Page 54 of Melting the Ice

“Uh, well,” Brody said, wincing. “No.”

A single look of hurt outrage crossed over Dean’s face before he buried it. But before he could get up and walk off to his bedroom, Brody reached out and latched onto his arm.

This time he didn’t let go.

“No,” Brody repeated, more gently this time. “You can smile better than that. Arealsmile. Not something that someone’s forcing out of you. Let’s try something . . .you love playing football, right?”

Dean frowned. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a—”

“A means to an end, I know.” This time Brody knew better than to let his wince show. It was fucking sad, almost, that the guy didn’t even know what he loved anymore, because it was so tied up with all these plans he’d made for his future.

Brody might not know if he wanted to play pro hockey, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something pure and beautiful about a stretch of untouched ice and blades underneath him that he was gonna use to carve it up. The sound as he did it.

He took a deep breath. “Whatdoyou like about it?”

But Dean was still frowning, a wrinkle between his dark eyebrows that Brody wanted to reach up and smooth away. It was bad enough that he was still touching his arm, though, and hadn’t let go.

Hadn’twantedto let go. But he did now, because how awkward would it be if he just kept hanging on. That wasn’t howfriendsbehaved.

“How about this? I love when I come back on the ice after the Zamboni does its thing, and it’s all clean and shiny and new and the possibilities feel endless. I love when we run a really good play, the exact way we set it up in practice. It doesn’t even matter that we score or not—it’s that we’re all executing our roles perfectly, like we’re folding into one player. There’s no feeling that can match that.”

Dean’s face smoothed out, the lines disappearing. He thought for a second and then he said slowly, with more consideration that most people would ever believe of a football player best known for his destruction prowess on the field, “When Wes’ shoulders relax.”

Brody raised an eyebrow.

“Every game he starts out with a certain amount of anxiety. I’m not sure he can dismiss it entirely. It’s the pressure—of how much each game means, that he’s ultimately responsible ’cause he’s the leader. But we score, and the defense holds, and slowly, it’s like he can fucking relax. When he thinks he’s got this—thatwe’vegot this—in the bag.”

“What else?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You gonna start moonlighting as a therapist, too, Faulkner?”

“Hey, it’s helping, isn’t it? At the end of that, you totally smiled a little. Arealsmile, just thinking about that moment.”

And he had. Brody hadn’t made that up.

“Fine. Uh . . .I really like practice, actually.”

“Really? Ihatepractice. Not as much as Elliott, but enough.”

“Who’s Elliott?”

“He’s a young guy on my team. A forward. He’s about as anti-practice as they come.”

“He’s wrong,” Dean declared matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

“Practice’s the measure of an athlete. How dedicated they are to getting better. How determined they are to hone their skills. Anyone can show up on game day and be ready, but are you ready every single day? Do you bring it when there’s no team opposite you?” Dean shrugged. “I approach every single practice like a game, and every game like a practice.”

“Huh. I never thought of it that way before.” He was going to have to use that line on Elliott sometime and watch as he made a face worse than any Dean had ever made.

“Well, now you have.” Dean leaned forward. Set his elbows on his jean-covered knees. They were worn white in spots. Fit him like a glove. All that tightly coiled muscle.

Brody knew exactly what that muscle was capable of. He’d seen it the other night, in the gym, and this afternoon, when Dean had laid it all out on the field.

He wanted to lean over too and touch it.

Feel all that coiled strength for himself.

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