Page 70 of Rookie Recovery

“What! No way.”

“Yes way.” He crossed his arms. Glared. “You can’t … never skate again.”

I crossed mine and glared right back. “Sure I can.”

“There’s an open hockey tomorrow night. We’re going.”

The elevator opened, and Brady trotted out, dragging me along for the ride. “No way! You’re on injured reserve.”

“Oh come on.” Bowie jogged after us. “It’ll be just for fun. I’ll wear my brace, and you can wrap the shit out of my shoulder so I can’t move it. I won’t take any shots, only easy passes.”

“Bowie.” I turned to him as Brady stopped to examine a particularly fascinating half-wilted dandelion poking out of the sidewalk. Bowie’s bright, eager face tilted up towards me. Brighter and eager-er than usual.

“Kitty.”

“No.”

“Training camp starts tomorrow.” He turned away from me. His voice went somber. Too somber. Like someone else’s voice, because the Bowie I knew was glowing and chipper and cheerful. “I’m gonna spend all fucking day sitting in the stands watching other people play.”

My chest ached. I found myself without words all over again. But I couldn’t stand the way that voice sounded, the way everything in him begged—and everything in me responded.

“The least you can do is let me skate afterwards.” Bowie turned that eager, pleading face back to me. “Let me … be on the ice. It’s summer, off-season. There’ll be like, a handful of old men. Please.”

“Bowie.” But I was losing the argument, and I knew it.

“Come with me and keep an eye. Yell at me if I do something stupid. Or whatever. Just … come.”

Fuck. Fuck my life. Fuck all of this. I didn’t want to.

I did.

All of it.

I wanted all of it. I wanted to kiss him. Hot and desperate and needy, soft and sweet and tantalizing. Everything in between.

I wanted to be there for him when he needed me. When he needed a distraction. A friend. Someone to tell him it was going to be okay.

I wanted to feel the ice under my skates. With him beside me, reminding me it was all going to be okay while I reminded him of the same.

Fucking all of it.

I wanted fucking all of it.

“Either go with me,” Bowie said in that same small quiet voice, with those same too-big green eyes staring, “or give me a good reason why not.”

My mouth flapped open.

Closed.

Flapped again.

I didn’t have a reason, and I knew it. Sure, the first couple of years had been better to stay off. But those years had passed, and I’d returned to the rest of the things in my life—the gym, running, hiking, sports. I’d never gotten back on the ice because … because what was the point? After the high of professional hockey, anything else would be a sad sham. A reminder of all the dreams I’d left behind.

Right?

Brady spotted a squirrel down the street. Fixed her eyes on it. And barked like every fiber of her being was determined to bring that sly little motherfucker down.

“Fine.” I groaned, swiped one hand down my face while the other attempted to rein in the fearsome squirrel-hunting beast. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

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