Chapter 11 #2
“It’s a new winter festival she’s organizing. Hockey-themed activities, local vendors, a hot chocolate competition ...” Her eyebrows bounce. “Guess who they want to enter it?”
“Please don’t say you volunteered me.”
She beams. “I most certainly did. Word has gotten around about your skills.”
I groan. “This is what I get for making one decent cup of cocoa.”
“You made more than one and it’s more than decent. It’s better than mine, and I run a bakery.”
“You make the best marshmallows, though.”
“True. In that case, you could say that we make a good team. Maybe they could be our secret weapon.”
We do make a good team. In the kitchen, with Kai, and in stolen moments alone. Maybe my father is wrong. This won’t crash and burn. Perhaps everything is going to be okay.
Nina’s gaze flashes like she remembers something she’s been meaning to tell me. “Also, it was the strangest thing, while I was in town earlier, meeting with Leah, I thought I saw a girl who looked familiar.”
“Familiar how?”
Nina squints as if peering at a blurry photograph. “She looked kind of like Kai. Same dark hair, same green eyes. Same mischievous expression.” Nina shrugs. “But when I went to get a better look, she was gone. Probably just my imagination.”
A chill snakes down my spine. “How old do you think she was?”
“About Kai’s age, maybe a little younger. Hard to say. But really. It’s probably just stress and changes going to my head. I’d take a day off, but—”
I interrupt. “Strange. I thought I saw someone just like that yesterday, outside the arena.” I run my hand down my face. “Thought I was overtired.” Had a case of brain freeze.
We stare at each other for a moment, both processing the implications.
“You don’t think ...?” Nina starts.
“That Desi had another kid she forgot to mention?”
Nina laughs like we both could use a day off.
But I say, “With my sister, anything is possible.”
She bites her lip. “We should ask Kai.”
Or just forget the whole thing because it does sound a little “bonkers.”
When he gets off the ice, Nina casually mentions in a joking way that we both saw someone who could very well be his twin.
The kid’s body language immediately shifts. He becomes guarded, defensive in a way I haven’t seen since his first night at my apartment. “Nope,” Kai says quickly. “Why would I have a twin?”
Nina, thinking on her feet, speaks gently, “We just want to check to see if there’s another kid around who might need help.”
“I said I don’t know anything!” Kai snaps, then immediately looks guilty for raising his voice. “Can I just keep skating?”
Nina and I exchange glances. He is definitely hiding something. But what? Although my sister could’ve had another child, wouldn’t I have known about it?
Later that afternoon, after we’ve dropped Kai at his friend Tyler’s house for a sleepover, Nina and I head back to the Busy Bee to prep for the bake sale table she’ll run at the festival.
“Do you mind grabbing the label maker from my office?” she asks, practically elbow-deep in bread dough.
I poke around, looking for the label maker.
While nearly everything in Nina’s life is meticulously organized, the same cannot be said for her office.
It could be that it’s the size of a closet and that’s being generous.
My gaze lands on an official-looking document printed with FINAL NOTICE across the top.
There are red letters with amounts owed—a sizeable debt.
I barely have time to register that it’s for the lease of this building when she crashes into me as I turn around at the sound of her approach.
“Sorry, couldn’t—” I start.
Just then, the door slams, closing us both into the office, er, closet.
We’re close. Very close. So close, I’d hardly have to move for my lips to land on hers. But we don’t kiss. Instead, concern builds in me.
She hasn’t mentioned what seems like a dire financial situation. But I don’t want to think about how my father might be right. Not with us pressed together in the small space. Not with what suddenly feels like a kitchen timer counting down the minutes until we’re done.
The dim desk light barely illuminates the room, and I hope she doesn’t see the worry lines on my face. Not until I figure out how to talk to her about this matter.
She says, “Came to check on you and—”
“Good thing because I couldn’t find the label maker.”
“But you found me.” She giggles and I tell myself not to be transfixed by the sparkle in her gray eyes.
It’s time to put some distance between us, at least for the moment, until I can think clearly about what her bakery being in trouble could mean. However, when I try the office door, it won’t budge.
“I’d better get those muffins in the oven,” she says, breathily as if she, too, is well aware of our proximity. But thankfully, not my slippery thoughts.
Voice rough with want, I say, “I think the door is stuck or locked—”
“That’s impossible.” She giggles, then must read the seriousness in my eyes—the kind I wish wasn’t there because it’s not just about the door.
“The lock is on the inside—” She tries the handle herself, then frowns. “That’s weird.”
Or convenient, but I can’t long for her right now. Not when there’s a question about her intentions.
“Pretend it’s a hockey player who just shoved you into the boards.” But she’s leaning into me.
Giving my head a shake to come out of my “Nina stupor,” as best I can without much room to move, I throw my good shoulder against it. Doesn’t budge. “I think we’re locked in.”
We spend the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how the door got jammed from the outside, but come up empty-handed. And okay, fine. We make out a bit. It cannot be helped. Eventually, Leah comes looking for us and lets us out.
Eyebrow arched, she says, “I do not want to know what was going on in there.”
Pink-cheeked, Nina says, “We got locked in.”
“Mmmhmm. Sure.”
“No, seriously. It was strange, but there have been some odd pranks around here, especially lately, when Kai comes here after school. Nothing major, just mischievous things.”
“Like what?”
“Someone swapped the baking soda with the baking powder. Then I found those dreaded fake spiders in the coffee bean bin. Yesterday, three cookies were missing. They were day-olds, but still.” She shrugs. “Kid stuff. But the door seems different.”
“Have you talked to him?” Leah mentions that she comes from a big family and is well aware of shenanigans.
“We discussed how the pranking had to stop if he wants to skate.”
Leah nods. “Well, we’ll make sure he doesn’t ever talk to my brother. Chuck was the tiny king of mischief when we were growing up. Anyway, Lane, can we grab you for a few minutes to help move some equipment?”
I jokingly flex my biceps, then peck Nina on the cheek, promising her I’ll be back to help with the extra baking.
Even as the guys and I joke and banter, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. The mysterious girl, Kai’s defensive behavior, the pranks around the bakery, and the letter in Nina’s office.
I follow Leah across the street to the town center and help some of my teammates move tables, chairs, and makeshift vendor booths into position for tomorrow. I thought the Happy Hockey Days Festival would be a small-town affair, but this looks like a major operation.
When hours pass and Nina is still baking to prepare enough items to sell for the bake sale, I return to pitch in and help. My thoughts whir along with the mixing machines as I think about my father’s comments, Xoe, and the final notice document in Nina’s office.
Her sweet voice draws me out of the caverns in my mind. “You’re frowning at that mixing bowl like it insulted your hockey skills.”
“Sorry. Just thinking.”
“About your father’s call?” she asks, perceptive.
“Among other things.” I set down the bowl and turn to face her. “Nina, can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“Earlier, you said that you didn’t care about my money. Would you still feel that way if I didn’t have any? If my career ended tomorrow because of an injury, and I was just Regular Guy Lane?”
Nina wipes her hands on her apron and wears a quizzical expression. “Regular Guy Lane?” Her lips slowly part as if she’s trying to conceal laughter. “Are you asking me if I’d love you if you weren’t a famous hockey player?”
Love.
“Maybe.” I suddenly feel way out of my comfort zone talking about things like this and slightly foolish.
She steps closer. “Do you want to know what I fell in love with?”
I nod slowly.
“Your good looks. Your gaze across a crowded ballroom. The terrible jokes. The unlikelihood of there being a you and a me. What were the chances?”
“Slim to none.”
“I fell for your perfect hot chocolate. How you hug Kai even though you’re not a hugger.” She steps closer. “I fell in love with the man who was bold enough to dance with a stranger at a New Year’s Eve party, and brave enough to marry her under hypnosis.”
“That’s a lot of things that have nothing to do with hockey.”
“Exactly.” She reaches up and cups my face in her semi-floury hands. “I have a solution for all this overthinking you’re doing.”
“Stress-baking?”
“I don’t think that’s your forte.”
“Culinary emotional regulalation?” I guess.
“I have been craving steak, but no.”
“‘Cookies?’”
“Something even better,” she says, and then she’s kissing me again, and for a long moment, all my doubts and fears and father’s warnings fade away.
The kiss is soft and sweet, like hot chocolate and marshmallows, yet robust—darker chocolate rather than simple cocoa. There’s something tender yet fierce about the way she kisses me, like she’s trying to chase away every shadow that’s ever crossed my mind.
To make sure I’m certain.
To make us concrete.
To make what we have sure.
My hands come up to frame her face, and I kiss her back with everything I have—all the gratitude and wonder and love I can’t seem to find words for.
For these few seconds, there’s no pressure, no expectations, no voice in my head telling me I’m not working hard enough—the one that sounds exactly like my father. There’s just Nina, kissing me like I’m exactly who she wants, broken pieces and all.
Then I give back, dotting kisses along her jaw, sweeping my mouth along her neck, and returning to her lips with an intensity that surprises me, but it shouldn’t.
She’s everything to me and I tell her so in but one way I know how, deepening the kiss.
When we break apart, it takes a moment to catch my breath. She’s grinning like she’s just solved all the world’s problems—or at least mine.
“Feel better?” she asks.
“Much, but I think we should practice that solution a few more times. You know, to make sure it works.”
With a giggle, she says, “I think that can be arranged.
When we kiss again, I don’t think about my father, my injuries, or my ex.
Rather, I realize that love takes practice, much like hockey, but is a daily choice. I’ve made mine.
However, even as I lose myself in Nina’s lips, I can’t quite shake the image of that mysterious girl, or the way Kai’s face closed off when we asked about her.
Some secrets, I’m learning, have a way of coming to light whether you’re ready for them or not.