Chapter 9
RAFE
My skate dragged on the ice by the slightest fraction. My momentum was off, and I’d never achieve the height I needed to fully rotate. I could immediately feel myself overcompensating. The best I could hope was that I didn’t fall on my butt in front of Boris Andreev.
I landed with an awkward stumble I tried to cover with some fancy footwork and graceful arms. Phew!
Boris, Smithton’s esteemed jump coach, however, didn’t congratulate me for saving my ass.
“What was that…besides terrible? Your timing is no good, your blade is making mincemeat on the ice as bad as hockey players. Go again, Rafe. Again,” he stormed in his lilting Russian accent.
I used to have a perfect double axel. Near perfect, anyway.
Two and a half rotations in midair, starting forward at forty-five degrees, seamlessly landing facing the opposite direction.
Perfect. It was as if I’d had wings and an invisible tether.
I’d twisted unfettered, my body tightly aligned.
My vertical speed, ankle flexion, and hip stability had never been in question.
I’d never agonized over minute details. There’d been no need. I’d been training for too many years. I’d known the math behind movement, and I’d known my body too well to make silly mistakes.
Until the day my right skate had caught in a divot on the ice and…well, ruined my life.
Too much? Well, maybe so, but that stupid freaking accident had upended everything. Sure, last season had been decent—but not spectacular. And damn it, I had potential. Or I used to.
Not so long ago, I’d worked with some of the finest coaches in the nation at Dartmouth.
Now I was getting yelled at by a cranky Russian with white hair, a red nose, and a biting tongue.
Boris didn’t give compliments. He grunted or gruffly corrected infractions.
The best measure of progress was his silence.
But today, he’d been especially vocal.
I skated to the bench, wiping sweat from my brow.
“Good job,” Eli said, handing over a water bottle.
I thanked him, curbing the inclination to ask how on Earth he thought my near fall and splatter on the ice was a good thing.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I trusted Eli. I thought he was hot, and I wouldn’t have minded getting vertically acquainted with him…
sans clothing—but the friendlier he was, the more I second-guessed his motives and his sweet pinky caresses.
According to Celine…and Gus, for that matter, I was wildly guilty of overthinking all things Eli.
This probably wasn’t a great time, but I was exhausted and mentally beat, and if I was going to get rejected, it might as well be now.
“Do you like hot wings and karaoke?” I asked out of the blue.
Eli shifted his gaze from the ice to me. “Um…I don’t like too much spice, and karaoke is embarrassing. Do you?”
“No to both.”
“O-kay.”
I supposed this was my cue to insert a leading question about his spice preferences and karaoke mishaps, but…I didn’t care enough to know. I had one objective here. All I wanted to know was…
“Do you want to go out or not?”
Oh, dear. Zero points for execution, zero points for landing.
I sucked water down like a dry sponge, eyes forward. He could reject me to my cheek if necessary.
“Friday?”
I braved a sideways glance, noting Eli’s amused twinkle and that adorable dimple. Gus had a dimple too. It was hidden under his scruff most of the time, but on mornings when he was freshly shaved, he looked very…attractive and—
No thinking about Gus. This was Eli.
“Yes. Seven o’clock?” I took another sip.
“Excellent. It’s a date.”
Gus wasn’t home. I’d forgotten that he had a game until Celine reminded me that Smithton was playing Trinity tonight and it was a big deal.
“It’s the playoffs, Rafe. The whole school will be there and that means you too,” my best friend informed me.
I wasn’t particularly interested in attending a hockey game, but I was edgy and anxious.
Not a mood conducive to enjoying the solitude of a quiet house.
I should have been excited that I’d worked up the nerve to ask Eli out.
It felt more like I’d won a point in Gus’s ridiculous roommate game, and that just made me think about Gus in a not-so-terrible light.
Confusing.
Fine, maybe I’d judged him harshly. Gus was funny, big-hearted, and he’d been trying hard to keep his end of the deal.
He hadn’t thrown any parties, the house wasn’t a mess, and my food hadn’t disappeared—if anything, there was two of everything in the fridge.
He’d been around more too, which had alarmed me at first. However, he’d been perfectly congenial and oddly enough, Gus seemed to want my company.
He’d ask about my day, my off-season training routine, my gym habits, my classes. Nothing overly personal, but it was nice light repartee that went a long way toward mending broken fences.
And we’d been eating more meals together. Rotisserie chickens, salads, and pasta. I teased him for buying junk food, and he teased me for eating kale.
“It’s disgusting, Rafey. No one likes that shit for real. Not even self-respecting rabbits.”
So, I bought kale while Gus bought party-sized bags of potato chips, and we each pretended to be offended by the other’s choices.
Side observation: There was no booze in the house. None.
Maybe that wasn’t news, but I’d noticed, and yes…I was curious.
I suspected something was going on with Gus. Why else would he suddenly want to spend time with me? I doubted his shift in roommate etiquette was entirely due to penance for past wrongs. Not that I questioned his sincerity, but I wondered if there was more to it.
The problem with all this wondering was that it was leading me astray.
Tonight was a perfect example. Here I was at a hockey game, surrounded by Smithton fans screaming their lungs out in the third period of a tied nail-biter against Trinity, and my eyes were glued to the Bears’ captain, who happened to be on the bench, waiting for a line change.
Gus wasn’t having a great game. He seemed tired and out of sync. His acceleration speed was a beat behind everyone else’s, lacking explosiveness and hindering his ability to elude the defense. I observed him closely for signs that he was ill or injured. Gus seemed healthy, though.
I tore my gaze toward the action as the announcer howled, “Goal, Bears!”
The arena erupted. The Bears circled Ty, tapping sticks and chanting his name.
Gus cheered from the sideline. His goofy grin took over his face the way it always did. If he was bummed that he hadn’t been part of the action, he didn’t show it. He just smiled and looked…
Okay…fine! He looked good. Sexy, even.
The sweat damp hair, scruffy jaw, mischievous smirk, muscles galore, and—
I screwed my eyes shut as I clapped along with the rest of Smithton, internally chiding myself to get my shit together. Gus was my roommate…my recently converted from being annoying and generally horrible roommate.
Besides Gus was not in any way, shape, or form infatuation material. Eli was.
Eli was graceful, mature, interesting, and…stuff. Maybe.
At the moment, I couldn’t remember anything about Eli. He might as well have been a figment of my imagination. I should have been searching him out in the crowd, but I didn’t care if he was here while I had Gus on the brain.
My common sense had obviously gone on a wicked hiatus, which possibly explained the heart palpitations and odd roommate fixation and—
“Earth to Rafe! Celebration time, baby. Let’s go.” Celine elbowed my ribs and motioned for me to follow.
Twenty minutes later, I was hanging a cheek at a corner booth at Vincento’s, sipping house white wine and snacking on garlic balls with Celine and a few of our teammates: Kelsi, Ingrid, Miles, Erik, and Jackson.
After Celine, Jackson was my favorite person at Smithton. He was easygoing almost to a fault—the type of person who could find a silver lining in every crappy situation. I had high hopes that a smidge of his positivity would rub off on me.
“Bea says my berry muffins aren’t selling at the bakery.
She wants me to add sugar, but that changes the recipe.
I have a bad feeling she’ll revoke my baking privileges if I don’t produce the gooey chocolatey junk Smithton loves,” he groused.
“Do you think anyone will notice if I substitute with carob?”
“I think you’ll get arrested,” I replied, only half joking.
Jackson hooted merrily and opened his mouth, but if he spoke, I couldn’t hear above the din of blood whooshing in my ears as the hockey team strode through the entrance. The entire restaurant whooped and hollered.
“Go, Bears!”
“Way to go, Bears!”
“Get those boys some pizza and beer!”
Vincento Junior greeted them personally, shaking hands with the hulking athletes as if they were celebrities.
Which…they were. It was a long-standing bone of contention that hockey and football were the only sports to get the full royal treatment in town.
It wasn’t fair, but it hadn’t made hockey players less popular amongst my teammates who’d collectively paused their conversations to admire the jocks hovering nearby.
Myself included.
They were all good-looking. Brady had a boy-next-door appeal, Ty was tattooed drop-dead deliciousness, Regan was broody but in a soulful way, and Gus…
Gus was the class clown, everyone’s pal, the good-time guy who couldn’t remember to put his dishes in the dishwasher, forgot everyone’s name yet somehow still made you feel important.
He cleaned up nicely in a snug-fitted Henley shirt and dark jeans. His wavy hair had been finger-combed into submission, his smile was like a ray of sunshine, and—
Yikes. What is wrong with me?
I sipped my tepid wine, casting another clandestine glance at Gus pumping Vincento’s hand. His animated gesturing probably meant he was giving the older man highlights from the game.