“Maybe you haven’t cheated, but I know you.” She’s wearing this sad expression that breaks my fucking heart, like she’s waiting for me to realize what she knows.
I hate that look. My mom wore that look when she left my dad.
“Women are just there for entertainment for you.” Her throat works. “We’re disposable.”
“No.” I stop skating, paying zero attention to the people whizzing past us. “What gave you that fucking idea, Hazel?”
She drops my hand. “Ashley,” she says, like I should know what she’s talking about.
“Ashley who?” Frustration tightens in my body, and I hate that she has this picture of me in her head.
“Ashley Peterson from high school.” Off my baffled look, she says, “You took her out and made her feel special and she had this huge crush on you.”
I’m shaking my head because I don’t even remember this girl. High school was a blur of five a.m. practices, trying to keep up in my classes so I could at least graduate, and endless gym sessions with personal trainers who pushed me to my absolute limit. Getting drafted was all that mattered, and I was never allowed to forget it. Tutoring sessions with Hartley were the one bright spot.
“Blond?” I ask as the vague memory of this Ashley girl filters into my head.
Hartley looks at me with disbelief. “Yes.”
I scrub a hand down my face as it starts coming back to me. This Ashley girl and I made out, I think? “Hartley, this was like a decade ago. I don’t remember what happened.”
She blinks, looking both furious and sad. “I’ll remind you. You dumped her the day before the dance.”
I dated in high school, but it was always casual. I couldn’t handle having a girlfriend. I could barely keep my head above water with school and hockey.
And no one seemed as good as Hartley.
I don’t remember asking this Ashley girl to the dance. I give Hazel a what gives look. “Okay?”
She exhales a frustrated breath. “I convinced her to go to the dance anyway. We walked in, and you had your tongue down another girl’s throat.”
The memories hit me. She’s right. I did that, and I didn’t really care about this Ashley girl’s feelings. A kernel of self-loathing hardens in my chest. I’m an asshole, just like Rick Miller.
“She cried in the bathroom. You made her feel like there was something wrong with her. You made her feel small and insignificant and worthless.”
The intensity in Hazel’s voice cuts through me. There’s an undercurrent of emotion to her words that makes my stomach turn.
“Do you know how shitty that is?” she continues with pain in her eyes. “Do you know how”—she points at her head—“damaging and traumatic that is?”
I hear the quiet close of the door as my mom leaves. I hear it again as Lauren, my dad’s next girlfriend, leaves a few years later. I hear the aloof way he tells me that he and his next girlfriend are no longer together.
My life is going to mirror his. It already does. I’ll be fifty-five and waiting for my current girlfriend to leave me like the others. Shame and frustration wrap around my chest, squeezing like a band.
“Hartley, it was a decade ago. I’m sure she’s over it.”
Fury rises in her gaze, and I can see her pulse going in her neck. “You sure about that?”
I shrug, brushing it off. Please. Please, can we fucking move on from this conversation? “I would fucking hope she’s over it by now.” The words tumble out of my mouth, fueled by this crushing, cold feeling inside my chest. “How pathetic is that to be moping around a decade later over some guy who didn’t even care about you? I doubt she even thinks about me anymore, and if she does, she doesn’t have enough going on in her life.”
I hear the words, but I can’t stop them. Shame has me by the throat, choking me. Hazel looks like she’s been slapped, blinking at me with hurt and shock before she lets out a quiet laugh.
“I don’t know why I said yes to this. This is exactly who I thought you were.”
My stomach sinks.
“I don’t know why I thought—” She breaks off, shaking her head as she shuffles away, heading for the entrance to the rink. “We’re done.”
