by Carly Syms
Right there at our table in the restaurant.
And I kiss him back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It's dark by the time we leave the restaurant and Shane pilots us back to his family's cabin on his snow mobile. He'd insisted on dessert, which is something I hadn't had while eating out since I was a little kid, but it somehow seems perfect -- right -- tonight.
I'm not afraid of the ride back through the forest and up the mountain tonight. I'm still holding tight to Shane but I don't feel the need to close my eyes and pray. I know I'm safe with him.
The snow-packed lanes through the pine trees is especially beautiful with the moonlight and stars brightening the path and I can't look away.
As we get closer to his cabin, I realize -- for the first time all day -- that his friends hadn't joined us on the slopes. I guess that isn't weird though; he'd mentioned that they were all pretty good skiers and a day of bunny slopes and green circle trails probably didn't float their fancy.
Fine by me. They hadn't been all that friendly last night anyway and I'd rather just hang out with Shane by myself. I'm glad I had the day with him; pretty sure tonight's going to be another one with us playing cards or dominoes or whatever the others want to do.
Shane pulls the snow mobile back around the cabin and stops in front of the shed. I climb off and hand him the googles. He looks at me and grins.
"What?" I ask.
He shakes his head.
"No, really. What? Is there something on my face?"
He just smiles and brings the snow mobile into the shed, leaving me standing there wiping at my cheeks.
He comes back out, secures the padlock on the two doors and takes my hand as we walk back toward the cabin together.
I hurry straight upstairs to shower and change into warm, thick and -- most importantly -- dry sweatpants. I glance in the bathroom mirror before I jump under the steaming water and see that there's a deep red groove framing my eyes where the goggles had rested, and I realize that's what Shane had been laughing at when I'd taken them off before.
I step into the hot stream of water and let it wash over me as I play over the events of the day, from Shane making bacon and eggs as the sun came up to his patience with me as I stumbled and grumbled my way down the bunny hill.
It's been a perfect day, start to finish, one of the best I can remember having.
And you want to know the weird part about it?
It came when I was living in Wisconsin.
***
I head downstairs dressed in thick sweatpants and a Phoenix Coyotes sweatshirt, hair still wet, half an hour later.
Shane's sitting at the kitchen table with his parents but looks up and smiles when he sees me.
"Natalie!" Mr. Melter follows his son's gaze. "How'd you enjoy your first day on the slopes?"
"It was interesting," I say truthfully. "But I'd do it again."
"Well, that's half the battle," he replies in a hearty voice, a nearly empty mug of beer resting on the table in front of him. Mrs. Stanford grins to herself as she stirs a pot of pasta on the stove.
Shane stands. "Let's go out back," he says to me.
I'm afraid he's going to suggest we sit in the hot tub like we wanted to last night and I'm going to have to tell him that there's no chance I'm about to take off these warm comfy clothes and replace them with a bathing suit.
Instead, I follow him to the opposite end of the deck and down a small flight of steps.
"Leave your shoes here," he tells me, sliding out of his sneakers and kicking them up against the cabin. I slip off my boots and tuck the socks inside them.
"You better have a reason for this," I tell him as my toes sink into the snowy ground, and I'm reasonably sure I'm going to get frostbite and my feet will fall off.
"Relax," he says. "Come on."
We walk a few yards away from the house and the next thing I know, the ground under me isn't cold and snowy anymore but warm and sandy.
"What...?"
"It's our fire pit. Here, sit." He leads me over to a couch nestled in the sand. There's another one opposite it, and two chairs on each side forming something of a circle around a big, well, fire pit.
I curl up onto the couch, freezing, and wishing he'd told me to grab a jacket before we came outside. He grabs some logs from a pile off to the edge of the sand and carries them back over to the cylinder in the middle.
"Do you need help with those?"
He looks over at me and smiles. "I got it."
And he does. Within a few minutes, flames shoot out of the pit and I'm almost instantly warmer.
He reaches into a bench behind the couch and comes back with a blanket that he hands to me.
"Should've done that first," he says as he helps me tuck it under my legs. "Better?"
I nod, my teeth no longer chattering uncontrollably. "This is nice."
"It is," he agrees. "Almost as nice as the hot tub."
As if on cue, his friends come out of the house then and immediately climb into the steaming water at the other end of the deck.
"I knew they'd do that," he goes on. "That's why I thought this would be better."
"It's great."
Neither of us says anything for a few minutes as I get lost in watching the yellows, oranges and reds of the flame licking at the darkness of the night sky.
"Do you really think I can do this?" I ask quietly, not taking my eyes off the fire.
"The hockey thing?" he replies. "Of course. You're already on the team."
I love that he immediately knows I'm talking about hockey. "Not just that. Starting. Taking Erica's spot."
"Yeah, I think you can," he says, and I finally look at him.
"I don't know."
"What's with all this?" he asks. "You never said you didn't think you could before."
I shrug. "It just seems ridiculous, that's all. She's been a goalie forever and I've been one for, what, two months?"
"Talent is talent," he replies.
"She might have more."
"Yeah, or she might not."
"I don't even have any allies on the team. They're all on her side."
"You don't know that," he says. "And you'll make friends."
"Yeah, or maybe not," I shoot back, and he grins.
"Who wouldn't love you, Nat?"
I blush and look down at my hands. "This is all so different to me," I say quietly. "I just don't want to blow it."
"Look, remember when I told you what happened to me that night at the draft?"
"For the pros?"
He nods. "Yeah, that one. That was the worst night of my life. I can't think of failing at something more than I failed at hockey then."
I open my mouth to protest but he shakes his head and holds up his hand.
"Wait," he says. "Just hear me out on this, okay?"
"Yeah. Okay."
"When you play hockey the way that I did, you play it to make it the pros. That's just the way it was for me. And then I didn't do it. So if there's anyone that knows what it's like to work for something and then fail at it in the worst way possible, it's me. For days after that, the talk wasn't about who went with the first pick or why the Blue Lizards had a terrible draft. It was all about why Shane Stanford didn't get selected. What did he do wrong? Is he not the goal-scoring threat we thought he was? Did the media get wrong? Why didn't someone just take a chance on this kid? It was everywhere, Nat."
He shakes his head and takes a deep breath but I keep quiet.
"So," he continues. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that it does no good to beat yourself up and constantly wonder whether you're good enough because someone will always tell you differently. It took me a long time to realize it after that draft, but now I know I'm good enough to play in the pros. If those thirty general managers don't see it, well, that's their problem. But I believe in me, and that's the best that I can do."
"But aren't you scared you won't make it?"
"Of course," he r
eplies. "I'd have to be crazy not to be. This is my last shot at my dream. When I was a baby, the mobile that hung over my crib had hockey sticks and pucks and goals. By the time I was in kindergarten, I had posters of all the greats on my walls. Hockey was never not an option for me."
"What if it doesn't work out?"
"Then I come up with a new dream," he replies. "Or figure out a new way to keep this one." He shrugs. "There are lots of professional leagues overseas. Maybe I could go play in Europe for a couple seasons and then sign a contract here." He shrugs. "I'll still have a history degree from Wisconsin. Maybe I do something with that and coach hockey. I kind of just found out that I love doing it." I can't help but smile at that. "I guess what I'm saying is that I know now that I've done everything I can to make this part of my dream happen, and if it doesn't, that isn't on me."
I nod. "Yeah, that makes sense."
"Didn't mean to get all cheesy on you."
I smile at him as he scoots closer to me on the couch to slip under the blanket that I definitely hadn't been sharing.
"I like it," I say. "I like knowing about things like this with you."
"I don't think you need to worry much about starting," he tells me. "You're good enough but you never know how loyal a coach is to her returning players. You made the team. I hope you're proud of that, at least."
"I know," I say. "And I am. But I want a new challenge."
"We've still got time to get you there. But for right now, we're still on vacation. No need to go back to the real world just yet, right?"
I bite the bottom of my lip. "No, I guess there isn't."
"Glad you agree," he says before he leans in to kiss me, one hand mixing up in my hair, the other resting lightly on my knee beneath the blanket.
And suddenly, I'm not sure if I'm hotter because of the fire burning next to me or because of the feeling of Shane's lips pressing down onto mine.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Shane and I mostly slept through the car ride home from the mountains yesterday, and I'm okay with that. I didn't expect much private time with his parents sitting less than twelve inches in front of us the whole time.
A way-too-short weekend ended with a way-too-short evening in front of the fire last night. Once he'd started kissing me, Shane hadn't stopped until the flames had died down to nothing more than embers and it was hard for me to keep my teeth from chattering.
I'm bummed that we have real practice after class today with the team and Coach Dobrov, and I won't be seeing Shane. He's got too much going on downtown to come to the suburbs for a special practice session with me after my official one.
I'm sitting at the very end of one of the wooden benches lining the rink, my teammates scattered around me. I still don't really know any of them, but it's clear from the constant buzz of conversation and occasional peal of laughter that they all know each other.
Great.
The door to the rink opens and another girl dressed in goalie pads walks in.
There she is.
Erica Wunders.
Otherwise known as the only thing that can stop me from starting this season.
Erica clomps -- seriously, have you ever tried to move around in goalie pads? There's no way to make that graceful -- in my direction and drops down onto the bench next to me.
"Hey," she says, brushing some of her black hair off her forehead. "Welcome aboard, Natalie."
I smile at her, but I'm immediately suspicious. "Thank you."
"Get ready for this. Suicides are definitely going to be on tap first," she says, and now I'm wondering if maybe I'd been wrong about Erica the whole time. Maybe she'd just been super focused on the tryout that day and hadn't realized she was coming across so, well, rudely.
"Uh oh," I say, trying to keep things light and friendly. "Those are my least favorite drills."
"You'll get better at them once you play hockey longer."
"Yeah, I guess you'd know. It definitely shows you've been doing this forever and I'm pretty sure it's obvious I've only been at it for a couple of months."
Erica nods. "Yeah, it is."
I blink twice. I hadn't expected her to agree with me. I'm scrambling to come up with some kind of response to that when she goes on.
"That's not to say you can't get better or anything, Natalie. It's just hard when you're so new to the game."
"Well, I think I'm doing alright."
Erica nods enthusiastically. "Oh, for sure! For sure! Oh, my gosh, I didn't mean to say you're not," she says, but I'm not buying the sugary sweetness in her tone this time. "I guess I'm just trying to tell you not to be too discouraged if you don't get a lot of playing time, that's all. It's hard to beat out someone like me."
"I guess we'll see, right?"
A quick frown flashes across her face but before she can say anything, Coach Dobrov blows her whistle, cutting off the rest of the conversation.
"Ladies!" the coach bellows out. "Welcome to the new season. Congratulations on making it this far. You're all about to be part of something very special as long as you're willing to work for it."
I try not to smile. After my little chat with Erica, I'm more willing to work to get this than ever before.
Coach Dobrov explains how practices will run, and from the sound of things, today is about to be chock full of all sorts of conditioning drills, or, as I like to call them, torture.
She has us all line up on one of the blue lines, and I'm instantly envious of the girls who aren't about to have to do all these sprints in full goalie padding.
And sure enough, sprints are exactly what Coach Dobrov has in mind, the same ones we had to do to start tryouts.
Coach Dobrov blows her whistle and I begin skating. It's easy at first -- Shane's insistence on conditioning drills might actually pay off one more time -- but by the I'm on my way back from the last blue line, my legs feel heavy and a thick braid of sweat prickles on my hairline.
I'm almost to the finish line when I realize she hasn't blown the whistle yet, but already two girls have given up. One lies flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling, arms at her side and the other is bent over on one knee, gagging in the corner.
But Erica is still skating with ease.
I force myself to keep going. She won't beat me. I won't let that happen. I can't. I reach the blue line and turn around to go back to the first red line. As long as it takes. Even if the blades fall off my skates.
Four more girls have dropped out by the time I'm on my way back from the far goal. Erica isn't one of them, and I already know we're going to be the last two standing, and Coach Dobrov's not going to show us any mercy.
My legs wobble, the skates feeling more foreign on my feet now than they had the very first day I'd put them on, but I'm not stopping. There are just three of us left standing, and as I start another round of the drill, I see the only other person separating me from Erica stumble and hit the ice.
Coach Dobrov stands inside the bench, arms folded across her chest, whistle dangling around her neck, and it doesn't look like she has plans to blow it any time soon.
Erica and I keep skating -- we're neck-and-neck, really -- and I'm looking at her out of the corner of my eye when the front of the blade of her skate digs awkwardly into the ice and she trips and falls.
The whistle blows then and even though Erica hadn't really quit, I don't care.
I'm the last one standing.
"Nice job, ladies," Coach Dobrov says, shooting a quick glance in my direction. "Let's move into position drills for the rest of the afternoon."
I skate over to where Coach King waits by one of the nets, not at all excited when I realize that I'm essentially going to have to spend every practice with Erica Wunders.
Great.
I can hardly wait.
***
I'm in the locker room changing into non-sweaty yoga pants and a sweatshirt to head home in when Ivy drops down onto the bench next to me.
"Boy, do I feel bad for you," she says
, tipping her head back and taking a sip from her water bottle.
I raise my eyebrows. "What?"
"You're the sucker who gets to be Erica's back-up. That's not somethin' I'd wish on my worst enemy."
"So you mean it's not all in my head?" I ask with a smile, happy to hear maybe I'm not the only one Erica isn't super fond of.
She definitely had not been happy to lose out to me during the suicide drill and she wasn't shy about making it known that she'd tripped -- not quit -- all through the rest of practice. Even Coach King eventually had to remind her that goalies are supposed to have short memories.
"Erica thinks she the best player in Wisconsin," Ivy says with a roll of her eyes. "You'll get tired of it really fast."
"Who says I'm not already?"
"Welcome aboard," she says. "You're the best back-up goalie we've had on the team in all my years playing here so far. And this is my fourth."
"Doesn't seem to matter much with Erica in net," I grumble. "I didn't know you were on the team. I didn't see you at tryouts."
"I was sick," she says. "Coach D cut me a break because I've played for her for the last three years. Still made me do individual conditioning drills when I was better to make sure I didn't turn into a lazy slug during the offseason, though."
I laugh. "That sounds about right."
"Hey, what are you doing Friday night?"
I hesitate for a second, not sure how much I want to tell her right away. I'd been planning on surprising Shane at his hockey game this weekend. "Actually, I'm thinking of going to the Badger game."
"The hockey game?" Ivy asks.
I nod.
"Cool!" she says. "Those are really fun. Who are you going with?"
"Oh, it was, um --"
"Just you, huh?" Ivy cuts in, and I can't help but smile. I like her blunt style.
"Yep. Just me."
"Want some company?"
"Oh, you don't have to."
"Yeah, I know, but it'd be fun. And you should get to know your teammates."