Page 20

20

Alana

“ I s there a reason your cold arm is wrapped around me?” My question was mostly muffled into the pillow my head was still buried against. It was cotton and smelled an awful lot like almond, which meant it wasn’t mine. Great, Liam was a witness to my burrowing for comfort.

“It’s cold outside,” Liam replied, sounding much more awake than me.

“And why were you outside?”

“Had to go next door.”

“Are you being cryptic on purpose?” I asked, reluctantly lifting my head from the pillow.

“No, I just figured this would wake you up quicker.” There was a smirk on his face that I wanted to slap off. Or kiss off. The second thought was worrying. But his lower lip looked pouty and like the most kissable thing in the world right now, so I couldn’t be blamed for going in that direction.

“What, because it’s very annoying?” I asked, shaking off thoughts of kissing and moving his pillow back to his side of the bed .

“Exactly. To answer your question, I went next door to get some skates because if you remember correctly, you promised me a skating date.”

“Hmmm, I’ve thought about this, and I agreed to four dates. So, when you signed me up for a Christmas Eve party, I decided that it was going to replace your skating date.” I booped his nose with my finger and rested my head on his chest. That was better.

“Alana,” he whined. My full name in his mouth was such a rarity that it always made butterflies take flight in my stomach, but this time they settled somewhere lower. It was too early to be this turned on, and it was too ridiculous to be turned on by someone calling me by my name.

“Liam,” I retorted.

“You promised you’d come skating with me.” He still sounded whiny. I imagined he still looked pouty as well. I didn’t look at him because I didn’t want to be plagued with fantasies of kissing his pouty lips while he helped me release the tension slowly building in my core.

“Did I, though?”

“Okay, fine, no you didn’t promise. But you did say you’d come.”

“No one is stopping you from going to the rink on your own, buddy,” I teased. I was going. I was always going. I hadn’t realised that I missed going skating at Christmas time until it was floated as an idea by someone who wouldn’t care if I was a better skater than him. But teasing was something I knew how to do with him, and I was having way too much fun making him pout and whine. If I kept it up, I could probably get him to beg.

And the fantasies were back.

“The whole point of having a fake girlfriend is to deflect from awkward questions, and you think me going to an ice rink on my own when people have seen us walking around holding hands isn’t going to invite awkward questions? About you and other things, friend .”

“Then you should have picked someone who liked being outside.” I laughed. Liam shifted his arm so that his hand was now resting on my waist. His fingers brushed the strip of bare skin between my shorts and T-shirt, and I burrowed further into him to avoid moaning out loud at the touch. I was now half lying on him. I’d feel embarrassed if he wasn’t effectively keeping me pinned against him.

“Come on, Len. Don’t tell me you haven’t missed skating,” he said.

“Are you sure you’re not projecting?”

“No, I’ve skated in the last eight months. Now I wanna skate in circles with my very capable date.” He squeezed his arm around me, and I melted.

“And show off all that hockey speed.”

I felt his muscles tense for a moment before he relaxed again.

“Wanna tell me what made you all tense just then, Muller?” My fingers started drawing patterns on his chest. It was solid under my touch. I wasn’t paying much attention to where my fingers moved, but I felt the stutter of his breath underneath me when I brushed over his nipple. I hoped he would answer my question soon so I could focus on his answer instead of the fact that he had sensitive nipples. A fact that could be a lot of fun to play with .

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled.

“Try again.” I shouldn’t have, but I gently pinched his nipple.

He let out a deep breath that almost sounded like a moan, but he covered it by clearing his throat. “Do you have an opinion on my retirement?”

I lifted my head again, not sure that I’d heard him correctly.

“Should I?” I asked.

“Just say whatever came to your mind when I asked.” His eyes were closed like he was braced for impact. If it were anyone else, I would think my answer through so that I didn’t risk hurting feelings. But this was Liam, who could sense when I was pulling my punches and hated it when I did. So, I said exactly what I thought.

“I don’t really care…No that’s not quite true. I care, but I care in the sense that I care whether you’re happy or not. I don’t think you should still be out there if your heart isn’t in it. I don’t think you should have kept playing because, in theory, you had the years left in your body. I don’t think you owe anybody any more than what you have already given them. And I think it is a tad sad that some people you’ve allowed close to you have made you think that being a hockey person is all you are capable of.”

I don’t know what reaction I expected from him, but it wasn’t for his body to start shaking with laughter.

“I asked because Mom brought it up and obviously, we haven’t really talked about it. But I told her I didn’t think you cared all that much beyond whether I wanted to do it or not. So it’s nice to know that you haven’t made me a liar in that sense.”

It had been coming back to me slowly just how well Liam knew me and how well I knew him. With everything that clicked back into place between us, I felt more and more like myself than I had in years. It was hard to tell if it was because I was back home or if it was because I was around him again. Or if it was a magical combination of both.

“Alright, let’s go skating. Do not judge me for the fact that I might be shit. I’ve not been on skates for a while.”

“I think it might be like riding a bike.”

“Except I haven’t done that for ages either, and this involves blades and ice, which is a recipe for disaster.”

“You’ll be fine. I’ll be there.”

I wanted to give him shit for giving himself so much importance, but it did feel nice to know that he would be there to catch me when I inevitably fell on my ass.

“Is this a cover of Mariah Carey? Why use a cover when she is right there?” I was focusing on the music playing through the ice rink, and the weight of my ring as it spun around my knuckle. It was easier to focus on those things than the fact that Liam was on his knees in front of me. He was only tightening the laces on my skates, but he was doing it with a level of care that drove my mind to other places. And he was on his knees.

I had spent months feeling indifferent to sex, and I thought that I hated feeling that indifference, but it was actually easier to deal with than my current predicament of getting turned on at the drop of a hat. I could only attribute that to Liam. It was quite inconvenient. I was at an ice rink, surrounded by people I sort of knew and who definitely knew my parents.

And I was wet.

All Liam was doing was tying my laces and my body was acting like it had never been touched before. And maybe it hadn’t. Not like this, anyway. Gently. Assuredly. Like I was something worth taking care of.

“Yeah, it’s a cover,” Liam answered quietly, bringing me back into the room and out of fantasy land. He tapped my skate twice.

“You still do that?” I asked.

“Do what?” He looked up at me and the intensity in his eyes while he was on his knees before me made me choke on air.

I cleared my throat and averted my gaze before I answered, “Tap the skates after you’ve finished lacing them up.”

“With everything you know about sports people, and me, you think I stopped tapping skates after I laced them?” He laughed as he confidently rose to his feet, before sitting on the bench next to me and tightening his own skates.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t stop. I just forgot you did that.”

I watched as he quickly and methodically secured his laces, tapping them both when he finished, before standing up again and holding out his hand to me.

“You ready?” he asked. I slid my hand into his.

Liam led us to the rink like someone who was used to having to walk on concrete in blades. I crossed the short distance like Bambi. Liam found it hilarious, and I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I used to be just like him, perfectly at home making that walk like it was nothing.

Fortunately, the second my blades touched the ice my legs didn’t give out and leave me in a heap. When he was sure I wasn’t going to fall flat on my ass, Liam let go of my hand and pushed off in the direction of flow on the rink, leaving me to try and remember how to propel myself around the ice and follow him.

As a reminder that Liam was not even a year into his retirement from professional hockey, he was back in less than a minute and came to a dead stop in front of me. A dead stop that should not have been sexy because all he was doing was stopping on some ice. But with the stopping came a wave of his cologne. I could feel his breath against my cheek and the sun hit his eyes just right, making them look like they were actually sparkling. So, it was all very sexy.

Then there was his smile. His smile almost took my breath away.

“You’re showing off, Muller,” I said, only sounding a little breathless.

“Just finding my sea legs,” he replied, lacing his fingers through mine and gently tugging me along as he started skating again.

“Bend your knees and lean forward, almost like you’re going to fall over,” Liam said when he realised I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Babe, if I lean forward like I’m going to fall over, I am going to fall over.”

“Alana, if you think I am going to let you fall then you really do not know me at all. So, lean forward slightly and push off on your toes. Keep your knees bent so your centre of gravity stays low.”

It was becoming increasingly obvious to me that the reason I let this man call me Lenny was because I would never be able to function if he called me by my full name all the time. It was a weapon. It had the power to take me out completely. It made my legs wobbly, my heart feel like it was trying to escape from my chest, broke me out in goosebumps, and made me want to get down on my knees and force that word out of him like a broken, gravelly prayer.

He’d used it twice today, which was maybe a record, and it was ruining my life. We were supposed to be having a Hallmark Christmas movie day, and I was wondering how quickly we could leave this ice rink, throw all pretence about this relationship out of the window and fuck it out. Repeatedly.

I almost forgot what he said and then remembered that he was giving me quite practical advice to get me off this spot that I was starting to grow roots into. I shifted my body forward and Liam skated back slowly, dragging me along with him. I started to use my legs to move forward, helping him with his task, which he was taking very seriously.

“I’m remembering another reason why I told people I couldn’t skate. It was because I grew to hate it when I had to do it slowly like this,” I said just as one of my legs decided it didn’t want to be underneath me and instead wanted to go out at some kind of angle. Quicker than I thought possible, Liam was at my side and caught my skate before it could slip too far out and leave me in a pile on the ice. One of his hands settled on my hip and somehow, I managed to stay upright.

“Told you I wouldn’t let you fall. You wanna try again?” The heat of his fingers felt like it was searing through my leggings onto my skin. I needed to get away from him .

“No. Can we just call it a day? I’ve been on the ice. Can we be done now?”

“Do you really wanna be done?” Liam asked and I knew that I wouldn’t be getting off this ice.

The ice was Liam’s life. It was his one motivation for so long and now, suddenly, it wasn’t. He could say it was the right decision all he liked, and I did think that it was the right one, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t missing being on the ice in some capacity. Even if it was just for fun. If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that Liam couldn’t do that when he was a professional. Just fuck around on the ice for fun.

I could give him that, even if it felt like my legs were going to give up on me. That probably had more to do with the man currently holding me up than the thin blades on slippery ice anyway.

“No, I don’t wanna be done. I want to fast forward through the training montage where I learn how to skate again and just be at the end where I’m skating circles around you.”

“You could out-skate me once upon a time. I am sure it’s still in there somewhere. No extensive training montage required.”

“Yeah, but then you decided to make being an ice skater your entire personality and we couldn’t just fuck around anymore. I could only be your stand-in goalkeeper or something. Although, I guess that wasn’t for nothing. When are you going to thank me for making you the ice skater that you were?”

In actual fact, I’d done nothing. During the season, it was one of the only ways we could hang out with each other, so he had extra ‘shooting’ practice once a week. Although that was what we passed it off as when we booked the ice time, all I would do was stand there and he would shoot the puck at me in the gentlest fashion possible. The puck never made it off the ice because he was too worried about accidentally hitting me in the face.

“You’re right, all my hard work had nothing to do with it. It was all you. Being around you was always murder for my ego.”

I couldn’t figure out his tone and I stopped. Then I realised that we had been moving forward, so maybe skating was like riding a bike.

“Wait, am I actually bothering you?” Falling into an old dynamic with Liam had been easy. He used to tease me for always studying; I used to tease him for having so many eggs in the hockey basket. That was our thing. But at the end of the day, we still hadn’t seen each other for over a decade, so maybe now he thought that I was just being bitchy.

“No, Lenny, you’re not. I know you’re not being mean. I’ve always known you’re not being mean. In fact, it’s always been quite nice knowing that there was someone in my life who treated ice hockey like it was very unimportant and reminded me that I need to have a life outside of it. I’ve had a lot of people blowing smoke up my ass for a very long time and I think I missed you not giving a shit about hockey and calling me an ice skater.”

We were moving again, slowly, but my legs were starting to find their rhythm as I pushed forward and followed Liam.

“I mean, technically, you are an ice skater. Yeah, there were other things you had to do but you were a person who skated on ice.”

“And now you’re an ice skater, once again,” he said as he let go of my hand, spun around, and took off again.

The loss of his hand made my hand feel cold, but I didn’t slip or fall. In fact, I felt fine. I knew I could take it from here. I used to be good at this. Dad had put me on the ice the moment it was safe to and taught me and Liam at the same time. Aaron had joined us at some point but hated it and immediately lost interest. At some point, Liam latched onto hockey, and Dad latched onto that, and I moved on to cheerleading because the fact that I could do the splits had to be put to use somehow. But I’d still been on the ice a lot. And as I moved forward, muscle memory kicked in and I felt stronger. I found my centre of gravity and stability on my blades and was able to put power behind my strides.

And so, I started to chase Liam.

Except this was Liam and he moved quicker than me, so before I had even made it three-quarters of the way around the rink, I could sense him behind me.

Just like muscle memory was propelling me around the rink again, muscle memory also made me brace for impact, but still stay loose, when I knew Liam was close.

Sure enough, as he reached me, his arm wrapped around my waist, scooped me up, and carried us forward.

“Going to have to try harder than that to catch me, Len,” he said into my ear before carefully putting me down on the ice, making sure I was secure on my blades again before letting me go.

“What do I get if I catch you?” I asked.

“The satisfaction of knowing that you’re a better ice skater than me,” he suggested .

“That does not sound like a good enough win, but sure, I’ll take it.”

“Stick to the very inside so we don’t piss other people off,” he said as he pushed himself just ahead of me.

I nodded. “You get a two-second head start, so you better put those ice skater quads of yours to good use.”

He smiled and drove off his left leg, putting so much distance between us with just the one move that I regretted giving him two seconds. One would have sufficed.

There was no way I was going to catch him.