24. Chapter 24
“How are we going to get in there?” I ask Cole as we stand in front of the locked ice rink.
“You don’t remember breaking in here when we were kids?” he asks, mischief in his eyes.
When he returned from training camp a couple of days ago, Cole asked me for a date night alone before the hockey season starts, and I agreed. He’s carrying a duffel bag and a cooler, which makes me curious. We often snuck in here as teenagers.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not kids anymore. A Bamp;E holds a much stiffer penalty now,” I point out to him.
He grins at me and jingles a set of keys in my face, “Not Bamp;E if you have the keys, which we have, thanks to you hooking up with the head coach.”
He unlocks the door and escorts me inside. The lobby is dark and empty. Cole uses the light on his phone to illuminate the building in front of him.
“Stay here,” he says, leaving me on the bleachers. He walks away, and I follow the light until he disappears into another room. Suddenly, all the lights in the rink turn on, startling me. In minutes, Cole is back at my side, and I follow him through a door and down some hallways until we exit the players tunnel and sit on the bench. He unzips the bag he brought, pulling out a new pair of figure skates.
“I didn’t think you had any,” Cole says as he hands them to me.
“No, I haven’t skated in years,” I tell him.
He helps me put them on and then puts on his skates. He opens the door to the ice and steps out before turning around and holding his hand to me. I take it, using him for balance. I feel like Bambi on wobbly legs as we walk around the rink. After a couple of laps, my confidence slowly returns as muscle memory takes over, and I begin to glide.
“Remember when we took skating lessons together?” Cole asks me.
“Vaguely. We couldn’t have been older than five.”
“Yeah, before I started hockey.”
“And you told your dad you wanted to figure skate with me instead.”
Cole chuckles, “Yeah, that went over well.”
Mr. Thorne was always hard on Cole growing up. He had a lot of expectations for his son and accepted nothing short of perfection. I’m sure he’s proud now, but it came at the expense of their relationship, which is strained.
After a few more turns around the rink, Cole leads us off the ice and back to the bench. He helps me with my skates first, then takes off his. After, he pulls out a thick blanket from the bag and then grabs the cooler.
“Be right back,” he tells me. He returns to the middle of the ice and lays out the blanket before setting the cooler on top. I’m glad I listened when he told me to dress warmly. No matter how thick the blanket is, the cold can be felt through it.
He returns and helps me walk out to the blanket, where we sit side by side. He takes sushi and drinks from the cooler, motioning for me to help myself. We eat mostly in silence. When I’m sure I can’t stuff another bite in my mouth, I stop.
“Good?” Cole asks. He’s already stopped eating.
“So good. Thank you. This was a lot of fun.”
“Not over yet. I brought dessert.”
“Dessert. You should have warned me, so I left the room.”
Cole chuckles as he pulls a pie tin out of the cooler. “It’s your favorite, though, chocolate cream pie.”
He hands me a slice, and I miraculously find a place for the pie in my stomach.
“Ok, now I’m truly stuffed,” I groan.
“That’s a shame. I was hoping to make out in our favorite spot in the locker room,” Cole says with a pout.
“I can probably be persuaded…” I trail off as his lips cover mine.
We enjoy our time in the locker room, doing nothing more than kissing and heavy petting before heading back home.
Foster and Talon are missing when we walk into the house.
“Can I walk you to your door?” Cole asks.
I smile, “Of course.”
He takes my hand, and we walk up the stairs together until we reach my door, where he kisses me again. It’s meant to be quick, but we both push it farther.
I break my lips away, “Come in.”
He shakes his head, “Not tonight.”
And then his lips are on mine again, and he’s pulling me into his body. I grind myself on the hardness I feel, and we both groan.
“Are you sure?” I ask him huskily.
“No…Yes,” he says, not sounding convincing, but he pulls himself away and then walks back down the hall. I don’t know why he insists on this slow pace, but it might kill us both.
I sit in the high school ice arena stands where just last night I was sitting on the ice making out with one of my boyfriends. Months ago, I sat in this same arena and watched Talon’s father be honored while I dreaded a reunion with the three men who had broken my heart. My heart is still a little jagged, but those three men have worked daily to reassure me that we have found our happily ever after.
“Why are you smiling?” Cora asks from my lap.
I look into her sweet face, her brown eyes studying the goofy smile on my face. “Because I’m happy, baby.”
“Why?”
I tickle her side, “Because I’m here with my favorite person.”
Her giggles make my smile bigger. Life is so good right now, better than I could have ever imagined it could be. It might have taken years and a walk through hell, but I finally feel like I’m coming out the other side.
Tonight is Foster’s first home game as coach. The other guys couldn’t make it, so I’m joining Emma, Matt, and Cora. The three-year-old’s commentary of the game has been entertaining. She’s delighted that our team is winning, thanks to the goalie stopping all the pucks. She cheers for Foster every time our team scores a goal, no matter which player puts it in the net. She was particularly impressed when he was looking mad and arguing with one of the refs. I took a video to show him later. He’ll get a kick out of it.
The buzzer blares, signaling the end of the game. The Gladiators squeaked out a win by one goal in the last minute of the game. We stand up and cheer with the other fans before waiting for Foster in the lobby.
I let Cora get down to run around while we wait, and when Foster walks into the room, she makes a beeline for him.
“Foster,” she yells before throwing her arms around his legs. He looks at me in panic, making Emma and me snicker before he crouches down to her level.
She smiles up at him, “You won. Good job.”
She gives him a thumbs up, and he chuckles before giving her small body an awkward hug. Seeing this makes my ovaries twitch inside me as Cora runs back to her dad. Foster straightens up and walks over to me, pulling me into his arms and laying a short but effective kiss on my lips.
“I’ve always wanted to have you waiting for me in here and be the one to kiss you. I watched Cole do it so many times, and I wanted my turn.”
I wasn’t the only one reminiscing about this building.
“I never knew you felt that way about me,” I tell him.
“Because it would have killed me for you to know. You were always Cole’s, and I never stood a chance against him. He was the golden boy in every room he was in.”
“It’s so weird that you wanted me. I saw you so many times with a new girl on your arm, and you were always so confident and charming.”
He lays a hand on my cheek, “None of those girls could hold a candle to you, then or now.”
“So, was the kiss everything you’d hoped it would be?”
He pulls me in closer, “No, it was more.”
And then he kisses me brainless in the middle of the crowd.
When he lets me go, I look around at the high schoolers laughing and celebrating with their friends, just like we used to do. “When did we get so old?”.
“I don’t know, but let’s get home. This suit is so damn uncomfortable. I need sweats, the couch, and my girl.”
I laugh and follow behind him, grateful for the road that led us back to each other.