Page 40 of Goal Line (Boston Rebels #4)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
EVA
“ Y ou look great,” Christopher says, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and squeezing me to him the minute I walk into the rink. “Are you feeling good?”
“Thanks, and yes,” I say, before taking the final sip of my morning smoothie.
The one Luke adapted from the Neon Cactus drink recipe that he bribed the bartender to give him, and has made for me each morning since we’ve been back in Boston.
Knowing Luke, one will keep showing up on my nightstand daily, which I’m more than happy about.
They’re not only delicious, but he’s also added protein powder and some nutritional supplements to keep me and the baby healthy.
And honestly, he’s right about me needing to eat more.
Baby Squash has me feeling weaker than I’ve ever been, and if I’m going to be skating again, I have to supplement my energy levels with some good nutrition and more calories, or I won’t be able to keep up .
We make our way into the college ice arena that’s only a ten-minute walk from Luke’s condo. It would have been a beautiful stroll over here, right along the reflecting pool at the Christian Science Plaza on Huntington, if Luke hadn’t been overbearing and insisted on driving me.
I know he’s just trying to help, but I don’t think he realizes how hard it is for me to remember this is just a friends-with-benefits situation when he’s around and doing sweet things all the time.
Yesterday when we got back from my parents’ house with my suitcase, for example, I took it into the spare bedroom—or, my bedroom now, actually—and shut the door behind me.
But he insisted on bringing me snacks while I was unpacking, and then taking my suitcase and storing it in the hall closet when I was done.
He’d already stocked the kitchen with my favorite foods, ordered me dinner, and had peach rings at the ready when he cued up my comfort movie, Pride & Prejudice .
We’d just watched the mini-series a few weeks ago, and the way he indulges my love of that story frequently makes me wonder if it’s not secretly his favorite, too.
Eventually, he carried me to bed when I inevitably fell asleep during the movie.
And this morning, I woke up feeling confused about where we stand.
Two nights ago, after he’d made me come twice on his kitchen counter, he’d brought me to his bed.
Last night, when nothing sexual happened between us, he brought me to the spare room.
And now, I’m just trying to figure out what it all means, if it means anything at all.
“You okay?” Christopher asks, and I glance up at him where he stands next to me, his bag slung across his body.
“Yeah, why? ”
“You just seem . . . I don’t know . . . distant?”
“No, sorry, it’s just pregnancy brain. I can be mid-conversation and then suddenly my mind is just thinking about something totally different.”
“Is it going to be like that on the ice?” Christopher’s dark eyebrows dip, clearly concerned.
I’m about to ask if he’s concerned about my safety or the quality of my performance, when Lynette, our new skating coach, sees us and waves us over.
As we walk along the first row of seats next to the glass, she nods toward the little kids finishing up their skating lessons and says, “Let’s get ready to go so we can make use of every second of ice time once they’re done. ”
As I sit there, lacing up my skates and then pulling the wide bottoms of my pants over the heel of my boot, I get the same nervous feeling in my stomach that I had when we arrived at my parents’ house the other night for dinner.
Given how things turned out then, I seriously hope this isn’t a premonition.
Next to me, Christopher nudges me with his shoulder. “You ready?”
I close my eyes and take a breath, inhaling a scent that’s so familiar it feels like home. It’s impossible to describe how an ice rink smells—cold air mixed with ice, rubber mats, metal steps, plastic seats—they all combine to create a distinctive aroma.
“Ready.”
My stomach flips over again, but I don’t feel nervous anymore.
I feel anxious to start. I always feel anxious to get back to the ice when I’ve been off it for a while, and I probably need to think more about what it will be like once I retire from competition.
But for now, as Christopher takes my hand and we step onto the ice, listening carefully to Lynette’s instructions for our warmups, I breathe in again, determined to enjoy every minute of my last season of skating.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sliding across the ice on my butt for at least the tenth time in a row, and Christopher groans as Lynette says, “Maybe we need to take a break.”
Twenty minutes, and I’m fucking exhausted and sore already.
“How long has it been since you skated, again?” Lynette asks, as I plop down onto the bench and grab the water bottle from the side of my bag.
When we met, I told her I hadn’t skated since the end of our season.
I didn’t mention the one time I skated with Luke and how I tweaked my back.
But it’s as if she can’t believe I was competing on the international stage just last month.
To be honest, I can’t believe it either.
“Three and a half weeks.” I pop the straw up from the lid and take several long gulps of my water.
“And have you done any conditioning in that time?” she asks.
I glance at Christopher, and he looks pissed. Honestly, I’d be pissed too if my partner showed up woefully unprepared.
“Not much. My body needed a break, but I’m afraid I gave it too much of one. I’m not normally this out of shape.”
“You’re not normally pregnant,” she says. “Go easy on yourself during this re-entry period. You can’t expect that your body is going to feel and perform like it did before pregnancy.”
My eyes are suddenly full of tears, and I look up at the metal rafters so they don’t spill down my cheeks. This response could not possibly be more different than my mom’s was the other night, or than Jessie’s would have been if we were still training with her. “Thank you.”
Christopher swings his arm over my shoulders and gives me a squeeze, before he looks up at Lynette, where she stands in front of us, leaning against the boards. “I don’t think anything involving jumps is happening today.”
“No, that doesn’t seem like the best use of our time right now,” she agrees.
“I think we should switch to running through your routine and focusing on the footwork and synchronicity. From watching your performances over and over in preparation for working with you two, the only area—aside from jumps—where there’s any room for improvement is on the footwork in the more artistic segment near the end of your routines. ”
I grab the protein bar from the front pocket of my bag and take a bite. I’m going to need to start eating like an athlete training for competition. No more lemon cupcakes or peach rings. Lots more protein and complex carbs.
Maybe I need to reach out to my nutritionist. Weeks ago, I told her I needed a break and that she could stop coordinating my meals and having them sent to me.
I might need to start that up again, but I don’t want to go through my mom to do so, even though she’s been in charge of that part of my training for my whole career.
I make a mental note to talk to Luke about it, as Christopher and Lynette chat about our routine and I eat half my protein bar.
“You feel like you’re ready to try again?” he asks, once I fold the wrapper over the open end and shove the rest of the bar back into the pocket it came from.
“Yeah,” I say with a decisive nod, realizing that I’m wasting our valuable—and expensive—ice time, not to mention our coach’s time. “Let’s do this.”
Christopher and I take a few laps around the rink, going through the steps of our normal warmup again, and this time, it feels much better, much more natural, than it did half an hour earlier.
And as we go through the different sequences of the artistic portions of our routine, I settle in.
It’s as if my body is waking up and remembering that it knows how to do this.
Thirty minutes later, I’m sweating and spent. My legs are lead and I feel like I need a nap in order to have the energy to walk out of here. But we had thirty productive minutes of practice, so that’s a win.
“What’s he doing here?” Christopher asks quietly as we skate toward the open door at the edge of the rink.
I follow his gaze up into the stands. There are a few families with little kids decked out in hockey helmets, sitting around and waiting for their practice to start now that we’re done.
I wonder if they realize that above them, an NHL goalie is sitting back in his seat, watching me like a hawk follows its prey.
The possessive and almost jealous look he wears as he notices Christopher’s hand on my lower back has my stomach swooping low. I’m not trying to make him jealous, but the thought that he might be is doing funny things to my body.
“He’s here to pick me up. ”
“He doesn’t trust that you can make it four blocks back to his place?”
“Given how tired I am right now,” I say with a sigh, “it’s probably good he can give me a ride home.”
The sound that comes from the back of Christopher’s throat isn’t quite a snort, but almost. “He looks like he wants to devour you,” he observes under his breath.
“Maybe he does.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I roll my lips between my teeth, knowing that I’ve said too much.
“Oh? Are you finally admitting that there’s something going on between you two?”
Turning my head, I glance up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Finally?”
Christopher has always insisted that Luke must have feelings for me, but he never indicated that he thought I returned them. “Eva.” He says my name like he’s chiding me. “Be real right now. You couldn’t have possibly thought that marrying him wasn’t going to lead you both down this road.”
Couldn’t I have? “I had absolutely no intention of anything happening between us,” I say, so softly I can barely hear myself over the sound of our blades slicing across the ice and the chatter of the kids at the edges of the rinks.
He chuckles. “I love how easily you can lie to yourself.”
That stops me in my tracks, and I grab ahold of his arm, spinning us so we’re facing each other. “What the fuck does that mean?” My words are still quiet, but they come from the back of my throat.
He just gives me an affectionate smile. “Eva, there was never going to be any other end to your friendship. You were always headed on this path with him, whether you realized it or not. Maybe you never saw the way he looks at you when you’re not looking, but I did.
And the way you look at him? That longing?
You two have it so bad for each other, and I’m happy for you if you’re both ready to stop pretending. ”
My lips part, but the only sound that comes out is a strangled laugh. What the hell is he talking about? Because if my true feelings for Luke Hartmann have been obvious to my skating partner for years, have they been obvious to my best friend, too?