Chapter 20. In Which I Help My Enemy with His Stick #2
“I was doing some research,” I say as he returns. “On your slap shot. Maybe you need to think outside the box.”
“In what way?”
I gesture at his torso. “I just don’t think a lack of muscle is your problem here.”
His upper lip hitches. “Thank you.”
My face burns. “I’m stating objective facts. I want to hold the stick to see how it feels. To get a grasp of the physics. Then I can keep researching with more accuracy.” I pause. “If you want me to.”
“The more the merrier,” Luca says, passing his stick toward me.
I rotate the stick, inspecting the curvature of the blade and the narrow grip. I expected it to weigh me down like a dumbbell, but it’s more like a twig.
“You know how to hold one of these?” The coyness of Luca’s voice isn’t lost on me. It must be obvious that I don’t.
“No,” I admit, even though it’s the last thing Luca would want to hear.
Luca slowly skates up behind my back. He reaches around my waist to readjust my grip on the top of the stick, then the direction of the blade on the ice.
He’s close. Closer than anyone has ever been.
“Top hand is your control hand,” Luca says. I can barely feel his breath on my ear.
His voice is quiet now.
“Okay,” I say, trying to keep breathing. To stay normal. This is a good thing. The closer we get, the higher the chance he falls in love with me.
“Should be firm but not tight. And the crook of your thumb should make a V around the edge. That’s the traditional way, at least. Maximizing surface area maximizes the opportunity to control the stick. Your lower hand should be able to slide freely up and down.”
Then Luca gently guides my left hand down, intertwining our fingers. He leans deeper into me, the heat of his body pressing into mine.
Patiently. Kindly. Like he’d never purposely sabotage me.
But I know he did. Jade told me.
So, why can’t I shake this weird feeling that it isn’t true? Is it just optimism? Or based in fact?
“Did you hear what happened to our cabin after our peace party?” I say a bit abruptly. If Luca weren’t standing so close, and my heartbeat weren’t thrumming so wildly in my neck, then maybe I would’ve been able to do this more naturally.
“What?” Luca says after a slight delay, like his brain needs a moment to recalibrate from hockey talk. He’s still holding my hand. “No.”
“Our bedsheets went missing.”
“Really?”
“We barely slept. It was almost impossible to take the test the next day.” I turn around slightly, trying to clock any readable remorse on his face. “We suspect someone stole them. But I wouldn’t have seen anything. I was busy with you all night.”
“That’s awful.”
“Do you know anything?” The question puts my cabin’s mission at risk, but I can’t help it. I suddenly, desperately need to know the truth. “About who took them?”
“I was with you the whole night, too, remember?”
“Maybe I would’ve seen something if I hadn’t been so distracted, though, you know?”
Luca’s gaze shifts around my face, like he’s already deducing what I’m implying. “Do you think I was trying to distract you?”
There’s an incredulous higher pitch to his voice now. A hint of hurt.
“I hoped that you weren’t involved,” I backpedal, even though this is the conversation I willingly signed up for.
“Or that you didn’t know. I was just surprised that you were willing to talk to me after years of ignoring me, I guess, and it made sense that you would be trying to sabotage me—er, sabotage us. My cabin.”
“You’ve thought this since the party?”
“I mean. I guess.”
“If it was the rest of my cabin, I’m sorry.
But I had nothing to do with it. And I don’t think they did, either, to be honest.” A soft smile rises on Luca’s face.
I almost mistake it for shyness until I remember there’s no way that Luca is capable of that.
“I talked to you that night because I wanted to, Rory. Nothing more.”
Warmth fills my chest. With the hopeful way Luca’s eyes glimmer now, I don’t think he’s lying.
I don’t want him to be lying.
When I confronted him about putting the bunk bed on the roof, he obviously lied and abruptly changed the topic. He was hiding something. But now I don’t get that feeling at all. He may have started the brAIN Wars, but maybe he really didn’t have anything to do with our disappearing sheets.
Since I was a child, I’ve been trained to stay in control of my emotions regardless of the obstacles that present themselves.
Every time I walked on a stage, whether at conferences to promote Prince List or at competitions to pitch projects, the only emotions that could be read on my face were calm and capable.
Luca makes me forget all my training.
Because he’s nice. Luca is nice to me. Even though we’re rivals.
All while I’m trying to hurt him. Break his heart. Light up his cabin tonight.
My breath comes short. My hands lock up.
“Intermission!” a voice announces over the intercom.
The third Zamboni of the night. I was supposed to be back to my cabinmates nearly an hour ago.
“Got it,” I say, shoving the stick back to him a little harder than I mean to. “Well, thank you for the lesson. I’ll make note of this in my research.”
Luca’s eyes crease at the sides, laced with worry. “Did I do something—”
“Luca,” Cindy calls. She’s fallen on the ice, legs sprawled in front of her. Esmeralda laughs beside her. “Help, please!”
While Luca turns to them, I escape into the bleachers. I don’t glance back to see if Luca is hurt that I’ve left, or if he’s too focused on Cindy now to care, holding her hand the same way he does with me.