Page 10

"Help me move it," I said. "We'll set it back where it belongs."

Working together, we carried the bench to its original position along the boards. It was heavier than it looked, and we had to coordinate our movements to avoid dropping it on the uneven surface.

For his next task, Eric moved to the far end of the rink, where goldenrod had grown thick around the base of one goalpost. The yellow flowers nodded in the breeze.

"Hey, Wes. There's something buried over here."

He crouched near the goal line, pulling at something hidden beneath the thick stems. His movements were careful like he feared damaging whatever he'd found.

"Probably just debris from the storms." Despite my dismissal, I walked toward him.

Eric managed to free his find with a wet sucking sound as the earth released its grip. He held it up, grinning with the satisfaction of a successful excavation.

As I watched, I gasped.

A hockey stick. A relic from before manufacturers started chasing the perfect flex point. It had a blade cracked along the grain, and years of moisture and decay had darkened its shaft.

The tape around the handle had rotted away to gray threads, but I saw the ghost pattern underneath—the precise spiral wrap I'd learned from watching NHL games on fuzzy television broadcasts.

The blade's curve was wrong for contemporary standards, too dramatic.

It was how they'd manufactured them in the eighties and early nineties.

"Can you believe this?" Eric turned the stick over in his hands, examining it like an artifact. "Must have been here for years. Decades, maybe."

I forced my expression to stay neutral, but inside, years of careful maintenance work began to buckle.

That stick looked exactly like the one I'd used during my last season of organized hockey in Whistleport.

Same manufacturer, same model, and same exaggerated curve that coaches told us would be illegal in a few years.

For a second, I almost reached for the initials I knew might still be carved into the shaft beneath the grime.

Eric tested the stick's weight, holding it at the balance point with the blade resting against the cracked asphalt. "Think it's still usable?"

"It's rotten. Wood's probably soft all the way through."

Eric ignored my comments. He was already moving, sliding his hands into a grip that was close to correct and taking a few experimental swipes at an imaginary puck. His form was terrible—hands too far apart and shoulders twisted at the wrong angle. At least he was enthusiastic.

"God, this feels weird." He laughed, attempting what might have been a slap shot motion. "How do you guys make this look so easy?"

He skated a few steps with his boots. His movements were awkward but committed like a kid pretending to be a sports hero in his backyard.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I walked across the uneven surface toward him. "You're fighting the stick. Let it do the work."

Eric stopped his awkward skating and looked at me with surprise. "Show me?"

I hesitated, unsure initially, but his enthusiastic grin won me over. "Give it here."

Eric handed me the stick without hesitation, and the moment my fingers wrapped around the familiar grip, my hands remembered what my mind had tried to forget. The weight distribution felt right despite the decay, balanced, like an extension of my arms.

"You need to hold your body differently."

I demonstrated the basic stance—knees bent, weight centered over the balls of my feet, shoulders square to an imaginary target. The movements came back without conscious thought, smooth and practiced despite sixteen years of rust.

"Try it." I stepped back to give him room.

Eric mimicked my posture, but his shoulders stayed rigid, and his weight shifted too far forward. He thought too hard about each element instead of letting them work together.

"Here." I moved behind him.

I reached around, my chest nearly touching his back, and placed my hands over his on the stick. "Feel that?"

Eric froze. "Yeah."

My voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Lower your stance. Shift your weight back."

I guided his hands to the proper positions. His body was warm against mine. We aligned ourselves—hips, shoulders, and my chest pressed against his back.

"Better."

Eric tilted his head slightly. When he turned, we were close enough that his hair brushed against my jaw.

"This feels different."

"You'll know when it's right." The words slipped out before I considered their double meaning.

Eric turned his head a fraction more, bringing his face close enough for me to feel his breath against my cheek. "Thanks."

It was a fragile, electric moment. I couldn't stop gazing at the curve of his mouth. Time suddenly compressed, driven by the pounding of my heart.

I kissed him.

I didn't plan it. At the moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Our lips met gently. We both tested whether it was something we wanted.

Eric's answer was, "Yes." He leaned into the kiss. When he parted his lips, his mouth was warm, and I tasted the slight bitterness of his coffee. He reached out and rested his hand on my chest.

The hockey stick clattered to the ground beneath us, forgotten.

We separated slowly, neither eager to shatter whatever had just happened. Eric's eyes were still closed as if trying to memorize the sensation.

"Wes—that—"

I placed a finger on his lips. I wanted a few more moments of silence to look into his eyes. I hadn't kissed anyone since I was a teenager. It was so long ago that I didn't want to think too deeply about what I'd missed.

When I pulled my finger back, Eric smiled. "That was nice."

Nice. It was the understatement of the century, but at the moment, it was the perfect thing to say. It didn't demand anything and only acknowledged that something real had passed between us.

We stood there for another heartbeat, the weight of what had just happened settling between us like dust after an explosion. Eric's hand still rested against my chest, and my pulse raced beneath his palm.

There's a moment—right after something you've secretly wanted becomes real—when your mind doesn't rejoice. It panics because now that it's possible, you remember how badly you wanted it. And nothing is more dangerous than wanting something you're not sure you're allowed to keep.

A gull cried somewhere overhead, breaking the spell. Eric's hand slipped away slowly as if reluctant to lose the connection. He bent to retrieve the fallen hockey stick, and when he straightened, there was something different in his movements—less careful and more sure of his welcome on Ironhook.

"We should probably..." I gestured vaguely at the overgrown sections we hadn't touched yet.

"Yeah." Eric's grin was soft and a little dazed. "Though I must say, this is the best work break I've ever had."

The comment startled me and made me laugh—short and rusty but genuine. "Get back to work, Callahan."

"Yes, sir." He was still smiling as he headed toward the wild roses to clear sight lines between the penalty boxes. I focused on stabilizing a section of boards that had come loose from their supports, using rope and leverage to pull them back into alignment.

Neither of us spoke about the kiss. We didn't need to. It had happened, and it had been good, and now we were both processing what it meant. The work gave our hands something to do while our minds caught up.

Part of me wanted to pull him closer, bury my face in his neck, and let all my years of isolation crack open like an egg.

The larger part wanted to run—not only to the cottage but to the ferry dock and back to a world where I could disappear again before whatever was happening between us demanded more than I knew how to give.

By early afternoon, we'd accomplished more than I'd expected. We didn't restore the rink, but we did reveal it. Visible. The bones of what it had been were clear enough that someone could imagine what it might become again.

We gathered our tools. It was time to return to the house for lunch.

Eric spoke quietly. "Thanks for helping with this. For showing me how to do it right."

I knew he wasn't only talking about the clearing work.

"You're welcome."