Chapter 15
Three little words travel with me all the way to another ice rink.
One week left.
They play on repeat even after arriving, and I guess Calum can tell that I’m distracted. At the end of a kids’ coaching session, he glides up to the edge of the rink. “Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
Calum leans closer so I hear him over the rumble of a machine resurfacing the ice. “Quit whatever it is you’re chewing on. If it’s another loser suggestion for me, forget it. I’m only interested in winning suggestions. For you.”
He pushes away from the barrier between us, gliding backwards.
I go ahead and break a no-contact rule by making a grab for a handful of a bright yellow jersey before he can get far. “Come here.” I haul him back to the barrier. “Listen. I did just have a really good loser idea for you.”
“Nope.”
“Why the fu—?” Children skate past, and I lower my voice. “Why not? I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me?” He shakes his head, his eyes laughing. “Valentin, all of your ideas so far would get me arrested, and I am not missing Christmas at home.”
Excited shouts echo around the rink. The loudest echo I hear is different, a reminder of a toy shop visit.
I will see it this year. All of it.
Calum straightens up now the same way he did next to a Santa’s grotto.
His skates let him tower over me even more than usual.
“Stop thinking of ways to get me off the hook. It was never gonna happen.” He lowers his voice again, and I should struggle to hear him, but like in the kitchen of a five-star restaurant, I’m tuned to his wavelength.
“Almost wish I hadn’t been upfront with my club. ”
“About?”
“Being bi. If management didn’t already know, me springing a surprise sex tape on them really could have been my way out.
” He pushes away again, gliding backwards, then returns to breathe a tingling qualifier into my ear.
“But I’d only make one if you were my co-star.
” No one but me gets to hear him whisper, “Really want to kiss you.”
Same.
I settle for blurting, “Go shove that kid over.”
“What? No!” He skates away, but he grins over his shoulder at me. “There’s something very wrong with you, Juno.”
There is. It’s called desperation, and I don’t know when I stopped feeling it for me and started to feel it for him, but the last time I felt it around a Trelawney, I held fast. That’s my excuse for throwing myself over the barrier like his entire team once did for him.
“Get back here.”
My shoes slide on ice, and I ignore the printing on his jersey for a second time. This time, I don’t let go.
“Surprisingly strong.” He laughs once I’ve yanked him closer. “Bossy too. I like it.”
I can’t let his grin distract me. “Be serious for a minute, oui? I’m not suggesting you actually hurt any of the kids, but shoving over that one in particular would be perfect.”
“Perfect for what?”
I hiss, “What do you fucking think?” I can’t believe I just wanted to kiss him.
The urge to shake him until he listens is almost overwhelming.
“To make you look like the worst person on the planet! And you would if you shoved her over.” My candidate is tiny and padded up more than any of the other children. “Go do it. She won’t feel a thing.”
“Who won’t feel a thing?”
I give Penny a run for her exclamation money. “Her! That little girl behind you! Use your eyes!”
He turns around to see for himself.
Calum turns back even faster.
“Absolutely not.”
“But look at all that padding. It would take a head-on collision with that machine to do her any real damage.”
“With the Zamboni? You want me to push her in front of it?”
“No.” My exasperation echoes. “I want you to look as if you could. I thought—”
He shakes his head, and I grind to a halt. Then I persevere because someone has to.
For him.
“Listen. If I got down on the ice and videoed you from a low angle, you’d look like a giant rushing up behind her.
A monster your club might volunteer to cut ties with, because who does that, right?
Who bullies children? You wouldn’t even need to push her over for real.
I could manipulate the footage during edits so—”
“No. I’m not using a kid. Especially not that one.”
He skates off for real. Calum leaves the ice completely, and I’ve been slapped in the face by cold water plenty of times while filming Reece. Hearing myself is another icy wake up.
Fuck. I sound as bad as Lito.
That gets me moving. I follow Calum to tell him sorry and that I got carried away because . . .
I want to keep him.
He heads back my way before I get a chance to, and he isn’t empty-handed. “Put these on.” He thrusts a pair of skates at me. “You need to feel how she does on the ice. But to do that for real, you’d need a blindfold.”
Understanding dawns after he asks for the ice to be cleared. I wobble over to join the two other people still left on it—a child and parent who I guess he must have delivered Christmas meals to, given the patch covering one of this little girl’s eyes and how warmly her mother greets him.
“It’s so good to see you again, Calum.”
Curiosity kicks in, but I don’t need to ask a single question. Once Calum skates off with her daughter, this mother tells me plenty.
“He’s all Violet talks about. It was so lucky our paths crossed.
” She wobbles on her own skates, clutching at me for balance.
That’s a mistake. We end up on our arses, both of our derrieres getting cold and wet as she laughs.
I can’t help noticing how her eyes glisten, and I hear why once we’re back on our feet.
“This might be her only chance to do this. To skate while she can still see where she’s going. Look at her go.”
More emotion spills each time Calum passes by with her daughter.
Fear comes first, stark on the face of the woman beside me.
I guess we both see the joy on her daughter’s.
Relief comes next. I hear it when this mother tells me, “He asked what Violet wanted for Christmas. She said this—to skate at least once—but I didn’t think he’d keep his promise.
Almost didn’t bring her today in case he wouldn’t be here.
She’s already had so many letdowns.” Her hand rises to the same eye a patch covers on her daughter.
“So for her to get one wish granted like this?” Her smile turns watery.
“Maybe things are finally looking up. First this, then getting a call back for the trial.”
“Trial?”
“For a last-chance intervention.” She swallows, her gaze fixed on her daughter. “It’s experimental. The surgery, I mean. Her particular issue is congenital. Usually slow to progress. Hers hasn’t been. I’m trying not to get my hopes up that she’ll be selected before it’s too late.”
Calum glides back, and I’ll need to replay this footage later to see it clearly. My own vision blurs out of nowhere at the pep talk he gives to a tiny hockey hopeful.
“Sight is only one of our senses, right? We’ve got more, like this.
” He closes his eyes and sniffs so deeply the hand splayed across his chest rises.
“I can smell the ice even if I can’t see it.
Can you?” He looks our way and sniffs again, asking us to join in, and he’s right. This rink smells . . .
Cold.
It also smells of something else, which I’m not sure how to label apart from as pure Trelawney.
So is him shaking off his gloves for a less violent reason than usual.
He does it to help a little girl lose her gloves too.
“Even if I couldn’t see the ice, I’d still be able to feel it. Like this, yeah?”
Calum crouches to find ice-skate furrows with her, then asks a little girl to tune into another of her senses.
“Hear that echo? Sound travels a long way over ice. That means if you ever need anything, you tell your mum to shout out for a hockey player. Because the game isn’t only about winning cup rings.”
He slips his own from his finger. Helps little Violet to feel the prickle of those showy diamonds while he directs this at her mother.
“It’s about teams looking after each other. You’re on mine now. If you need me, make sure to shout. I’ll be listening for you.”
My camera blinks. So does the mother beside me. She does it again fast a few times, then nods.
Calum isn’t done ruining his chance to look anything but caring. “And do you know what else would still be good, Violet, even if I couldn’t see it clearly?” He fakes a whisper. “The taste of hot chocolate. You ready to go get some with me?”
Who cares if there’s no use in me videoing this good-guy footage.
Calum grants at least one wish for a mother, and it’s the best content I ever captured.
It’s barely four o’clock when we part ways. London is dark already, or at least it’s as dark as it ever gets in this city. We stand in a car park where lights twinkle in the bare branches of trees. A cab driver flashes his lights as well, urging Calum to hurry.
He doesn’t.
Calum keeps his cab waiting, but I’m in no rush to say goodbye either.
We linger as kids stream out of the rink, and one stops for a final cuddle with her favourite player. “I’ll see you again very soon,” he promises Violet. That clues me in to how he’ll spend the rest of his evening.
“You delivering Christmas dinners to a children’s ward tonight?”
“Yeah. If you had the right clearance, I’d take you along with me.”
He doesn’t need to explain. If there are more kids like Violet waiting for him to visit, there’s no way I’d shove my camera in their faces, even if I had the right permissions. They can have all his attention. I do make a different suggestion. “Come back to mine straight after?”
“Wish I could.” His cab driver beeps his horn, and Calum raises a hand to signal he heard him. It holds his phone, which he lowers to open that colour-coded calendar chock full of ties on his time. He taps a red block. “Got a video call scheduled with the GM about a big brand deal.”
I almost say he could still come to mine after, no matter how late.