Cold Hard Truth

by Brown, Anne Greenwood;

  “Well, don’t pull a muscle or anything, Shepherd.”

  Max smiled at his reflection in the glass door. He almost didn’t recognize himself. “Bye, Emmie.”

  “Bye.”

  Max shoved his phone into his pocket and turned around. As he’d suspected, Chris and Jordy were looking at him with mouths slightly slack. Lindsey was staring down at her book, but she had a big stupid grin on her face.

  “What’s going on?” Chris asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just going to meet Emmie O’Brien at the outdoor rinks by the church.”

  Lindsey closed her book and shoved it into her backpack. Jordy gathered up the controllers and dropped them into the basket by the TV.

  “What are you doing?” Max asked.

  “I need to meet this girl,” Lindsey said.

  “And I’m in the mood for a pickup game,” Jordy said.

  “Skates or boots?” Chris asked, while Max was thinking No. No. No.

  He didn’t want a whole bunch of people around. He just wanted to see Emmie. It might not be a date, but it was at least something.

  No one paid any attention to Max’s protests. Within a few minutes, they were all in their coats and boots, waiting expectantly in the back seat of Max’s jeep.

  “You guys are idiots,” he said, shaking his head in exasperation, but he loved their good intentions all the same.

  Forty-five minutes later, Max and his friends were at one of two outdoor rinks across the street from St. Francis Church. Chris had called Brady, Brock, Tack, and some of the juniors and told them where to meet; Lindsey had called Quinn. Soon they had a pickup game in full swing, some of them in skates, others in boots.

  Brock “checked” Quinn up against the boards, letting Tack steal the puck. Quinn didn’t seem to mind because the so-called checking turned into a make-out session pretty quickly. No one paid them much notice.

  A second later, Tack came running down the ice, pushing a spongy puck left and right with his stick. That’s when Max saw Emmie get out of an SUV parked across the street. She didn’t seem to see him, but Max watched as she and Marissa walked around the far side of the lower rink and headed for the warming house. Emmie’s wild curls bounced against her shoulders until she wrapped them in a knot and hid it all under her hat. She had a pair of skates, their laces tied together, draped over her shoulder.

  “That her?” Lindsey asked, skating over and making a T-stop in her figure skates. She moved in close, her side bumping up against Max’s.

  “Who?” he asked, not taking his eyes off Emmie.

  Lindsey elbowed him. Pretty hard too. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Now he turned to look at her. “Who’s being stupid?”

  Lindsey sighed. “I will get to the bottom of this,” she said as Quinn skated over to join them by the boards. “Quinn, you need to warm up?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  Lindsey’s eyebrows pulled together. “I said, ‘Quinn, you really need to warm up.’”

  Quinn leaned her stick against the boards and shrugged. “I guess I’m cold.”

  “What are you doing?” Max asked.

  “Taking a break,” Lindsey said. “We’ll be back in a sec.”

  Max didn’t know if he should follow them or simply hope for the best. He was desperate to talk to Emmie again, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to watch Lindsey’s interrogation. Emmie was the one who wanted him to be here. She’d come look for him when she was ready.

  “Max!” Chris yelled as he swiped the puck in his direction. Max curled it into his body and faked out Brady before taking it down to the goal. Darren, the junior goalie, wasn’t suited up with his usual goalie pads. In just sweatpants and a couple layers of sweatshirts, he didn’t look nearly as hard to beat as he did on game days.

  “You gonna stop me?” Max taunted Darren as he crossed in front of the goal.

  “Max, over here,” Jordy yelled.

  “You gonna stop me?” Max asked Darren again.

  “Bring it, Shepherd,” Darren said.

  Max shot. He scored.

  A few minutes later, Emmie, Marissa, Lindsey, and Quinn walked out of the warming house. Together. Lindsey looked up at Max from the edge of the lower rink and waved; then she gave him the thumbs-up sign behind Emmie’s back. Either she was telling him that she’d gotten the goods on whatever this was between him and Emmie, or maybe it meant that Lindsey approved of her. Or maybe Lindsey was simply glad Max was showing interest in something other than flattening everybody and everything in sight.

  “I’m taking a break,” Max called out to the guys. They didn’t respond. Just closed ranks to fill in the gap he left behind.

  Down on the lower rink, Emmie was wearing a pair of old figure skates that looked too big for her. The leather was cracked and worn to the point of looking more gray than white, and her ankles wobbled. She clung to Marissa like a reluctant toddler being dragged to the edge of a swimming pool. Or…like any of the actual toddlers out wobbling around the ice with their parents.

  Quinn took one of Emmie’s hands, and Lindsey took the other. They dragged her out toward center ice. Marissa skated backward in front of her saying, “There you go” and “You totally got this” and “Just bend your knees a little.”

  From what Max knew of Emmie, she was hating life right now. To be dependent on one person was bad enough, but to be dependent on three…This was so not her deal.

  “I got her from here,” Max called out as he glided across the lower rink.

  All four girls looked up at him. Marissa and Quinn looked surprised; Lindsey looked validated; and Emmie—the most important one—looked relieved. Her sigh vaporized on the air. “Don’t laugh. It’s my first time.”

  “I’ll get you one of those folding chairs to push around the ice. That’s how all the beginners do it.” Max tried not to smile as he braced for her response.

  “How all the babies do it,” Emmie said as a four-year-old skated backward in a circle around them, turning on her edge and making a little half-turn leap.

  “Then you’ll have to hold on to me,” Max said.

  “On second thought,” she said, teasing, “I’ll take the chair.”

  “Too bad they’re all being used already,” Lindsey said, and Max would have kissed her for it except that he had other lips in mind right now. In particular, the pair that was right in front of him, struggling to stay pink against the cold.

  I could warm them up, he thought, and it wasn’t the first time something like that had crossed his mind. He’d had a similar thought outside the Happy Gopher when her ice-pale lips were telling him to leave her the hell alone. Funny what a difference a week made.

  “Marissa, is it?” Lindsey asked. “Want to play hockey up at the other rink with the guys?”

  “I—I don’t…” Marissa glanced at Emmie with this look that asked if they’d fallen into some parallel universe.

  “Don’t worry,” Lindsey said. “It’s just for fun. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing either.”

  Marissa shrugged an oh-what-the-hell shrug. “Sure then. I guess.”

  Lindsey and Quinn led Marissa across the ice toward the walkway that connected the two rinks. At one point, Marissa looked over her shoulder with a questioning look, and Emmie cupped her hands on the sides of her mouth and yelled out a supersarcastic “YOLO!”

  The effort it took to raise her voice caused Emmie to lose her balance. Her arms windmilled. Max held the front of her coat and steadied her on her blades. “Marissa was right. You need to bend your knees.”

  “What?” she asked. Her fingers dug into the sleeves of his jacket.

  “You’re all wobbly because you don’t have any bend in your knees.”

  She loosened her grip, and their hands slid along each other’s forearms until their gloved and mittened fingers met. Max pulled her forward across the ice. She kept a static position: skates reasonably straight, knees bent, waist bent, shoulders stiff, head tipped down at the ice passing und
er their feet. Normally not the most attractive position, but she looked so effing beautiful in this moment. Completely trusting.

  It was a new side to Emmie, or maybe…maybe, he thought, it wasn’t new at all. Maybe it had been there all along, and he was finally seeing the real her. Maybe she hid that sweetness because that had been what got her in trouble before.

  “So are you going to tell me why your dad wanted me to be here tonight?”

  Emmie didn’t look up from the ice but tightened her grip on his hands. “After what happened the other day, he wants to keep me locked up. He wasn’t going to…Whoa! Whoa!”

  Her feet were doing this cartoony running-in-place thing. Max kept her from falling, but he laughed until his side pinched.

  “Stop laughing at me!” she cried while she dug the back tips of her blades into the ice. Her body arched, and Max lifted her back onto her feet.

  “I will if you quit being so funny.” He let go of her once she found her balance, and he wiped at his eyes with the back of his glove.

  She grimaced, and her cheeks turned pink. Max resumed pulling her around the rink.

  After a while she went back to answering his question. “Dad wasn’t going to let me come skating with Marissa unless her mom came too. Though I don’t know what good she’s supposed to do. She’s in the car reading some romance book. She’s probably forgotten all about me and Marissa by now.”

  “I don’t know how it would be possible to forget about you,” Max said softly.

  She looked up at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise, but then a warm smile spread across her face.

  Kiss her, he thought. Kiss her. This is your chance.

  But then her face clouded. “Dad said he’d be more comfortable with me going if you were going to be here too.”

  Max’s chest swelled again with that same sense of pride he’d felt before. He was right. Her dad did see him as some kind of bodyguard. Sounded good to him. Although Mr. O’Brien probably didn’t know how closely Max wanted to guard this body.

  He slipped around Emmie’s side and gripped her hips from behind. She’d gained enough confidence that she needed to be able to see where she was going. He still had enough of a hold on her that she wouldn’t fall.

  “What are…what are you doing?” she asked. “I’m going too fast. Don’t push me.”

  “I’m giving you a little more rein,” he said. “That’s it. Keep your knees bent. Now push the ice away from you with the blade on your right skate. Then your left.” She got too far back on her blades and would have landed hard, but he kept her upright.

  “My ankles are killing me,” she said.

  “That’s because your skates don’t fit right. Let’s take a break.” He put pressure on her right hip and guided her into a wide-arcing turn back toward the warming house. There were no windows, so Max didn’t know how crowded it would be inside. He was relieved to find it empty.

  Emmie took two staggering steps on the floor and caught herself as she pitched forward, landing her mittened hands on the bench. She stood while turning, and when she was fully upright, she and Max were face-to-face, or more like face-to-chest. She wobbled and Max’s hand darted out, catching her around the waist.

  “Steady. You’ll get the hang of it,” he said. “Soon you’ll be skating circles around me.” He didn’t mean to push her. He had barely exerted the slightest pressure at her hip, but she was so unsteady that it caused her to back up against the wall. Max’s body followed hers with the momentum.

  “Sorry,” he said, bracing for her usual defensive response. He took a step back, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Emmie surprised him by following, closing the gap he’d created. Words left him as he stared down into her eyes, so open and surprised and as unsure as he felt. Her face tipped up to meet his, and she laid her hands on his chest.

  Max tossed his gloves on the bench and curved one hand behind her neck, fingers tangling in her curls. Yeah, this was in no way what Emmie’s dad had in mind when he’d suggested she invite him to the rink tonight.

  “This isn’t exactly how I visualized doing this,” Max said. “But I’ll take it.”

  “You’ve been picturing doing this?” Her voice was a whisper.

  Their faces were only several inches apart. He should kiss her now. Now. But like an idiot, he kept on talking. “Coach says, when you want something, visualize yourself getting it. He has us practice visualizing our games before we take the ice. I’ve been thinking about this moment for the last week or so.”

  Emmie’s face flushed. It was a very un-Emmie thing to do, but Max liked it and pressed his body against hers. She made a little sound, but he couldn’t tell if it was in response to what he’d admitted, or because of how close they were.

  “Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, Emmie, but it’s the God honest truth. I’m not taking it back.” Max could hear his voice, but he wasn’t sure what he was saying anymore. Or why he was still talking at all. Like, shut up! You can’t kiss her and talk at the same time.

  He blamed his idiocy on Emmie. The pressure of her body against his was making logical thought impossible.

  Emmie slipped one hand behind his neck and guided his head down to hers. And holy shit, this was not actually about to happen. But it was. Thank God, it was.

  “Max!” Jordy said, flinging open the door to the warming house. The door crashed against the exterior wall, then swung back toward Jordy who stopped it with his butt. Max stepped away from Emmie, and she staggered back against the wall.

  “Chris is bleeding all over the ice,” Jordy said. “We need to borrow your jeep.”

  “Shit.” Max looked over at Emmie, whose face was wide-eyed with shock. Whether it was from their near-kiss or from Jordy’s announcement, Max couldn’t tell. “You okay?” he asked her. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Go.”

  Max sighed and followed Jordy out, up and around the edge of the lower rink and to the upper, which looked like a crime scene. A two-foot circle of ice was glazed crimson. Chris was lying inside the carnage with his head propped with Brock’s jacket, blood running down his chin.

  “What the hell happened?” Max asked.

  “Chris was being an idiot,” Brock said.

  “Shocker,” Tack said. Chris rolled his eyes.

  “He was walking on the top of the boards and face-planted on the ice,” Jordy said.

  Chris tried to sit up, and Brock reclaimed his jacket.

  “I think he broke his nose,” Lindsey said. She’d already removed her skates and was now wearing boots. Behind her shoulder, Jordy was putting his on too.

  “Dude,” Darren said, “if you weren’t ugly before, this seals the deal.”

  “Shut up,” Chris said. His teeth were red with blood. “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  “Did anyone call 911?” Emmie’s friend Marissa asked, glancing around at everyone.

  “I don’t need 911, thweetheart,” Chris said, his nose already swelling. “Just someone get me to the clinic so they can set it before it stays like this.” Chris struggled to stand up. If his face was a clock, his nose said that it was seven thirty.

  Max glanced back at the warming house. Emmie appeared to still be inside. Waiting for him. Waiting to finish what they’d started. Max groaned inwardly. Damn it, Chris. Just like you to screw tonight up for me.

  “I’m staying here,” Max said, “but you can take my jeep.” He handed his keys to Jordy, then helped Chris out of his skates and into boots. Max, Jordy, and Lindsey walked Chris to the edge the rink where Max had parked.

  Before they opened the doors, Lindsey reached into her pocket and unwrapped something. She held it under Chris’s nose.

  “You came with a first aid kit?” Max asked her. That girl was so prepared. Maybe that’s what came from hanging out with hockey players.

  She smiled deviously. “It’s a maxi-pad. Superabsorbent. Plus, it’s got wings.” She barely covered the l
augh in her voice.

  “Hell no,” Chris said, swiping it away.

  “Nuh-uh,” Jordy said. “Keep it there. You’re not going to bleed all over the inside of Shep’s car.”

  Max laughed. It felt warm and still a little foreign. Sometimes, in moments like this, he really loved his friends. Days like this one—with Emmie waiting for their first kiss and his best friend wearing a maxipad on his face—made Max want to keep on going.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ASSAULT

  Emmie pulled her skate up on the bench and untied it. Max was right. They were too big. Maybe tightening them would keep her from looking like a flailing wombat on the ice. The adrenaline from what almost happened—and what was sure to happen as soon as he returned—was still ripping up her bloodstream like an electrical current. Max was always taking care of things. She was starting to maybe like that about him. Maybe.

  She’d just tightened her second skate when Max returned. Except that when Emmie spun around on the bench, it wasn’t Max.

  It was Angie. Frankie’s girlfriend and—before Emmie—the only girl Nick had let into his inner circle. Angie’s pupils were dilated, and there was a fresh bruise on her right cheek. She looked like she was ready to kill someone. It looked like that someone was Emmie.

  Emmie got up on still-wobbly ankles. “What are you doing here?”

  Angie laughed without any humor. “Oh, I think you know.” Then she threw her arm out to block Emmie’s path to the door.

  Emmie’s mind slipped into survival mode. There were plenty of people outside. Nothing bad would happen if she could get out of this warming house. She was unsteady on her feet, but the fact that Angie was obviously riding the edges of a recent high leveled their playing field.

  Emmie dug her toe pick into the plywood floor and got as much traction as she could. Then, with her head down, she rammed into Angie, whose body still blocked the door. When Emmie’s head made impact, Angie let out an Uff! then staggered backward, arms grasping, and they both pitched out the door, landing in the snowbank near the edge of the lower rink.