Page 49 of Fake Skating

My eyes closed of their own accord and my head fell back. How the hell does Alec know how to make me feel this way?

“Yeah, you definitely maybe did that,” I said, and my toes curled in my shoes when he laughed a very dirty laugh against my throat.

“You like that, Collins?” he very nearly growled against my skin.

“Not sure, maybe go again,” I said on a breath, and then I gritted my teeth when he did.

Dear Lord , I thought as my hands were suddenly on the back of his head and he was doing the most incredible things to my neck with his mouth.

Somewhere in my brain an alarm bell was ringing because this was a terrible idea, but it was silenced by the way his body was pressing mine against the lockers.

“We should probably stop,” I said, sliding my fingers into his thick hair, definitely not stopping anything.

Not even slowing.

“I mean,” I managed, even though I didn’t make a move to untangle myself from him, “we don’t want the mojo to swing too far the other way.”

“Collins,” he murmured against my skin before lifting his head to smirk down at me with sleepy-sexy eyes. “Will you stop talking if I kiss you?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said, feeling daring all of a sudden.

“Hell, yes, there’s my girl,” he murmured as his smirk disappeared into something hotter and his lips slid over mine and then he was kissing me, kissing me like he appreciated my boldness, like he was fucking enthralled by it, like he wanted to devour every bite of it.

Oh my God, he kisses like he plays hockey.

His mouth was hot and wild as he released my waist and pressed his palms against the lockers on each side of me, caging my body between his and the lockers, leaning into me in a way that made me dizzy.

I gripped his hair, chased his kiss, but then a noise outside the locker room reminded me.

“Also, someone has to be coming soon to lock up the locker room,” I said, knowing it was true but unable to move.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said against my mouth, and then he pulled back. His dark eyes and dirty grin didn’t help with the dizziness, especially when he leaned down and dropped the sweetest kiss on my neck—where it’d all begun—before straightening.

“Um, okay,” I mumbled, tucking my hair behind my ears and feeling out of it— is this what drunk feels like— as I looked at a spot on the lockers.

“Okay,” he said, sounding amused. “Give me five minutes to throw on a shirt and I’ll be out.”

“Perfect,” I said calmly, somehow managing to exit the locker room on legs that were weak and wobbly.

I didn’t see another person as I paced in the cold arena, waiting for him, and when he came out, Alec gave me a smile and grabbed my hand.

What the hell are we doing? I thought as I linked my fingers between his.

And yet all I wanted was for him to hold my hand.

The team dinner was at Alec’s house that night. The second I walked in, it felt like coming home, especially seeing Sarah and John in the kitchen with my mom there beside them.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said to her as I dropped my coat on the bench.

“Sarah asked me to help and it sounded like fun,” she said with a smile.

“Except you forgot to bake a cake,” Connor’s dad said. Connor was the freshman goalie who never played but seemed very nice.

“Is it someone’s birthday?” I asked.

“No, but your mom used to bake all the time in high school. Her German chocolate cake was always the best.”

“You baked cakes for people in high school?” I asked, shocked. As far as I knew, my mom didn’t bake.

Like, at all.

But now I was picturing high school Hannah with a cake-baking business, like a lemonade stand but with German chocolate cakes.

That couldn’t be right, could it?

It seemed far-fetched, but so had a freaking Fricklinhauger Fellowship.

“Sometimes,” she said with a shrug, and something in her smile told me it’d mattered to her.

“I’m starving,” Alec said, and I felt his big hand on my arm. “We should eat.”

“Dani!” Cassie yelled from where everyone was eating in the living room. “Get in here!”

And then Richie yelled, “Yeah, Collins, get your ass in here and bring your oversized man with you!”

Mom’s face was full of happiness as she laughed, and part of me wondered if this was where she’d always belonged.

In her hometown, in her best friend’s kitchen.

Maybe baking.

Guilt suddenly hit me hard, because what would she have become if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me? Apparently she had a genius IQ, in addition to culinary talent, yet she’d spent eighteen years being an Air Force wife.

Because of me.

God, how could I even consider ruining her brand-new happiness by leaving?

“I need food,” Alec said, giving me a playful nudge. “Can we please go eat, Collins?”

“Fine,” I said, and I let Alec lead me out of the kitchen and into the other room.

And thankfully, the team dinner shook me out of that depressing headspace, as I realized that I did feel comfortable on my own with those people. In this town, sitting next to Alec, and stressing about a hockey game I desperately wanted my team to win.

It felt like it was real, and I realized I kind of wanted it to be.

“Okay, listen up!” Coach Osman climbed on top of the kitchen table, and I offhandedly wondered if he’d asked Sarah or John for permission first. “I don’t need to remind you what tomorrow is or what it means.”

He started talking, and the house was dead quiet as every eye and ear in the place was on him.

Including mine. “Southview has wanted the championship for longer than I’ve been alive,” he said.

“Yet we’ve come up short every time. But not this year.

This is our fucking year, boys. We’ve put in the work and done the time, and you are the personnel to make it happen.

So let’s finish our business, okay? Let’s show up tomorrow, punch our ticket to the X, and get this history-making started. ”

I had literal chills as he wrapped it up, because somehow this meant everything to every soul in that house. In that town. They had the chance to change history, to get the trophy that would match the pride of that massive wall mural, and it felt huge.

“You look so right here,” my mom said when we pulled into my grandpa’s driveway afterward. “I know I’ve been driving you crazy, pushing everything, but it’s only because I want your face to look like it did tonight.”

She sounded like she might cry, in a good way, which made my throat a little tight too.

She said, “I know I’m annoying—”

“You’re not,” I interrupted.

“No, I am about this,” she admitted as she put the car in park.

“But I want you to have friends who care about you. Friends who yell when you walk into the room and are sad when it’s time for you to leave.

You’re only seventeen, so I don’t really care about your love life, but if you’re going to date, I want it to be someone like Alec, who looks at you like he knows how lucky he is. ”

I looked at my grandpa’s house through the windshield as her words warmed me.

I wish that were true.

When we walked through the kitchen door, Grandpa Mick was running the blender.

“It’s about time,” he said, giving us a weird look over his shoulder. His eyes were kind of twinkling, like he was up to something.

“Were we supposed to be home earlier, Dad?” my mom asked, giving me side-eye like What the hell is wrong with your grandpa? “Did I have a curfew I didn’t know about?”

“Shut up and sit down, wiseass,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“All right,” I said, dropping my backpack on the floor and sitting beside my mom at the table. “Is this like a family meeting or something?”

“Okay, don’t ruin my moment of wonderfulness by being a little shit, Dani,” he said with dancing eyes.

“Your constant ability to not censor yourself in front of your granddaughter is always astounding to me,” my mom said.

“I didn’t censor myself around you, and you turned out okay,” he said.

“You didn’t always think that,” my mom replied.

“Yeah, so maybe I’ve come around,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe now I think you turned out a little okay.”

“Gushing praise.”

“This lovefest is disgusting,” I said.

“So what are we waiting for here, Pop?” my mom asked, trying her best to sound like a smart-ass, but her entire face was just happy.

“Milkshakes.” My grandpa turned off the blender, and I wanted to cry.

Milkshakes.

He was giving me a full-on, ear-to-ear Grandpa Mick smile, the smile that had been mine every summer when we visited him.

The smile he’d always saved for his Danigirl.

His Danigirl who’d been obsessed with his chocolate milkshakes.

“You made milkshakes?” I very nearly yelled, out-of-my-mind excited about this throwback surprise. “Are you kidding me right now?”

“No, I’m not kidding. You’ve got a game tomorrow, so I thought we should celebrate.”

“You do know I’m just a manager, right?” I asked.

“I do, but the manager is very important. So important that I made milkshakes and bought you a present.”

“You bought me a present?” I pretty much did scream that time.

“Here,” he said, grabbing a box and tossing it onto the table in front of me. “Open it.”

“Really?” It was a medium-sized brown box, the same kind of box that usually delivered something boring like a refrigerator filter or a carbon monoxide detector.

I opened the box and pulled out what appeared to be a burgundy article of clothing. But when I lifted it up, it was a Southview hockey jersey.

“It’s stupid that you didn’t have one before now, so I had to make it right,” Grandpa Mick said.

I was speechless for a moment as I caught the emotion in my grandpa’s expression, like he was nervous.

“I love it so much,” I said, my chest full and warm as I looked down at the heavy fabric, because it occurred to me that Southview kind of felt a little bit like home.

No, no—that wasn’t right. “Home” was too strong a word.

It was more that I felt at home in Southview.

That Packers bull on the front made me think about my school and the fake friends I had there, fake friends that felt a lot like actual friends. It was stupid, the feeling in my chest as I looked at the jersey, but I hadn’t felt at home anywhere in a very long time.

“Now look at the back,” my grandpa said excitedly, and it was obvious he was more in love with this gift than even I was.

My throat was so tight as I looked at Grandpa Mick’s stupid grin.

I flipped over the jersey, only to discover that the back was customized.

It had Grandpa Mick’s number—nine—stitched on the back, and my last name.

Next to his last name.

BOCHE COLLINS.

He still hadn’t apologized for what happened after my grandma’s funeral, but when I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me as tightly as he ever had, I knew we’d finally moved on.

It took me hours to fall asleep that night because my brain was so muddled.

It rotated between happiness from the moment with my grandpa, confusion because my friends and Alec also made me happy and I’d never expected that, and terror as I realized that in less than twenty-four hours, the section final would already be over.

I prayed like a monk as I lay there in the dark, praying for hockey players who wanted to win their future, grumpy old guys who I loved with my whole heart, and messed-up shoulders that made strong boys weak.

Please, God.