Chapter 9
Zoe
Grease soaking through the paper bag was how you knew the onion rings were delicious.
My mouth had been watering the whole drive to the rink.
Jeremiah and I were meeting to start brainstorming for the women’s rec league.
He’d asked if I’d stop and get lunch since he was in meetings all morning, and I wasn’t strong enough to say no to smashburgers and onion rings.
I carefully adjusted the drink carrier and takeout bag in my hands to open the door.
The last thing I needed was a grease stain or spilled soda on my shirt.
The amount of clothing I had that didn’t have some sort of stain from baking was dwindling quickly.
Thankfully, the door was already unlocked, saving me the trouble of having to dig out my key.
That would have definitely spelled disaster.
Voices echoed from the rink; a figure skating instructor yelling out to her student above a symphonic piece. Figuring Jeremiah was not overseeing them, I turned in the direction of his office. He spotted me through the open door and quickly rounded his desk.
“Here. Let me take something,” he offered, hands already outstretched.
I passed him the drink carrier, less confident in my abilities to keep the liquid inside the cups than our food in the bag. He cleared off a space on his desk and set down the drinks before he moved his laptop to the shelf behind him. Smart man.
I sat down in one of the two extra chairs and started to unpack our burgers when he slid a twenty-dollar bill across the desk to me.
“No.” I pushed it back. “You don’t need to pay for lunch.”
He placed his large hand on top of mine, successfully stopping me.
“I’m paying, Zoe. I was the one who asked, and you saved me from having to live off of the stale crackers in my desk drawer.”
The look he gave me made it clear that he wouldn’t be happy until the money was in my possession.
“Okay.”
He removed his hand, and I took the money, trying not to miss his warm touch. I wasn’t supposed to be doing that.
With the money securely in my pocket, Jeremiah finally relaxed back into his seat and claimed a burger and side of onion rings.
He wasn’t kidding about how hungry he was.
I’d barely gotten my burger unwrapped, and he’d already downed half of his.
But once I took a bite, I understood why.
I’d never had such a juicy smashburger before in my life, and whatever sauce they put on it, I was in love.
“You know I’m really impressed by how quickly you agreed to my idea. I was expecting that I’d have to sell you on it,” I admitted.
“Did you have a presentation prepared?”
“In my head, yes.”
He smirked and then took a sip of his drink. “It wasn’t a hard sell. There are so many reasons it’s a good idea.”
I just eyed him expectantly as I continued to enjoy my lunch, curious to hear his reasons. He shifted in his seat.
“From a business perspective, it gives me an upper hand compared to the other rinks. Their websites claim they’d have a women’s league if the interest was there, but I know there’s enough interest. You can’t tell me that as soon as our nineteen-and-under girls age out, they just stop playing hockey. ”
I understood that I had been one of the lucky ones who continued to play throughout college, but that wasn’t the case for everyone.
And just because they weren’t “good enough” to make it on the college team, didn’t mean they weren’t talented.
They still deserved a chance to stay in the sport in some capacity.
“Personally, though, I like the idea of creating something that will be around for Charlie when she gets older. A safe place for her to continue her love of hockey without restrictions based on her gender.”
He made it really difficult not to have a crush on him when he said things like that. Jeremiah wasn’t just doing this to make more money. Every decision was clearly being made with Charlie at the forefront of his mind.
We quickly finished our lunch, and then Jeremiah retrieved his laptop, clicking a few times before meeting my gaze over the top of the screen.
“All right. How do you think we should go about advertising?”
“You said it yourself. I’d start with the nineteen-and-under teams and then the families of all the players who come here. Moms, sisters, and aunts that might be interested in playing.”
Jeremiah started taking notes. Once we got the ball rolling, we were spouting out idea after idea: getting word out into the surrounding community and beyond, providing jerseys and equipment if needed, and how to set up games.
It was all base information now, and we’d get detailed later on, but it was a great place to start for having just hatched the idea a few days ago.
At some point during our planning, the rink had gone quiet.
I’d forgotten about the figure skating lesson until there was a rap on the door, and we both turned to find the instructor in the doorway.
She looked to be about in her mid-sixties, gray-streaked hair pulled back tight in a low ponytail.
Everything about her screamed figure skater; her ramrod-straight posture, lithe limbs, and the fact that if I were standing, she’d barely come up to my chin.
“Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to let you know that I’m heading out. Would you like me to lock up behind me or are you expecting anyone else today?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Anyone who needs to come in already has a key. Thank you, Linda.”
I waited until she had dipped back out of the office before I turned to Jeremiah, smiling mischievously.
“So the rink is empty?”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Yes…”
“What do you say to a rematch?”
It took a second to register, but then his grin matched my own as he pushed back from the desk. “What size skate are you?”
“I’ve got my gear in the car,” I said.
I always kept my bag in my trunk, even if we didn’t have practice. Thankfully, I’d been able to park close to the rink, so it took no time at all for me to grab it, Jeremiah keeping the door open for me.
“How are we doing this without Charlie?” he asked.
I pursed my lips. That did change things slightly. Half of the challenge had been shooting the puck past Charlie.
“Let’s switch it up. Different tasks since we tied last time,” I offered up as a solution. I had the practice cones in my bag, so we could easily set up puck-handling drills or obstacles. “We can do a backward skate race, one-handed cone weaving, and then a game of PUCKS if we’re still tied.”
“Deal.”
Was it the best idea to do a bunch of physical exercise after stuffing myself full of greasy food?
No. It wasn’t. But I was far too competitive to care about that.
The second the idea had popped in my head, there was no getting rid of it.
At least if I blew chunks, Jeremiah would be right there with me.
“What do you say to a couple of warmup laps before the race?” He peeked over his shoulder at me as he finished tying off his laces with a firm knot. “I don’t need to pull something.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Jeez. We’re old, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes, we are. As strong as you are, I don’t know if you’d be able to drag me off the ice if my hamstring locks up on me.”
While the lack of friction on the ice would allow him to slide across it easily enough, I also doubted my abilities to pull his six-foot-plus frame.
I didn’t realize how stiff I was until I got out there and started moving. After a few leisurely laps around the rink, I stopped by the boards to get some stretches in as well. You could never be too safe.
Jeremiah joined in, and I tried not to stare when he knelt on the ice and started doing the frog stretch.
There was a reason why so many videos on social media consisted of professional hockey players doing this exact stretch.
Jeremiah being clad in a pair of athletic pants instead of bulky hockey pants just meant I had a better view of his glutes.
He shifted, and I quickly turned away, hiking one of my legs up onto the boards and leaning forward toward my toes. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Jeremiah like that. But I knew that image was now ingrained in my brain and would definitely pop up again at a later time.
After we had limbered up as much as possible, we used the cones to mark the start and finish line.
“One lap around?” Jeremiah checked.
I nodded and took my place, Jeremiah lowering himself into a starting position next to me.
“Hey, Zo,” he said.
“Yeah?”
I glanced over and instantly got sucked into the golden glow of his eyes. He was so close, I could see how the brown of his irises faded into amber the closer it got to his pupil.
“Go,” he whispered.
And then he was gone. My body reacted before my mind had even registered what had happened—thank God!
I had nearly caught up to him by the first corner.
His cross-over was a little shaky compared to mine.
Even if it’d been over ten years, I would always be a defenseman in my bones, and this wasn’t the first time I’d been caught on my heels.
We were neck and neck by the time we reached the last turn. I pushed hard, my legs burning. It was all worth it, though, when my skate crossed the finish line first. I slid to a stop and then doubled over, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. All the while, I kept my glare set on Jeremiah.
“Jeremiah Langfield,” I scolded.
He just grinned at me as he went to grab more cones for us to weave around, not a single hint of regret on his face.
A sharp pang shot through my left thigh when I used it to push off toward the bench to retrieve our sticks. Thankfully, my back was to Jeremiah so he didn’t see me wince. I massaged the muscles until the pinching sensation went away and then grabbed the sticks to join him for the next task.