20. Bethany
Chapter twenty
Bethany
Timothy stands at the edge of the rink with his hand held out, work lights buzzing overhead.
A pair of borrowed skates waits on the bench beside him.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“You haven’t even tried them on.”
“I don’t need to try on danger to recognize it.”
His mouth curves into that almost-smile of his. “Do you trust me?”
I look from the skates to his open palm and start listing every reason this is a bad idea. Alphabetically, apparently, because it is taking a while.
My self-preservation instinct, normally so loud and insufferable, clocks out early.
I sit on the bench and trade my boots for the skates. Turns out flannel is my one weakness and I've only just found out.
A few minutes later, I stand at the rink entrance with one hand gripping the boards and the other locked around Timothy’s.
“These feel like knives attached to shoes.”
“That’s essentially what they are.”
“Very comforting.”
The ice stretches in front of me, the new boards glowing faintly under the lights, and I step onto it carefully.
One skate slips sideways immediately, and I clamp onto his arm hard enough to test whether professional hockey players come with reinforced shoulders.
“Sorry.”
"You're fine."
He steadies me without letting go.
“You trusted me for almost three seconds,” he says.
“I still trust you. It’s the ice I’m worried about.”
His mouth curves into that almost smile that I love. His hand closes fully over mine through my glove, and it trips a wire somewhere in my chest.
The cold bites at my face, but his hand is warm around mine.
“Bend your knees,” he says.
“Won’t that make me fall?”
“It’ll make it easier for me to keep you from falling.”
The fact that he's not laughing at my catastrophic form is encouraging.
We start to shuffle across the ice together, his hand a steady anchor I refuse to let go of.
"If I die out here, tell people I was working," I say. Mostly joking. Slightly not.
"You're not going to die," he says dryly. “It's a mild liability risk at most.”
I laugh before I can stop it.
For a moment, nobody needs anything from me.
Timothy invited me out here simply because he wanted to share this with me.
It feels like he is letting me into something that belongs to him.
Which is a dangerous thought, so I file it under Do Not Examine, right beside the flannel thing.
"You seem really invested in this rink. Why, though?" I ask, aiming for lighthearted and missing, landing on genuinely curious.
He glances around at the new boards, the freshly cleared ice, and the lodge windows glowing behind us.
“The guys needed somewhere they could be terrible at hockey without it affecting a contract or a lineup.”
I glance at him. “Professional hockey players need recreational hockey?”
“Apparently.”
His smile fades into something quieter.
“Most of the time, being on the ice is work. Contracts, lineups, proving we deserve to stay.” He looks across the rink. “This place can just belong to us.”
I've got a joke half-formed, something about ice as team-building, and it dies quietly in my throat.
"That's..." I start, and then don't finish.
He shrugs like it's nothing.
My foot slips again, but this time Timothy catches my hands and uses the momentum to turn me in a slow circle.
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it.
“I'm starting to think that you're falling on purpose," he teases.
“I was testing your reflexes.” I blink up at him with all the innocence I can gather.
“Uh-huh.”
He guides me forward again, still facing me, skating backward as though ice is simply another kind of floor.
“Show-off,” I tell him.
“You’re the one who asked about my reflexes.”
He pulls me gently into another turn.
For the first time all day, I stop worrying about where my feet are and let myself enjoy it.
“BETHANY, WE NEED YOU INSIDE,” Jonah bellows from the lodge porch.
I glance toward the house.
When I turn back, Timothy is still holding my hands.
“You survived,” he says.
“Barely.”
“Would you do it again?”
I look down at our joined hands.
“Maybe.”
Timothy lets go of my hand slowly, like he's giving me every chance to change my mind, and the cold rushes into the spot where his hand was.
I resist the urge to turn around and ask for one more lap.
***
Inside, the lodge is warm enough to make my frozen cheeks sting.
Jonah catches me near the back door.
“Bethany. I need help.”
The urgency in his voice is my first warning.
He leads us down the hall toward the rec room.
Controllers and cords cover the coffee table. Hoodies hang from the couch. Someone has left one hockey glove beside an open bag of chips.
I sigh.
Maxon and Wesley are already making a poor attempt at cleaning.
Timothy follows us in.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Miranda’s coming over.”
The room goes quiet.
Maxon glances around. “Here?”
Jonah’s expression darkens. “That is generally what coming over means.”
“Who’s Miranda?” Timothy asks.
Jonah looks at me. “You see what I live with.”
“I also don’t know who Miranda is,” I say, gathering cups from the nearest side table.
“We went to high school together,” Jonah says. “We used to play video games together. I guess she never stopped. I found her YouTube channel recently. We started talking again, and she wants to see the gaming setup.”
Wesley surveys the cords spilling from behind the entertainment center. “Bold use of the word setup.”
Jonah ignores him.
“Most of the time, I don't care what people think,” he continues. “I am who I am. Take it or leave it.”
“Very noble,” I say.
“But.”
“There it is,” Timothy murmurs beside me.
Jonah gestures toward the room. “I also don’t want her first impression to be that five grown men can’t keep one rec room clean.”
I scan the room again.
“How long do we have?”
Jonah checks his phone. “Nine minutes.”
I clap my hands once. “All right. Maxon, dishes. Wesley, collect anything that smells questionable. Jonah, stop hovering and go make sure you don’t have snow in your hair.”
The guys move.
“Timothy, can you do something about those cords?”
He looks at the knot behind the console. “You’re giving me the worst job.”
“I trusted you with my life ten minutes ago.”
His gaze catches mine.
Something quiet passes between us.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The softness in his voice does nothing helpful to my concentration.
Jonah returns a minute later in a new shirt and with his hair suspiciously combed.
He follows me around the room until I turn on him.
“Stop hovering.”
“I’m helping.”
“You’re blocking the path to everything that needs cleaning.”
He backs up.
Jonah points at the coffee table. “Should we move the controllers?”
“Does she game?”
“Yes.”
“Then no. We’re trying to make the room presentable, not convince her you’ve all developed entirely new personalities.”
“This isn’t a date,” Jonah says.
Maxon carries a stack of dishes toward the kitchen. “You’ve mentioned that four times.”
Jonah looks at me for support.
I lift both hands. “I am only here for sanitation. Emotional definitions cost extra.”
Timothy laughs quietly from behind the entertainment center.
I look over.
Timothy pushes his sleeves up while untangling the cords.
I look for one second too long.
He catches me.
His mouth curves, and I turn back to the coffee table before Jonah can notice. Not that Jonah is capable of noticing anything beyond the front door right now.
Jonah is still talking.
“I haven’t seen her in years. She may be completely different now.”
I glance at him.
For all his size and noise and absolute lack of restraint when Timothy’s feelings are involved, Jonah suddenly looks uncertain.
“Then don't worry,” I say. “Clean the room. Let the rest happen.”
Jonah nods.
Across the room, Timothy glances at me, but neither of us comments.
The doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it,” Jonah says before anyone can volunteer.
He disappears down the hall.
A moment later, a woman’s voice carries faintly down the hall, followed by Jonah’s lower reply.
Timothy and I carry the last empty snack bags toward the kitchen.
On the way, we pass Jonah leading a woman down the hall toward the rec room.
She has a laptop bag over one shoulder and a camera case in one hand.
I smile at her as we pass. “Miranda?”
She gives me a quick, bright smile. “That’s me. And you must be Bethany.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Jonah opens the rec-room door for her and they disappear behind it.
As we enter the kitchen, Timothy glances back toward the rec room.
“You think he’ll survive?”
“Miranda seems nice.”
“You haven’t seen what her character does to dragons.”
I smile. “I think Jonah will be fine.”
I glance around the kitchen. I am still holding the trash bag.
Timothy reaches for it.
His fingers brush mine as he takes it.
After holding his hand on the ice, one brief touch should not be enough to unsettle me.
Apparently, it is.
***
I rehearse three separate deflections about Timothy before my truck even reaches Jenna’s curb.
I am prepared.
We are supposed to be picking up supplies for the lodge and getting coffee afterward, a rescheduled version of the morning I canceled on her last week.
It's just a small list: replacement cabinet hardware, paint for the rec-room door, and finishing nails.
For once, I blocked off the time and refused to let anyone else claim it.
Jenna climbs into the passenger seat with two coffees in hand. She buckles her seat belt and I brace for impact.
“Does the hardware store still have that weird smell?” she asks.
That’s it.
No Timothy questions.
Jenna launches into a story about her neighbor’s dog stealing a rotisserie chicken. There are reenactment noises. At a red light, I nod along and grip the steering wheel harder than the situation requires.
Relief gives way almost immediately to suspicion. I built an entire defense, and Jenna refuses to prosecute me.
I keep waiting for Jenna to pivot. To spring whatever pointed little tease she’s been saving.
She doesn’t.
She keeps narrating the dog’s movements.
I’m disappointed.
Which is insane.
The hardware store doors wheeze open, releasing a gust of sawdust-scented air. Jenna grabs a cart before I can.
“I’m store driving.”
“You’re terrible at store driving.”
“Doesn't matter. I got the cart first.”
We laugh over paint swatches in the narrow aisle and debate whether greige is a color or a creature that lives under a bridge.
I laugh. Loudly.
Jenna bumps my shoulder with hers.
Then Jenna mentions the ladder incident, and we both lose it. The story involves a dog, a squirrel, an oak tree, and a pine-tree air freshener.
No explanation would make it funny to anyone else.
I’m still smiling when the thought strikes me, and I stop.
When did I stop calling her back within an hour?
Somewhere between the rink deadlines and all the 'emergencies', I started treating everything outside of work as optional.
Including Jenna.
“You good?” Jenna asks.
She watches me over a display of enormous metal dustpans.
“Fine. Just thinking that I missed this," I say.
“I missed you,” she says.
“I’ve just been swamped.”
The excuse sounds flimsy before I finish saying it, so naturally I make it worse. I start listing contractor calls and lodge schedules as though I am delivering a status report.
Then I mention Timothy helping with one of the supply runs.
I backpedal while waving a paint sample around as if a three-inch rectangle of greige can rescue me.
Jenna’s face stays perfectly still.
Great. I've messed this up big time.
“Every conversation lately becomes the lodge, the rink, or Timothy,” she says.
I give a weak laugh. “Yeah. I guess it has.”
A stranger squeezes his cart past us, muttering about caulk, oblivious to the fact that aisle six has become emotionally hazardous.
I put the paint sample down.
She’s right.
This time, I look at her instead of the paint rollers.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been treating you like you’re unimportant.”
Jenna exhales, and her shoulders lower.
“I know you’ve been busy. I think part of the problem is that I keep pushing you and Tim together."
She looks at her hands. "You don't need more to complicate your life, or our friendship. I just don’t want to lose you as my friend.”
"I don't want that either. So from now on I'll make time with you a priority."
She squeezes my arm.
“Okay. I’m putting our coffee date back on the calendar, and I’m naming it something humiliating.”
She pulls out her phone and starts to type.
My phone buzzes with an invitation titled Mandatory Arm Hair Removal.
I smile as I hit accept.
We keep shopping.
The store noise closes around us again, cart wheels rattling and registers beeping near the front.
The truth presses against the back of my teeth.
Jenna could drag it out of me in thirty seconds if she tried. But she does not press me about Timothy. Maybe that is why I finally want to give it to her.
Three aisles later, I’m still carrying a box of finishing nails when I finally crack.
“I think I’m falling for Timothy.”
I brace.
Jenna freezes.
Then she shrieks so loudly that someone on an adjacent aisle drops a box of screws.
“You are?”
“Please lower your voice.”
“You’re falling for Timothy?”
“Jenna.”
“My brother Timothy?”
“There is only one Timothy relevant to this conversation.”
She grabs both my hands.
“I knew it.”
“This reaction is why I waited to tell you.”
Her grin softens, but it does not disappear. “Are you happy?”
The question catches me off guard.
I think about Timothy holding out his hand at the rink. The quiet way he notices what I do. How being near him makes me feel wanted.
“Yes,” I say.
“Then I’m happy too.”
“What if it goes badly?”
“Then I’ll love both of you and mourn the loss of my extremely premature sister-in-law plans."
Her grin falters.
“But if it goes wrong, I don’t want to lose either of you.”
The fear is not unreasonable.
I have spent the last few weeks treating every feeling for Timothy like a threat to my friendship with Jenna. I never stopped to consider that shutting her out could do the damage all by itself.
“You don’t have to referee us,” I say. “Whatever happens with Timothy, you’ll still be my best friend. I won’t shut you out again.”
We finish shopping, but the words follow me through every aisle.
I think I’m falling for Timothy.
It's true.
But the words are not quite enough.
Falling sounds unfinished. Reversible. I could catch myself if I changed my mind quickly enough.
But I think about Timothy in the pantry when I was thirteen. Timothy making the pass no one else cared about. Timothy holding out his hand and asking me to trust him.
This does not feel like the beginning of a fall.
It feels like realizing I have already landed.
I am in love with him.