Home Ice (6 page)

With their crazy lives, what chance was there that this could work out? Better to stay friends. He brought that count to precisely one. She needed a friend. She didn’t need a broken heart. There was no room for wallowing in her training schedule.

Dylan walked onto the fan with Matt’s help then levitated about five feet. Not surprising he wouldn’t go as high as she did. The man was a wall of thick muscle. But it didn’t take away any of the euphoria on his face. He lowered his head and opened his mouth so his cheeks flapped in the wind, and then he beamed at her with two thumbs up. She grinned and returned the gesture.

Before his time was up, he spun out of the airstream, hit a padded wall, and fell on his butt. When he stood, he waved her over and held out his hand. She glanced at Matt, who nodded his permission. Holding on to Dylan, she followed him over the fan, and Matt had them join their other hands so when they floated up, they looked like real formation skydivers.

It was addicting but still hard to distinguish the source of the butterflies in her belly. Flying was fun, but Dylan’s firm, warm grip and his gaze locked on hers made it hard to breathe. And it should not be hard to breathe with 120 mph of wind beneath her.

Matt signaled that their time was up, so she let Dylan go, and they both fell back onto the padding. When they left the wind tunnel, she still tingled from head to toe and couldn’t stop smiling. They unclipped helmets and took off the flight suits. Even after the earplugs came out, things sounded fuzzy. She answered Matt’s raised brows by pointing to her ears.

He nodded. “Totally normal. It’ll come back within the hour. Thanks for flying with us, and we hope to see you guys back soon. Dude, feel free to bring the whole team. Great meeting you!” Matt had no idea who she was, and it was kind of nice for once.

“You, too, man, thanks.” Dylan waved with one hand and set the other on the small of her back as he led them out. It was a small gesture. Unexpected, but not in the creepy way like when Bradley touched her. This was 100 percent chivalry.

“That was … so awesome.”

“I’m glad.” He gave her a playful hip check, but before she could get too far, he took her hand and held on.

Oh boy.
She should pull away. Set boundaries before things went too far. Before anyone got hurt. Handholding could lead to expectations and complications. And while the idea of those complications heated her up faster than the Vegas sun and tempted her almost beyond reason, she couldn’t lose this. She also couldn’t seem to make herself pull away. This thing they had, whatever it was, was the only thing keeping her sane at the moment.

“Dylan—”

“So what’s the verdict? Did you think about training once?”

The subject change pushed her further off course and robbed her focus. “I … no. Not once.” The shock of it wiped her mental slate clean, and when it sank in, she smiled. “Not once.”

“Me either. Think we should make this a habit?”

Probably not.
“That sounds really good.”

He kissed her temple. Just a quick peck, but it resonated right down to the tips of her toes.
Oh boy.

Friday, October 10th

Morning skates had never been stressful for him. Not until recently. They had been a time to show off, goof off—when Nealy wasn’t looking—and warm up for a game. Lately, they’d been one more opportunity for him to fail. At least it wasn’t televised. Sinners practices were open to the public, but hardly anyone ever showed. Most of Vegas didn’t wake up early, and the parts that did were already at work. Today would especially suck hard because they were getting ready for the first regular season game. But then a blonde ponytail swished past the glass while he was stretching on the ice, and Lori took a seat by the players’ bench. Instead of her usual tights and leotard, she wore yoga pants that did a similar job of hugging her lean body topped with a Sinners zip hoodie. He smiled.

“All right, let’s run some drills!” Nealy’s high voice preceded her whistle, and everyone lined up. They’d all accepted his slump and stopped looking at him like they were waiting for him to snap out of it at any minute. They jumped into a passing drill, cycling through until everyone had a chance to receive and shoot on goal. When it was his turn, he caught Lori’s wink from the sidelines right before he took off.

For the first time in weeks, he forgot about what he was supposed to do and just winged it. He darted around, opened himself for the pass, then fired it through Reese’s five hole before the goalie’s knees could close. His teammates hooted and skated up to him one after another, patting him on the shoulder and touching their helmets to his. Relief poured through him. It felt
great
. And terrifying, because what if it was a fluke? What if the pressure came back and shut him down again?

He glanced at Lori, whose grin could power the whole city with its wattage. She clapped and whooped with the rest of his team, and his heart contracted. When had he dated someone who not only came to practices, but also fit right in and
really
seemed to enjoy being there? Before Tricia, he’d seen the occasional puck bunny who was more interested in being associated with him than actually being
with
him. If they came to practice, it was to flirt, and not always just with him.

Lori didn’t look at anyone else, and she didn’t need him to make a name for herself. She’d already done that on her own. He couldn’t stop staring at her with what had to be a stupid smile. It was almost like they were alone in the rink—for sure alone in the moment—and his anxiety melted away.

“Yo, Romeo! You got another one in you? You’re up again.” Reese’s voice broke through the haze. Oh, right. Practice.

The rest of it wasn’t so intimidating with his own personal cheerleader. Showing off for her was the most fun he’d had on the ice since training camp. The guys noticed and shot him some knowing looks, poked him with the ends of their sticks, and wiggled some eyebrows. But if they had any issues or comments, they kept them to themselves.

When Coach blew the last whistle, he was covered in sweat and laughing with his teammates.

“All right, gentlemen. You didn’t completely suck. Now eat up, rest up, and get ready for the home opener. I want to light that lamp so much it burns out tonight.”

They filed down the carpet runner to the locker room, but he hung back. Nealy looked at him, then at Lori and back, before shrugging and heading up to the main concourse.

Lori leaned a hip against the rink wall and folded her arms across her chest. “Nice work out there.” Four simple words, but they flooded him with pride and accomplishment. The practice counted for nothing—it wasn’t even his best stuff—but impressing her felt like being picked for the Olympic team for the first time.

“Oh, uh, thanks. It felt good to skate circles around the guys again. They didn’t seem to mind.”

Her smile lost a little of its glow.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh …” She waved it off, but he shook out of his glove and caught her hand. Her fingers were cold from the rink air, and he closed them in his palm to rub them warm. Her pale green eyes glossed over, and she bit her lower lip. “You are
so
nice.”

That was enough to shock a half smirk out of him. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

“Maybe I am. Not that
you’re
nice, just that—I’m not making sense. Sorry. Watching you out there, it was awesome. You’re close with your teammates. Friends. I’ve never had that.”

“But … you’ve been on the Olympic team.”

“They weren’t really teammates. We didn’t perform together. We didn’t really train together. We had separate ice time with the coaches, worked on our own routines, won or lost by ourselves. We could medal as a team, but we also medaled individually. We competed against each other. No one was outwardly mean. There was a lot of respect. But jealousy, too. No one goes into figure skating to make friends.”

He’d never thought of it that way. Hockey had been his life since he could walk. The team relationship had always been a part of it, something he took for granted, not something he ever focused on. They were like brothers. They got on each other’s nerves, but at the end of the day, the support was there. The loyalty. The bond. Knowing Lori had never felt that, seeing the hurt in her eyes, it hurt him, too. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it.

“I’ll be your friend.”

The tears slid down her cheeks, but she laughed. “Okay. I swear I’m not complaining. I chose my life, every part of it. Every decision I’ve made has had skating at the heart of it. I’d never paid attention to other sports. Guess I never realized what I was missing.”

“Well, I can’t change your sport. But I can be in your corner.”

“Are you
sure
you’re real?” She poked his chest with her free hand.

“Will you stop that?” He grinned and kissed her knuckles. “Yes. And as proof, I’m about to ask a real favor.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Come to the game tonight.”

Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

“Please? I don’t think you’re lucky. I don’t think you’re
un
lucky, but showing off for you seems to be better motivation than even my immense fear and respect for my coach. And I know you just met her, but that’s saying a lot.”

She was quiet for another few seconds then sighed. “Okay. If you’re in my corner, I’m in yours. That’s how it works, right?”

“I’m getting the better end of the deal, but yes.”

She smiled through chattering teeth.

He shook off his other glove, gathered both her hands in his, and blew on them softly.

Her breath caught, and she held his gaze. “I think … we might be even in the better deal business.”

“Warm hands are just one thing I bring to the table.”

Game time

This is what friends do
. That was such a weird thought. Twenty-four years, and it’d never been apparent she didn’t have friends until now. How sad was that? When she first started skating at four years old, kids had been nice. They’d carpooled, had play dates after practices, gone to school together. But now that she thought about it, the deeper Lori had gone into skating, the more the friends had started to fade away.

She’d gotten her own trainers, competed in meets, home-schooled with private tutors, and, without honestly realizing it or meaning to, had eliminated most people from her life. Most of the genuine ones, anyway.

That’s why it was so strange to be at a hockey
game sitting against the glass by the players’ bench—not somewhere she’d typically find herself on a Friday night—in support of her
friend
. Well, he might fit into other categories, but “friend” was the only comfortable term. All the others brought on an anxiety attack.

The arena lights went down and spotlights danced around while the announcer welcomed everyone and called the starting lineup. As most guys came down the tunnel, they walked right by her onto the ice. The goalie noticed her and did a double take but looked amused. Did he know why she was there? Maybe they all did, but he was the only one to react.

Dylan was at the end of the line, and
he
definitely noticed her. His silly, sweet grin, mouth guard dangling from his lips, made her tingle from head to toe. Of all his qualities, and there were many, the best was that unlikely transparency. What you saw was what you got. Hockey was the only game he played, and that was … irresistible. Figure skating had prepared her for fake Vegas. Nothing had prepared her for Dylan.

The crowd hushed, and Britney Spears
walked to center ice in what had to be a child-sized bedazzled Sinners jersey, low-slung jeans, and hair extensions to her butt to sing the national anthem. Lori’s jaw dropped, and she pressed her hands to the glass. This didn’t happen at every game, did it? It was the Sinners’ home opener. Maybe this was a special thing. And Britney did have her own show on the Strip, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. Her performance roused a roar of applause from the audience, and she wished the Sinners luck then strode off, hips swaying and hair swinging.

Only in Vegas.
Lori sat on the edge of her chair as the lights went up and the players skated into place. If the rest of the game was as exciting as the anthem, this might not be so bad.

Who was she kidding? Dylan alone made the night worth it.

Spending time with him the last few weeks, she’d picked up some of the basics. There were three periods in a game, and icing was bad. What icing
was
still held some mystery, but the refs were quick to call it with raised arms, and shortly into the first period, it became a little clearer because the Sinners were doing it. A lot. And it looked like they were doing it because Dylan kept missing passes near his own goalie, putting his team at risk. The icing was a last-ditch effort to stop the Kings from scoring, but all it did was bring the face-offs back right in front of the Sinners’ goalie. Seemed like a bad strategy. Nealy’s sonic screeching confirmed that.

By the first period break, the Kings were up by one. That wasn’t terrible. What was terrible was the odor radiating off the players as they passed her on their way to the locker room.
Yow
. Sure, she sweated when she worked out and probably didn’t smell spring fresh after a performance, but
this
was otherworldly. Maybe it was fear sweat, because with Nealy hot on their blades, they had to be preparing for an ass-chewing. Lori tried to catch his eye, but Dylan didn’t look at her as he passed. It was the first time since she’d met him that he didn’t at least acknowledge her presence with a smile, and disappointment pricked her.

Why? He was focused on the game. It was entirely understandable. And they were friends, but it wasn’t like they were seriously dating. She’d been very careful to maintain distance. Okay, there’d been a few slips, but for the most part, she’d kept him at arm’s length. So why did one tiny slight feel like a cardiac paper cut?
This is stupid.
It wasn’t about her. He was too busy beating himself up to notice anything or anyone else. Not like she lacked experience with that. Relationship stuff however …