Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
COOPER
Sutton asked me to meet her at the rink. It’s been a week since our what felt real but was only a practice date, and I’ve barely seen her. We met once last week for a session, but because of a game we had to reschedule our second one.
We got destroyed in that game, asses handed to us, and social media had a field day. I don’t know what they are trying to get out of tagging me in negative videos and tweets. I’d tell them to say it to my face, but they have. Either way it worked. Mission accomplished.
During our post-game interview, several reporters threw passive aggressive questions my way.
Coach had to step in, but I was in my head the entire bus ride home.
Slumped against the windows, headphones in, and jacket hood pulled tight over my head.
Day after looked the same. Shutting myself off from the world, including Sutton.
I cancelled on her, again, but I’m hoping to make up for it today.
Coach gave us the day off after a grueling practice last night.
The walk from my car to the entrance of the arena is brutal. Temperatures dropped this morning, even dipping into negatives with the windchill.
Our arena is an angular building, modern in comparison to the rest of campus.
Large glass windows and clean steel instead of brick covered in ivy.
Banners of Tatum, a senior defenseman, Beckett, and myself are in three rectangular windows to the left of the doors.
To the right are three players from the women’s team.
Sutton’s outside, one hand is stuffed into a long puffer jacket, ankles crossed with a tote bag from her collection leaning against her shins, an old Bears Women’s Hockey gear bag slung over her shoulders. Her free hand grips a hockey stick.
As I get closer, I spy soft pink lips ticked up at the corners, kissable and mischievous, and chin tilted up at my larger than life body.
“I can get you a signed copy if you’d like. I’m sure there’s a life-size poster around here somewhere you could tape above your bed.”
“Perfect. I’ve been looking for a new dartboard.”
“I thought I was done with the whole ‘overtraining.’” I air quote overtraining. My tone half joking, half serious.
“You are.” Vibrant hazel eyes level me with a stern look. “This is different.”
I scoop up her tote and offer to take her duffle as we head inside.
Sutton admits to having scheduled an appointment with her physical therapist to get cleared to skate again when I stare for too long at her lacing up her skates.
I guess my roommates took her skating over the weekend.
While jealousy combs through me, I’m happy that she’s found a family here. People she can trust.
I want her to trust me again.
Even though our friendship is on the mend, there are still stitches needing sewn, conversations we need to have.
Sutton makes me pinky promise to not laugh at her on the ice.
“It’s been two years.” I hate the painful reminder, hate the way her jaw tenses and eyes go heavy as she says it, knowing full well she associates me with her injury.
It’s why I can’t be upset she asked my friends to be the ones to skate with her initially.
Of all the people I’m letting down, letting her down hurts the worst. Hearing what reporters have to say about hockey seems like nothing when I think of Sutton.
“It’ll be like watching a baby giraffe walk for the first time. ”
Spoiler alert: it’s not.
The Pond’s ice is smooth except for the grooves she’s creating. I’m leaning against the boards when she confidently stops in front of me, a cheek-splitting, mind-altering grin on her face.
“Knee good?” I check in with her.
“For now.” She’s has a brace over her leggings. “Odds one of those keys goes to the equipment closet?”
“Why? No one’s here. You don’t need privacy to kiss me.”
“If there’s any kissing happening, it’s you kissing the ice when I pummel your ass into it.
We’re playing MOOSE.” A welcomed lightness takes over me hearing the name of the game we used to play as kids.
It’s your standard HORSE rules, but we changed the name.
Moose felt more appropriate for the ice.
Mood lighter, mind quieter. “It’s on, Dave.”
I come back out of the locker room with my hockey stick and a bucket of pucks.
Everyone probably expects me to let her go first, but that’s not how we do it. It’s not what Sutton would want either. We’re in the center of the ice, sticks tucked away, our hands free except for the gloves we’re wearing.
“Rock. Paper. Scissors.”
“You are supposed to say shoot.” I suffocate her rock with my paper. Sutton huffs, rolling her eyes. “Redo.”
“Best two out of three,” I banter back.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. Reset. We go on shoot.”
“Rock. Paper. Scissors,” I repeat, pausing for dramatic effect. “Shooooooot.” Now I’m just enjoying her annoyment and the shade of crimson her cheeks and ears are turning.
“Ha.” She pretend cuts my paper. “I win.”
Right, she wins and not because I saw two fingers shift slightly in her fist and knew she’d throw scissors. Thus my tossing paper. Sutton skates off to her first shot position.
“Let’s make this beneficial to both of us. When you miss, you answer a question.”
“I’m not missing.” Lips pressed all sassy. “And how does that benefit me?” she laughs out, passing the puck to herself. Left, then right.
“You have to trust me.”
Her shoulders look like they have a shoelace going through them, pulling them taut. Chin tilted slightly up in refusal to look at me.
I skate over to her. Push a lock of hair behind her ear. It’s minimal, but there is a twitch in her posture. “Can you do that?”
She takes a measured breath. “Fine.”
Sutton makes her first shot, taking it easy on herself. I follow it up with a goal.
I skate to the left side, farther out from where she positioned herself, and shoot. I make it.
“What d—”
“I didn’t miss,” she cuts in, then shoots her puck into the back of the net. “See.”
We go back and forth till finally she misses with a huff. There’s minor annoyance on her features when she spins to face me. “Alright, ask your question,” she says sarcastically.
“Why did you and your ex break up?” There’s a laundry list of things I want to ask her. Things I want to know about more intimately instead of from a sideline view.
“Off limits,” she fires back hastily.
“Make the shot if you don’t wanna answer.” My brows raise, tone and attitude a mirror to hers. “What happened?”
He wasn’t you, I hope she says, but that’s a foolish thought. For her I’d be a fool, I think.
None of the guys know. It’s the one thing even Elliot has been tight-lipped about. Which is probably because none of us liked him, and we always made it apparent.
“He wasn’t the one,” Sutton says simply. “Your shot again.”
I earn an M after another three rounds. Sutton earns her next letter on the following shot.
The question I want to ask her isn’t the one that comes out of my mouth. Hooked on her last answer, curiosity has been skating circles in my mind. Who is the one? What does he have that I don’t? Am I never going to be good enough to be like my dad and the person she wants?
Winded, the heavy rise and fall of my chest masks the thumping of my heart against my ribcage. Grip tight on my stick, it might slip if I don’t fight to keep my hand steady.
“Define the one. What characteristics are you searching for?” To add to the pain, or throw her off my scent, I add, “What is it about Zach that you are attracted to?”
“That’s two questions.” Sutton rubs at her knee.
“Don’t judge me, but I want someone fun.
I want to laugh so hard my mouth hurts from smiling.
Intentional and observant. Someone that knows me well; they notice the unspoken and unseen.
I want him to love me to his fullest—eventually, doesn’t have to be right away.
A deep, all-consuming love that lives in the life we build with each other.
Quiet, loud, and everything in between. I want our love to be tangible.
” Her brows push together. “What about you?”
How do I describe her?
If you were to look up my type in the Cooper Carmichael dictionary, it would be a picture of Sutton Elizabeth Davis. Probably my favorite picture of her taped in there. The dictionary a disguised scrapbook of memories.
She’s my type. My only type—there’s a reason I’ve never hooked up with a redhead or another female hockey player. It’s why I swore off relationships. They’d never be her, and that’s unfair to them.
“Smoking hot. Smart. Strong.” Easier, safer words. “Like me.”
She huffs in disgust. “You are such a playboy. Tell me.” Sutton skates into position for her next shot. “When did you last get your helmet sized?”
“Start of the season, why?”
“I think your ego is getting too big, it’s killing brain cells.”
“Haven’t you heard? Bigger the ego, bigger theeeeeee…” I drag out the word, skating in her direction. I whip around her, beady hazel eyes tracking me, mouth pursed but cheeks pink. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Davis. Bigger the heart.”
She digs her elbow into my gut.
I don’t skate away, forcing her to take her shot with me hovering behind her. She smells good. Fruity. Cherries? Or a berry of sort. Maybe both.
Sutton misses. Rolling her eyes at me, she skates behind me. “Only fair.”
“Yeah, only fair.” I wind up, every muscle in my body is relaxed for a beat, rippling with momentum and precision. The space between the toe and heel connecting with the puck. It soars to the back of the net, and I bite my bottom lip to refrain from gloating.
I can hear the smoke exhaling from her nose.
I snicker to myself before asking my next question. “What qualities do you admire about yourself?”
“That has nothing to do with dating.”
“It does. I think you are intelligent—your mind is creative yet analytical, a sponge. You are relentlessly compassionate to others. Helpful and patient. Your hair has a wild spirit that I think is an external expression of who you are inside. Meave might be the wild child, but you are in your own captivating and magnetic way.”
“Cooper—” Her tone is a warning.
“Make me stop. Tell me.” I stare down at her.
Sutton scrunches her nose, thinking. “I admire…I admire my drive. When I know what I want, I go after it. Even though I’m not confident in dating, I’d like to say I’m a confident person.
” I nod, encouraging her. “My style.” She pauses, and I know there’s more in there she’s not saying. “Oh. My flexibility.”
I cough.
“Now who’s mind is in the gutter, Carmichael. I’m adaptable.” Her gaze falls to her knee. “Forced or not.” Shoulders roll back, standing tall, the skates giving her extra inches. “Do you want more?”
“Up to you.”
“Hmm…one more. I like my hair, too.”
We keep going until Sutton earns M-O-O-S-E first, but only by one letter.
Together we skate back to our bags. She sits down, unlacing her skates and putting the guard back on.
I take a drink of my water, spraying it into my mouth.
My upper body warms and when I dip my eyes, I catch her staring at my throat, pupils flaring at each swallow and bob of my Adam’s apple.
“One more question.” She shakes her head, in the way that pulls you from a daze. “Why skating tonight?”
Sutton answers with a question. “Did you have fun?”
“A lot.”
“There you go.” Her expression is soft but mixed with the sharpness that comes when she knows she’s right about something.
I think I get it.
Not once did I think about hockey, the game and gravity of it. Only for that short blimp did I fall to the stress, otherwise I was light. Relinquished.
Out there on the ice was the old—fuck, that word hurts because it’s not old. The guy who loves hockey is in me still, I know it. I felt it tonight.
“Thank you, Sutton,” I say to her outside the arena.
She smiles tightly. “Good night, Cooper.”