Page 26 of Wrong Score

She wobbles slightly as she tries to step onto the ice. She looks completely out of place but determined.

Sam smirks and claps me on the back. “Be nice. She’s here for a reason, and if she’s got questions, you might as well practice answering them. There will be press at the gala in a couple of days anyway. And think about what I said. Maybe you've given the game enough years of yourself.”

I sigh as Sam heads back toward the bench. I skate slowly toward Rowan, watching as she hesitates before taking a tentative step onto the ice. She wobbles as she skates onto the ice. She’s trying to hide her nerves but I can see it in the slight shake of her ankles and her stiff posture, her eyes locked on her skates and the ice below her. My guess is she’s never ice skated before.

I skate up to her with ease, my hockey stick still in my hand. “What are you doing out here? You're a reporter covering a hockey team, but you don't know how to skate?”

She glares up at me, peering through her long dark eyelashes. "I'm a sports journalist— I cover more than just hockey, and as shocking as this might be to you, knowing how to ice skate was not part of the job requirement."

"Maybe it should be," I mutter under my breath.

"We all start somewhere, Coach Bex. I doubt you came out of the womb dressed in full hockey gear."

My mum would laugh at that. In fact, I think there's a lot about Rowan that my mum would like. They have a similar fiery personality.

"Actually, I did." I shoot back.

She rolls her eyes and makes a tsking sound with her tongue. "Figures."

She wobbles again and attempts to bend her knees and straighten out her arms on either side of herself in an attempt to gain better balance.

My hands flinch forward as if prepared to reach out and grab her before she falls like I did on our flight, but she stabilizes on her own. Just as well. The last thing I need is an excuse to kiss her again.

“You’re wearing a dress out on my ice. Don’t you own anything warmer?”

She blinks at me twice as if my question doesn’t make logical sense. “I’m at work. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a female in my field. Besides, I’m not here on a social visit. And why do you care what I wear? Penelope wears less than this when she skates and I doubt you’ve ever commented on it.”

She makes a point. I’ve never once commented on Penelope’s figure skating apparel before. But Penelope doesn’t wear a lot because she needs the freedom to move around. Rowan can barely skate out here at all.

“I don’t care what you wear. You just look cold, that’s all.” I say, glancing up into the stands to see if we have an audience of one… Penelope Roberts. But when I glance around, it only confirms that Rowan and I are alone together.

“Since when do you care what temperature I am,” she asks, a glint in her eye.

"I don’t,” I say quickly, not wanting to admit that I unwillingly notice her temperature every time I glance back during practice, witnessing the tip of her nose turning red and her knees bouncing to keep warm. “Now why are you out here anyway? Practice is over, and if any of the players are still here, they're in the gym lifting weights. If you want interviews, you should have gotten here earlier."

"I came to see you," she says.

"You came to see me? Why?" I ask, narrowing my eyes slightly, suspicion creeping into my voice.

She glances around the rink as if to make sure that we're still alone.

"We're going to be working together for a couple more months, and rumors are already swirling around the franchise about how much we don't get along. I thought we could come to an understanding."

She’s not going away, that I realize.

I reach out my hand for her to take. If we have to talk, at the very least, I should get to hit a few pucks. She is, after all, encroaching on my time.

Her eyes flick up to mine, a mix of uncertainty and distrust. Does she really think that I'd let her fall on her ass after what happened on the plane?

"Where are you planning on taking me?" she asks.

"Just over there," I say, pointing to where a bucket of pucks is sitting. "You're interrupting my shooting practice. The least you can do is let me hit some pucks while you try to convince me why gossip around the franchise matters. It's never been a secret that we don't get along."

This is as close to cooperation as she’s going to get and she knows it. After a moment, she reaches out, gripping my hand with her black gloves.

The feeling of her warm cotton hand fitting right inside of mine like it belongs there is unnerving.

We skate together, slowly, toward the spot where I’ve been shooting pucks. She stumbles a bit, and I hold her steady, trying not to think about how natural it feels to help her like this. To have her out here on the ice with me. To have her invade the space I usually go to clear her out of my head.

---