Chapter 18
Eighteen
Olivia
I let Brody lead me through the arena, pretending I don’t know how to get to ice level on my own. When he points out the mascot
locker room during his guided tour, I act intrigued.
For the Freeze’s Christmas party, the large ice-level suite is adorned with festive holiday decorations. Hot food sits buffet-style
against the far wall while drinks are being served by food service employees. Toddlers run around everywhere, while older
kids play a lively game of mini sticks in the corner of the room. A grandiose green velvet chair with gold detailing staged
near the center of the room awaits Santa’s visit—or Liberace’s.
We grab some food and take our seat at one of the round tables. Realizing some red wine would pair nicely with my meal, I
excuse myself to find one of the employees helping guests with beverages.
I find someone bent over, fishing through a cabinet of plastic cups. “Excuse me, could I please get a glass?” I ask. When
they turn around my face drops. “Quinn?” I gasp.
“Finally.” She releases a loud pent-up sigh. “I’m so happy to see you. We’re short-staffed.” She shoves two full wine bottles into my empty hands. “Start serving these.”
Before I can get a word in, Brody’s at my side. “Damn, you drink more than Belly,” he notes, eyeing up my full hands.
I stutter—babbling as if my tongue is swollen.
Brody laughs. “I’m kidding. It’s nice of you to help the staff. You’re really thoughtful. That’s why you’re my date and Belly
isn’t.”
I blush and pray Quinn doesn’t notice. She gives me a pensive glare. Quinn notices everything—it’s her job.
Brody places his hand on the small of my back and says, “I’ve got to go help the boys with something, but I’ll be right back.”
My body goes rigid. “Sure,” I say to him while maintaining intense eye contact with Quinn, who is looking back at me like
she’s determined to win the staring contest.
As soon as Brody is out of earshot, Quinn snaps, “You’re here with Brody!” She’s got a crazy look in her eye—even crazier
than Chilly’s.
“Shhh.” I bring my finger to my mouth. “Be cool.” I drop the bottles off on a nearby counter.
“The team’s new star forward, really? What, was a secret affair with the coach not an option?” Her tone is as sarcastic as
it is disappointed.
I know better than to answer her, so I go mute like I’m muffled by a mascot head covering.
“I can’t believe I thought you were here to pick up the extra hours.” She juggles a stack of disposable cups and a wine bottle
in one hand while fanning her flush face with the other. I haven’t seen her this stressed since I tried high-fiving the kid
with two broken arms during a mascot hospital appearance.
“What extra hours?” I ask.
“The organization needed people to work this event. Didn’t you get the email?” Quinn says, annoyed. She doesn’t pause for my answer, because she already knows the truth. “Girl, you’ve got to start checking your work email.”
“I’ve been busy.” I look over my shoulder. There’s enough chaos in the room that no one seems to notice I’m still missing
from my seat.
“I can see that,” she says. Her smug look turns into one of sheer terror in a quick revelation. Hand to heart, she gasps.
“He doesn’t know, does he?”
A kid running by flailing around a mini stick bashes it into my shin. I wince and quickly jump out of the way as more plow
through the area. Parents shout at their kids to “watch out.” I assure them I’m fine. It’s a level of attention that makes
Quinn and me duck. We quiet our voices and discreetly huddle against the buffet’s back wall. I begin picking at the selection
of desserts, intentionally lingering on a sugary decision.
“No. He doesn’t know our secret. Chilly’s true identity is safe,” I whisper.
Quinn hovers beside me. Instead of pretending to adjust her cups for the fiftieth time, she begins slowly uncorking a corkless
wine bottle. “Still. This is so bad.”
“Is it really? I’ve yet to fully read the handbook.” I plop a tiny tree-shaped sugar cookie into my mouth. The green sprinkles
crunch between my teeth as the cookie dissolves on my tongue.
“You don’t say,” she mocks me. “Besides the obvious code of conduct violation, do I need to worry about this?”
The corkscrew sticks out of her knuckles like Wolverine, and I gulp down what’s left of my Christmas treat. I’ve come too
far to get caught—especially like this.
“What? No. He’ll never know I was the interim mascot, promise.
” I’m not trying to get fired tonight. The extra money from this job is keeping me afloat while I neglect my struggling freelance business to hang out with Brody.
Plus, Quinn and I have a good game-day flow going.
It would be a waste to disrupt it mid-season.
She tucks her weapon back into the apron pocket. “You’re a very forgiving person.”
“We shouldn’t talk about this here.”
“Just don’t let it interfere with the job. Or the team.”
My shoulders slump. “I won’t.”
Quinn turns around and leans against the buffet table, laughing to herself. “I can’t believe Brody Parker is in love with
the team’s mascot.”
For the first time, I don’t flinch when I hear his full name. “Definitely not. We’re just hanging out. It’s not like that.”
“Bitch please,” she says with a confidence I wish I had. “Don’t insult me. I’m a mascot enthusiast. I can read people like
a psychic. I knew the second he touched you, and the way he’s looking at you right now confirms it—you’re hockey’s Romeo and
Juliet.”
I lift my head to see what she’s looking at. Brody’s back in the room and he’s looking at me. He winks from across the room.
Shockingly, I don’t get the ick. Instead, I get giddy and practically giggle to myself.
“Gross. Get a room,” she scoffs. “NOT the mascot locker room! And stop talking to me because we’re being incredibly suspicious.”
Quinn’s raspy voice pulls me out of Brody’s trance. She gives me a firm shove, tossing me a couple steps away.
Brody circles the room, herding all the children over to the large chair.
He looks so cute tonight in his hunter-green knit holiday sweater and shaggy hair.
His buzz cut has grown out to the perfect length—long enough to run my fingers through, but still short enough to show off his face.
And it’s a face worth seeing. Tingles swarm through my extremities like pins and needles before settling into the pit of my stomach.
I eat another cookie and try to ignore it.
Bells start ringing melodically and two elves enter the room, cheerfully hopping around. It’s Hammer and Jordy in green-and-white
elf costumes complete with curly shoes adorned with tiny bells. Chef dressed convincingly as Santa follows.
Once the children get wind of the large sack he has thrown over his shoulder, they all erupt into cheers like the crowd at
a winning game. Santa finds his seat, and Hammer and Jordy begin an impressively choreographed dance routine in front of Old
Saint Nick. With the kids all seated, Brody sneaks next to me.
“Were you back there helping them choreograph this little jester jig?” I ask.
“No, this performance is courtesy of the very talented Freeze Ice Girls, but I did warn them to stay away from open flames.”
One of the kids stands up and accusingly points to Santa, saying, “Where’s your big belly Santa?” The room erupts with laughter.
Chef quickly says in a forced deep tone, “Ho ho ho, Santa is on Ozempic.”
A little girl speaks up. “My mommy lost her belly when she pushed my brother out of her vagina. I watched it happen in a pool
in our living room. Did a baby come out of your vagina, Santa?”
The little boy on the end picking his nose says, “I thought babies came from the hospital?”
“Okay . . . How ’bout some presents?” Chef opens his sack and the kids all cheer.
Once Santa leaves, everyone laces up their skates for a public skate on Freeze ice.
I don’t tell Brody I played hockey; instead, I let him tie my rental skates and give me a verbal skating lesson.
“We’ll go slow, and I’ll be right by your side.
I won’t let you fall.” He extends a hand, offering to be my balance, and promises to not let go until I feel comfortable on my own.
As sweet as he’s being, there’s a major oversight on his part: Brody is forgetting he’s no longer living in the Sunshine State;
he’s in the state of hockey. A place where as soon as you learn to walk someone is strapping skates on your feet. Be it on
a rink or a frozen pond, skating is a way of life.
“Thanks,” I say, standing up and heading out on the ice without him.
He watches me take a few long graceful strides with bewilderment. “You can skate?” he says to me from the bench, his voice
growing quieter the farther away I glide.
I look over my shoulder to find he’s caught up to me. “I can shoot too,” I say cockily.
Brody grabs some sticks off the bench and tosses a few pucks over the boards while I get a warm-up lap in. All the young kids
have been carried off home to bed and the significant others already got their photo ops and have moved on to the open bar.
There’s a lot of ice to play with.
Brody hands me a stick. I stickhandle the puck for a bit—forehand, then backhand. We pass the puck back and forth as we head
down center ice. As I near the top of the circle, I wind up and release a loaded slap shot. Ping—the puck vibrates against the net’s crossbar and slices into the back of the netting. Bar down. Brody’s stick bangs against
the ice, cheering me on.
“What are you doing selling mini donuts with a clapper like that?” He comes sliding in beside me, spraying my ankles with
snow as he stops.
I bashfully drop my head and fish the puck out of the back of the net. He steals the puck off my stick and stickhandles it
away from my reach.
“Seriously. Who taught you to shoot and can they teach me?” he asks.
“My dad.” With some force, I take the puck back and he lets me keep it.
“You looking for a team because we’re weak on the PK.”
I rip another shot off, picking the top right corner. “Oh, I know. I watched your game last night.” I pick up another loose
puck and circle around the net, but before I can get into position for a shot, Brody steals it off my blade and backhands
it in. Top corner, bar down.
And cue the cocky smile in three, two . . . There it is.
“Seriously, did you play in college or something?” He’s persistent with a stick in hand.
I can’t get into the details of my failed hockey career because it could blow my cover, so I think on my feet—or rather, my
skates. “Remember my gruesome knee?” I say. “Now I only play when my sister’s team is desperate for skaters. That, and when
I have the opportunity to impress someone cute.”
“Are you talking about Hammer and Jordy?” He points across the rink where the two elves are watching us. They both start banging
against the glass and flash a couple thumbs-ups our way. A puck is shot wide and slaps against the glass right where they
stand. Like robots, neither flinch.
“Sorry!” a girl shouts.
At the other end of the rink, a pair of young girls are taking turns lining up pucks and firing them into the net. They can’t
be more than twelve years old. The natural talent is there, but they aren’t following through on their shots properly and
most are hitting the glass, too high and wide. I ditch Brody to help them. Growing up, I worked a lot of hockey camps to offset
the cost of registration.
Mom says helping me with hockey gave Dad his purpose back.
That it gave him the kick in the ass he needed to forgive the game.
At least one of us could. My dad taught me everything I know about the sport, about being a competitor and teammate.
Even if he couldn’t demonstrate it out on the ice with me, he would break the game down strategically on a piece of paper.
The symptoms of his disease eventually left him homebound and hollowed, but living inside me is everything he used to know about the greatest sport in the world.
A few of those tips will have these girls hitting net consistently.
Brody watches from afar for a while, but skates over once we wave him in for a friendly game of two on two. Eventually, we
outskate our welcome and the equipment manager yells at his daughters that it’s time to head home. Brody and I slowly make
our way off the ice behind them.
“What can’t you do?” he says.
His beaming smile fills me with anything but pride. I duck my head and skate off the ice, hoping to leave the shame in the
back of the net with a handful of pucks.