Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Thorne
I've been on the ice for twenty minutes already when Mollie arrives. When she comes through the doors; I see her the way I always do. Both immediately and without meaning to.
I turn back to what I'm doing.
I know better than to pay attention to her arrival.
But I do it anyway, because I've never once successfully stopped myself. The second she comes through the doors, I clock what she's wearing, the color of her Converses, whether she's moving well on the ankle or favoring it. Today she's slightly favoring it.
To keep my eyes off her, I skate over to the boards and ask one of the assistant trainers how her knee is doing. She had it scoped in March. I listen to the answer because I actually want to know. I’m warm and present and completely focused on this conversation.
No matter how tempted I am, I don’t look over at Mollie. I’m excellent at not looking at Mollie in public. I've had a whole year to practice.
The next morning, Theo skates over to me once practice is done."Yo." He gives me a fist tap. "Thanks for helping me out last night. I swear I don't know how I got stranded across the border."
I grin. "When your teammate calls you, ten sheets to the wind, and he's being held by the Mounties... you don't hang up. You hustle your ass over and get him."
"I don't know how to thank you, man."
Sliding him a smug smile, I clap him on the shoulder. "I'll think of something."
"I have no doubt." He starts to skate away toward the tunnel, then turns back. "I'll see you at the Fourth of July cabin?"
I pull a face. Beck was supposed to go before Rosie got sick. He's similarly aged to me and his partying days are way behind him now. The most I've ever seen him drink is two light beers when we didn't have a game the next day. He's a bona fide adult.
But now, Beck’s going to be home with his little girl. Which leaves me hanging. I don’t want to be the odd man out this weekend.
It would be a nice break from the simmering tension in my house, though. A cabin all to myself and a weekend of freedom sounds better than staying home and trying to figure out if I want to fuck Mollie or fight her.
"Yeah, I'm in," I say. "It'll be fun."
"That's what I'm talking about!" Theo wiggles his eyebrows and skates off toward the tunnel.
Blowing out a breath, I turn toward Mollie. She's had the maintenance staff bring out several squares of the floor we use when we need to cover the rink. She tilts her head at me with an unamused expression. "Thorne! Get over here!"
Yeah, she's been in a fucking mood today. No idea why. I made her lunch and got her fancy coffee creamer. Does that not earn me some points?
Rolling my eyes, I skate over to where she stands. "Here I am. What can I do for you, oh mighty leader?"
“I want to film you scoring goals.”
I quirk a brow. “Then get on the ice and get in position.”
“Thorne.” Her immediate eyeroll is the feel-good dopamine hit that I didn’t know I needed right now. “Be serious. I can’t.”
“Why not?” I challenge, leaning on my stick.
With a glare, she gestures to the ice. "I can't walk around, Thorne. I'll slip."
I look Mollie up and down. According to her doctor, she’s cleared to walk on the ice and even start skating again. But she’s clearly scared. Maybe if I push her buttons a little, she’ll overcome her aversion.
She once owned the ice. I’d love to see her do it again.
"You won't slip," I say, circling her. "You're wearing cleats. And if you're worried about it, put on a pair of skates."
She sucks in a breath, casting her eyes down. She looks miserable when she says, "I don't skate anymore. The doctor said I could fracture my ankle again and this time, it would be unfixable."
That isn’t what her doctor said. I know because I’m the fucking creep that got her medical records. He said that she couldn’t compete yet.
But to compete, she needs to feel safe on the ice.
"Your doctor said that you shouldn't skate?" I continuing my lazy laps around her. "I call bullshit on that. I've seen you skate, Mollie. You're really talented."
I’ve been watching her for weeks. She’s longing to get back out on the ice, and she’s more than ready. She just needs to get over her fear.
"Gee thanks, dude. That makes me reconsider everything. My ankle is healed!"
She's so prickly. She's also kinda funny. I stop in front of her again, realizing that I’m not giving her the footage she needs. I'm not doing anything exciting, memorable, or particularly charming.
And that's what the fans want. They've put me in that box and trapped me there.
"Come on," I say, antagonizing her, because I can't help myself. She needs good footage of me, and she’ll get it if she gets on the ice with me. “You can do it, Squeak. Let me coax you out on the ice."
She nibbles on her plump lower lip. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"
"Nope." I grin. "Might as well put on your big girl pants and get over your fear."
Her expression is too close to fear for my liking, but she hesitantly puts half a foot out. She's wearing Converse, as usual. Not the shoes I would choose for the ice. But she's also got a pair of wraparound cleats on the bottom. She's as safe as she's going to get.
"Come on. I'll grab a stick and a pile of pucks and just hammer them into the net. It'll be great footage."
Still nibbling her lip, she steps off the laminate and onto the ice. At first, she moves like she's never seen ice before, like she isn’t the same girl I've seen crush it in figure skating championships. But slowly, she seems to get her feet under her. At the very least, she stops looking down.
She’s fucking awesome. I’m really proud of her, though I don’t have any right to feel that way.
As promised, I grab a stick and a pile of pucks and start hitting them, using my slapshot on repeat and firing a whole row into the net. For a while, there is nothing but the scraping of her footsteps, the shush of my blades on the ice, and the soft thud of pucks hitting the back of the net.
Mollie wobbles; I’m already mid-swing and I accidentally miss the goal. She snaps another picture right as I throw my stick down in frustration, then grins at the screen. "Oh, that’s terrible. I'm keeping that."
"Delete it,” I demand.
"Absolutely not."
I point my finger at her, as if it’s possible to threaten her. "Mollie...”
"Alexander." She tilts her phone toward me so I can see the preview. My own face, unguarded and amused, looking like someone I don't recognize, stares back at me. "You’re having a mini-temper tantrum here. Your fans are going to think it’s hysterical."
Not really the way I like my fans to see me. I’ve spent years crafting my image, sandpapering off my rough edges so that all that’s left is the golden boy charm. But I already know better than to insist that Mollie delete one of her photos.
I roll my neck. "Can we be done? I'm ready to eat."
She shrugs. "I got what I need for now. This weekend, I want to get footage of you jumping in the lake and hanging out with the boys outside the rink."
"This weekend?" That pulls me up short. "You're going?"
Mollie's mouth tightens. "I'm taking Beck's cabin since he isn't going to be there. I was invited by the Coven."
That's what the women who work for the team call themselves. Makes sense; there is something slightly eerie about them putting their heads together, looking your way, then whispering furiously. Like they’re casting spells using locks of your hair.
"Right." I exhale. There go my plans for peace, quiet, and irresponsible drinking. "We'll talk about—"
I hear her fall rather than see it. A loud thud, then her phone skittering away. Shit!
I whirl and skate to her. She is red-faced, sitting on her ass, legs splayed out. She looks dazed.
"Are you okay?" I ask, kneeling to help her up. "Where'd your phone go?"
Her eyes have the sheen of tears. Fuck me, the champion figure skater is holding back tears from a simple fall.
She allows me to help her to her feet, her expression contorting with anger. "I told you that I didn't want to walk on the ice, didn't I?"
My stomach dips. I grab her phone, hand it to her, then give her my arm to hold on to. "I'm sorry, Mollie. I didn't know that you could fall in a pair of cleats." As soon as the joke leaves my mouth, I wish I could take it back.
She looks at me, bitterness in her watery gaze. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Huh?” I’m caught off-guard.
"I've watched you do this for a year.” There’s no bantering edge to her voice anymore.
"Reporters, sponsors, the puck bunnies, the staff, everybody. You’ve developed a whole character for it.
Warm, interested, present. And then you look at me and it just like…
turns off. Apparently, I'm the one person on earth you can't be bothered with. What exactly did I do to you?"
In truth, I have no answer I can give her. Because what she did to me was be beautiful and give me the worst crush on her. That kind of honesty has no place between the two of us.
Instead, I grip her elbow and get us the hell off the ice. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like she's hurt in any way. Her pride might be busted up and her ass may be bruised, but that seems to be the extent of it.
"Come on. Let's get out of here." I make a brief detour to change into sneakers and grab my bag. Mollie is sullen and silent the whole way to the car. "Are you sure you're okay?" I ask her.
"I'm fine.” She produces a lollipop from god knows where, shucks the wrapper, and starts furiously sucking on it.
I drive us home, not speaking. Mostly, I try to pretend that the way that she's treating that sweet cherry sucker isn't making me a little horny.
Okay, a lot horny. I'm in freefall whenever I'm around Mollie. And her bright red tongue making those sucking sounds is melting my brain.