20. SIERRA
CHAPTER 20
SIERRA
A m I worth keeping around?
This question has plagued me since the catering tasting yesterday. I’m pretty sure my eye bags reach my chin after a whole night of tossing and turning in bed, the question running circles in my head.
Two months ago, when I was still acting like a tool to him, I’d have said yes. Absolutely. I wouldn’t know anyone more worthy—or so would my pride have led me to believe.
My answer right now is no.
I’ve been horrible to Conor for two years, just a nightmare to work with. And last night, under the suffocating weight of my conscience, I realized I’ve never properly apologized. I’ve acknowledged my behavior, but never said I was sorry and that I won’t do it again. Except an apology now is going to look so self serving when what’s behind it is that I want to go out with him.
I don’t want to pretend to do couple stuff with him like we did in front of my school tormentor. I want the real thing. The drives around town together, but holding hands while no one’s watching. Eating together with his grandfather. Talking about horrible exes. Going shopping for stuff that isn’t work related. Kissing well outside of the range of mistletoe.
But I don’t deserve any of that.
I drag my feet into the premises of Conrad’s Rink. My backpack is loaded with masking tape to mark the spots where the booths will go. It bounces against my back as I walk through the entrance and the small concessions area loaded with vending machines and a fountain for drinks, before heading over to the wide hallway by the seats.
Faint swooshing and slapping sounds echo along with different voices, some children’s squeals and adult laughter. I pause to check the time, and only now figure out I’m too early and Conor’s still in the middle of class. I take the nearest seat I can find at the top, far from the moms watching the session.
“Did you see that?” One of them points toward a toddler at the front. “That’s my son. Future McDavid right there.”
I slide my hand into the pocket of my coat and use my phone to look up the name. All I glean is that this McDavid guy is some one-of-a-kind talent, so I guess the mother’s comment now makes sense. This must be how all of them see their offspring even though to me they’re little balls of chaos on the ice. There’s a cluster of like five kids smacking their sticks against the ice, I assume looking for a puck… except the rubber disc is actually clear across the ice.
Conor is in the middle of that, wearing black training clothes for winter, and hockey gloves to carry his stick with. He glides smoothly between the future superstars, voicing instructions that go completely unheard. I stifle a chuckle against my fist.
If it were me, I’d have lost my patience already but not Conor. He stops for a moment to explain something to one kid, who then takes off skating with difficulty in his oversized padding. Then Conor sees another kid making snow angels, except there’s no snow. I can tell by how his chest rises that Conor sighs in a what-can-you-do way, but he bends down and picks the kid up by the jersey with one hand, until the kid’s skates find the ice again and off he goes.
Something happens then. The world tilts off its axis and sends me hurtling down in free fall into a void. I put a hand on my chest, willing it to calm down the frenetic beat of my heart. With the other hand I grab onto my seat’s armrest tight, needing a reminder that I’m not actually falling down a cliff. I’m still sitting here, watching Conor show the patience of a saint among a gaggle of unruly kiddies.
Except, this is the moment I know for a fact… that I’ve fallen in love with my former foe.
I don’t just like him. I love everything about him from the way he’s no nonsense at work, to how sweet he is with his grandfather and these kids, to the way he looks at me when I say something important—like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than listening to me. Including how he seems to know what I need without me even saying it.
Conor Mahoney is such a good person, and I’ve been such a fool.
I exhale a shaky breath. This can’t be happening. We haven’t even gone on a date. We just kissed once and it wasn’t even organic, we wouldn’t have kissed if there had been no mistletoe above us. I all but hated him until just a few weeks ago.
And yet right now, he’s all I can see. He keeps me awake at night and makes me dream during the day. He’s been the sole topic of every conversation I’ve had with Grammie the past few days. I even wish the company event would never come—even if it means no ten-thousand check or promotion—just so I can keep working closely with him every day including weekends.
“Ugh.” I drop my face into my hands and groan. I’m so screwed. The event’s in seven days. I can’t undo two years worth of acting like a turd in seven days. I should just start by genuinely apologizing today.
But then it’ll be Christmas break and new year’s. Should I wait until January to see if the feelings are still there? If these strange past few weeks haven’t played games with my forever-alone heart?
Except, what if the distance from the holidays makes him even less eager to give me a chance?
What then? What do I do with myself?
Obviously… I won’t insist. I’m not entitled to him. But something deep inside tells me that I won’t find anyone better than Conor. The loss would be entirely mine.
He blows the whistle twice, it’s as much as it takes for the toddlers to roll and tumble around him. I can’t hear what Conor is telling them between the animated chatter of the moms and my own furiously beating heart. I just glean that it’s the end of the class because Conor claps his gloved hands and some of the moms start getting up.
A few give me curious glances and one of them giggles at me. Like maybe I already have a giant billboard over my head advertising that I have the hots for the hockey instructor.
I wait until every single person has filed out, sinking in my seat in hopes that Conor won’t notice me yet. We’re still fifteen minutes from the time we agreed to meet here, and Conor hasn’t seen me from the stands. The benches are opposite of me, and he skates toward one of them to drop off his gloves and replace his stick with something that looks like the cousin of a broom. While skating, he uses that thing to collect the pucks scattered here and there.
It’s when he skates by my side that my ruse is up. Conor brakes hard enough to splash the boards, and as the slush slides down the glass, I see a smile stretching his lips in a way that makes my heart lurch toward him.
I want more smiles like that, please and thanks .
“Hey, stranger. How long have you been there?” he asks, casually hanging his hands off the end of the weird broom’s stick.
Long enough to work myself up into a heart issue. Instead, I squeak, “Like, fifteen minutes?”
“Oh! Shit, did I give you the wrong time?” He checks his watch again, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows when he realizes he’s not wrong. It’s me.
Isn’t that a metaphor.
“No worries. I got here early by accident.” Clearing my throat, I decide to pick myself up from my seat and approach. Conor watches me walk down the steps until I stand before him, the wet glass in between. “So.”
“So.” He tilts his head.
Don’t worry, Conor. I too wonder where I’m going with this. Your pretty eyes are addling my brain .
“That was you in your element, huh?” I ask, grasping at straws now. Any straws.
He leans an arm against the glass, his forehead coming to rest against it. “What did you think?”
“It looked pretty cool.” It’s kind of a lie because all I could pay attention to was him, and he’s something better than just cool.
“I was way cooler back in the day,” Conor says with a toothy grin. “Just zipping up and down the ice at a million miles per hour, battling it out with big dudes who didn’t care about losing teeth.”
I narrow my eyes. “You seem to have kept them all.”
“You’re right, that’s definitely a silver lining of retiring early.”
“How about you show me?”
His eyebrows pop. “My teeth?”
I bark a laugh. “No, you silly goose. Your zipping up and down, like when you were allegedly cooler. ”
“Allegedly? Those are fighting words, woman.” He grumbles before pulling away from the boards and skating backwards. “Fine, I’ll show you.”
“Yes, please,” I murmur into my scarf. And I don’t even mean it in a pervy way, I just want to see every facet of him that has been out of my reach.
I sit at the front row now while he retrieves his stuff from the bench, and once he’s outfitted, Conor transforms. The stick becomes an extension of his body as he picks up speed and turns, taking one of the pucks along with him. Powerful thighs pump hard against the ice and he eats terrain faster than I can blink. Conor is a blur as he skates past me, somehow not dropping the puck for a second.
My breath hitches in my throat and I jump to my feet. He’s going way too fast and the net is too close. I don’t even care that the puck hits the back of the net because he’s about to freaking crash!
But he doesn’t.
He bends his legs and that changes his direction. One second he’s hurtling at the boards and the next he’s gliding along them, stealing the puck off the net to start all over again.
I plop on my chair, my heart racing just as fast as Conor zig zags around the ice, not even losing steam even though I’m tired from just watching him. How amazing was he during his career, if this is what he can do now that he’s retired and not conditioned?
Abruptly, I remember something Richard said before Conor arrived for his first day at SPORTY . “I saw this guy tear up the ice at Madison Square Garden two years ago, I can’t believe he’s joining our team now. Life is wild, huh?”
“Qué si no,” I tell myself.
“How’s that for allegedly ?” Conor asks as he brakes across from me once more. He’s breathing slightly harder, though not in great guffaws like I’d be. His cheeks are rosy and his eyes are bright behind his glasses. But the part that kills me the most is his hair—it’s a spiky mess at the top of his head that is begging for my fingers to comb it.
“I stand corrected,” I admit in a breathy voice. “You’re still amazing.”
His lips part as in surprise. “Still?”
“Yup.”
He traps a glove between his elbow and ribs, and uses the free hand to brush his hair. “Well, thanks. I still skate on my own so I’m glad to know I haven’t lost it.”
“Does it make you happy?” I lean forward, eager for the answer.
“Yeah.” His eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Then you’ll never lose it.”
Conor stays quiet, although his face is still smiling. It’s like he needs a moment to marinate the words, use them to reach an answer of some sort in his mind. And then he asks, “Sierra, do you want to skate for a bit before we start working?”
Like a… like a skating date?
But I shake the thought out of my head hard. Dates aren’t a spur of the moment thing, so that’s not it.
“Um.” I hide further behind my scarf. “I actually don’t know how to skate.”
Wrong thing to say to a former professional hockey player. Conor’s eyes widen and when he picks up his jaw, he says, “That’s it. We’ll pull an all-nighter if we have to, but first I’m going to give you some lessons.”
And you know what? Screw work. I offer exactly zero protests at this new plan.