Page 13 of Side By Side

Chandler took her starting position and thought about what Belle had said. She smiled softly to herself as she remembered how Belle used to hum her music when they were all out on the ice practicing together. She’d once told Chandler that it helped her focus, to sing it out loud. So, as Chandler began to move, she softly hummed her music to herself and smiled, picturing a young Belle doing the same thing and nailing every bit of her routine.

When she made it through and stood still on the ice in her final position, trying to catch her breath, she looked up and spotted Belle leaning over the concession stand counter, watching her. Belle gave her a little smile before she stood up fully, pulled down the metal barrier thing that blocked the concession stand from view, indicating that it was now definitely closed for the night, and Chandler skated over to the door where she walked through and sat down on the bleachers again.

“Not bad,” Cat noted. “You looked loose out there for the first time in a while. What happened?”

“I hummed,” she announced and pulled off her right skate.

“Hummed?”

“Yeah,” she said and continued packing her things. “Let’s get out of here. I’m tired.”

“I’ll send you the links I want you to check out before you go to sleep. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

“Keep them,” she replied and stood up with her bag after putting on her shoes.

“What?”

“Just… at least for tonight, Cat. I’ll look at them tomorrow or something.”

“Okay. Fine. Get some rest, then. We’ll talk about a new partner later.”

Chandler nodded, looked over to the closed concession stand, and sighed. Then, they walked out together.

CHAPTER 5

They were down three to two, and Belle was still pissed at herself for letting in three goals. So far in their season, she’d had a few shutouts and a couple of one-goal games, but three goals was excessive, even for her. Where most of the players in this league just had fun, drinking beer on the bench when they weren’t in the game, Belle took it seriously. This was the first game of the tournament that would name the end-of-the-season champions. The champions got sweatshirts, so it wasn’t like they’d be raising the Stanley Cup or anything, but she still wanted to win.

Her team was off their game tonight, with one of their best players unable to play because of a family vacation that he couldn’t get his wife to reschedule just because they had their tournament. Belle was off her game for another reason entirely, though. Chandler Wolfe wasn’t just in town. She was here for the figure skating competition that Belle’s father had booked at the Ice Park, which meant that Belle had seen her last night and again today as Chandler had walked around with her coach. The woman hadn’t skated, from what Belle had noticed, even when the other skaters had used the rink for practice, but she’d been around. And now, Chandler Wolfe was sitting in the bleachers, watching Belle play hockey. Well, she was watching her suck at hockey, anyway.

The other team came toward her, and she refocused her mind on the puck. Belle only cared about the puck, not the players. If one of them ended up in her net, it didn’t matter, but if that puck did, her team would surely lose because there wouldn’t be enough time for them to score the one goal they’d need to tie it up right now and go to a sudden death overtime to determine who would move on. She kept her eyes on the puck, thoughts of Chandler gone from her mind, and when the shot came in, she stopped it with her glove and quickly got it out to her own player, who pushed it up the ice as fast as he could go because they only had a minute left on the clock.

She watched as they passed the puck back and forth, and when one of her teammates took the shot, she raised her arms in the air because it went in. They were all tied up. She chanced a glance over at Chandler, who was applauding, which at least meant that she was rooting for Belle’s team. Belle’s focus returned once more to the game as the other team hit a long shot in her direction. She decided to come out of her net for it, got to it just in time before the other player did, and smacked it hard with her stick in the direction of her own player, who quickly passed it off. Two passes and one shot later, Belle’s team had taken the lead with less than thirty seconds to go. Now, they just needed to hold on.

Ten seconds left, and a shot came at her stick side. She pushed it away. Seven seconds left. Another one. She pushed it out and hoped to her own teammate, but a hard shot came in at her glove side. She caught it and held on. The buzzer sounded. They’d won. She lifted her mask and smiled.

“Damn. Nice, Elrod,” Teddy said and smacked her on the shoulder.

“Thanks. Nice shot to tie it up,” she replied.

“Shouldn’t have come to that. We played like shit the first two periods. Beers at Whiskey’s?”

“Your wife lets you out of the house for games and beers with the team?” she teased.

He laughed. They skated off the ice, and she ended up in the women’s locker room by herself, which was how she preferred it. This way, she could shower and change without anyone being around, and after she towel-dried her hair, thanking her past self for cutting it short a few years ago, she changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt with the Ice Park’s logo in the middle of it. She donned her tennis shoes next, grabbed her keys, wallet, and phone, and not needing anything else, she locked the locker and headed out to join the guys at Whiskey’s, the local bar owned by a family named Whiskey and not at all for the alcohol.

“Hey,” she greeted when she sat down next to Teddy, who had his wife on his other side. “Where’s the baby?”

“With my mom,” his wife replied. “She’s giving us a break tonight and getting in some Grandma time, too. I can’t believe we might get to sleep the whole night through tonight.” She took a sip of her water and added, “I do wish I could have a beer with you guys, but I’m breastfeeding.”

“When is she coming to the rink for a visit? I want to get in some Aunt Belle time.”

“I can bring her by next week or something. You can hold her for, like, an hour if you want, and I’ll take a nap on the bleachers.”

Belle laughed and poured beer from the pitcher in the center of the long table the team always managed to procure on nights like this. When she looked up, she saw someone she never would have expected to see in this bar. Chandler Wolfe was sitting in a dark corner booth with a glass of red wine in front of her and her hands on the stem of it.

“Holy shit,” Belle said mainly to herself.

“What?” Teddy asked.

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