Chapter 19
HUDSON
I cannot fathom why Leah thinks Coach Badaszek wanted me to take figure skating lessons aside from making me more limber—or as a humility test—but I’ll play along.
As I pull away from the duplex, following Leah in her beat-up Toyota that she drives like she’s operating the Batmobile, I could see her in a sleek black luxury sedan.
I’m afraid she’d hiss at me if I told her this, but retiring from skating and living in a sketchy neighborhood, it’s like she’s dimmed her own glow. But why?
As the distance from my old street grows, I feel like I’ve truly left the past behind. Talking with her helped a lot. I wonder if she carries around any baggage.
I don’t pray often, but I send one up, hoping that Hunter gets his life figured out, finds success in his band or whatever he’s doing now, and …
I’m not sure how to finish the sentence.
I want to say that he finds happiness, but more like something meaningful and true fills up the emptiness that’s always haunted him.
At the same time, a strange, buzzing warmth flows through me that’s different from the electric current I experience at Leah’s touch.
The thought that randomly pops into my head is that maybe my twin and I aren’t as far apart as I thought.
Not that he’s here in Cobbiton, but that we share a connection.
It gives me hope.
I meet Leah in the empty parking lot of the Ice Palace and follow her around the side of the building.
Hustling behind her, I say, “Don’t tell me we’re breaking and entering.”
“Of course not.” She wears a defiant smile.
“Do you live a secret life of crime? Is robbery a hobby of yours?”
She hastens her pace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“Care to comment on Howie?” I hint.
She bristles. “Let’s stay focused.”
“You’re a cat burglar!” I could expose her crime, but there’s also the slim possibility this fierce woman could steal my heart. The time we’ve spent together, while slightly adversarial at times, has sparked something I haven’t felt in a long time and certainly not as intensely.
“We’re not breaking but we are entering.” She holds out her hand at chest height, palm up. I pass her my Palace pass and she taps it against the electric lock on the metal door.
When the little light turns green, allowing us access, I hesitate. “I signed but did not read the Knights team member guidelines booklet, Leah.”
“Scaredy cat, Hudson?” she challenges.
“No, but I don’t want to face suspension if this is against the rules. If you recall, I wasn’t the daredevil brother.”
“More like the angel,” she murmurs.
So is she with the way she floats in front of me on those long legs with that flowing hair and invisible halo. As I pass a framed photograph of several former Knights Hall of Famers, I remind myself why I’m here. It’s not to ogle Leah.
She steps through the doorway to the locker room and cocks a hip when I don’t follow. “You saw the folding table the other day, topped with tons of food, right? Uncle Tony works security here. Trust me, we’re good.”
“But Badaszek ...”
The motion sensor light flicks on and I catch her wink. “If he blows his knit hockey hat, I happen to know that you have something that would likely get him to forgive you.”
I turn into a solid brick of ice. “You!” I accuse.
“Forgive me? Well, sure. I do harbor one-half of the responsibility for that little late-night dare. Cara is onto me, but I begged Hunter to return it.”
“You broke into my garage, left the boxes, and—”
“Saw you fresh out of the shower in a towel,” she admits as a smile teases her lips.
I scrub my hand down my face. “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?”
She smirks. “You betcha.”
Whispers of desire interrupt the silence between us … or maybe that’s just my heartbeat.
“Grab your skates and meet me on the ice, Goalie.”
I follow orders, wondering if I’m going to regret this in the morning. When I still lived in the duplex, I remember Hunter sneaking out at night. Was he going to meet Leah? Did she ever sneak in? I’m not sure I want to know. This feels very much like a situation that could land me in hot water.
When I get to the ice, Leah is warming up, moving with fluidity and precision.
It’s like she was born skating rather than walking with the elegance of her motions.
Forget hockey hits and highlights, I could watch her carve invisible shapes on the ice for days.
She’s tremendously talented, so why did she retire?
Rushing toward me and coming to a T-stop, she says, “Okay, big guy, you are going to master spins tonight.”
“Sounds like a late night at a frat house.”
“Head in the game, Roboveitchek.”
Can’t lie, I love that she’s one of the few people in the world who can correctly pronounce my last name. “Doesn’t that take years of practice?”
“Of course, but you already have a solid foundation with your edgework.”
After explaining some of the principles of weight distribution and physics, she demonstrates the two-foot spin at a regular speed and then, in slow motion, breaks down each segment of the movement and emphasizes lifting up through the legs rather than driving energy down.
I give it a shot, stumble and fall, which results in her nearly laughing me off the ice, which only makes me work harder.
Leah drills me, only giving me a break when I get dizzy.
When I see stars and start to tip toward her, she says, “No matter how hard I dig in, the ice is slippery and you’re heavier than I am. If you don’t get your feet under you, we’ll both fall.”
“Lall in fove?” I slur, feeling ragged like I’ve been at a raging college party.
“I love you, man, but not like that.”
Right.
Head in the game.
Then something else she said surfaces. Dig in. Not literally because the idea is to glide rather than remain stationary on the ice, but what she’s telling me is to go deep for the will, stamina, and persistence to keep going. Not to stop until I perfect my spin.
So I do. I spin and spin and spin with two feet, one, and then sitting style until I’m practically nauseous. Then the feeling goes away because I learn what to do and how to move. I keep my focus fixed and balanced. I have no idea what time it is when I hear a soft clap, clap, clap.
She whispers, “You did it.”
Sweat coats my brow, but I’m in the zone and slowly surface when Leah’s hand lands in mine, leading me toward the boards.
Her touch is foreign yet achingly familiar—the kind of contact I haven’t had in a while. Not that women have kept their hands off me. More like this feels meaningful even though I know Leah would argue otherwise.
We sit down on the bench and she pulls out her phone as I catch my breath. On video, we watch the evolution of my spin from looking like a baby giraffe on skates to possibly qualifying as her skating partner with a bit more practice … if she still did that.
We watch it on repeat until I ask, “Are you uploading it to social media?”
“Maybe,” she says with a sly smile.
“I have to be up early for drylands, but do you want to get a doughnut?”
“At Old Dog Doughnuts? They won’t be open for a couple more hours.”
I suggest the diner by the highway. It’s open twenty-four hours and for some reason, I’m reluctant to say goodnight. “They have good pie.”
She laughs. “I have a salty tooth more than a sweet tooth.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? I am thirsty. I could go for a Dr. Pepper.”
“Rather than a hydrating electrolyte sports drink?” she asks.
After we take off our skates, Leah leads me toward the building’s main concourse which has my nerves firing. Is this it? Are we saying goodnight or does she have part two of our midnight mission planned?
Glancing over my shoulder at the ice, I say, “The Zamboni driver is going to be ticked that we messed up his nice smooth surface.”
“Then we’ll fix it.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“We can’t—”
She raises her eyebrows, her blonde hair glowing red under the exit sign.
“Do you know how to drive a Zamboni?” I ask, doubtful.
“How hard can it be?”
“Leah,” I groan, then I realize she was always going out on a limb with my brother. If he said they were going to go tightrope walking, she’d follow. If he dared her to jump off a bridge, as long as there was water below, she did. I never understood why she went along with his harebrained schemes.
Leah slides a dollar bill into a vending machine and it dispenses a cold bottle of Dr. Pepper. When she passes it to me, our fingers brush. Mine are warm inside but our skin is cold in the unique way that results from training in a sub-zero Celsius facility.
“Thanks,” I say, then take a long sip. “What can I get for you?”
She takes the bottle. Placing her lips where mine had just been, she draws a long sip and then makes an adorable little smacking sound of satisfaction. “Haven’t had one of those since our sixth-grade graduation pizza party.”
I try to tear my gaze from her mouth but fail until she catches me looking at her.
“What? I’m a little sister. We borrow each other’s things.” She uses air quotes around the word borrow, knowing full well what she’s doing.
But not what she’s doing to me. A halting thought follows. Does she think of me as a brother?
Then she takes my hand, sending a zing whipping through me. “We have work to do.”
Leah enters the Zamboni garage, stares at a panel on the wall for a long moment, and then presses a button. “They’ve had a technological upgrade since moving the team to Cobbiton, but I think we can handle this.”
I pump my hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can’t drive this thing.”
“Why not?” she asks as if I were questioning whether we could land on the moon.
“We’re not authorized.”
“We have to cover our tracks.”
“By breaking what has to be another rule?”
Ignoring me, when she climbs the step onto the machine, her foot slides where the protective rubber is worn thin. I extend my hands to steady her. Our eyes catch and then quickly flick away.
In for a penny … “If this is really happening, we’re doing it together.”