Page 130 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

Her lips were in almost constant motion, silently saying the kids’ lines with them. A beaming smile spread across her face every time there was a laugh. She clapped and whooped to egg on the crowd at all the right parts—not that she needed to. The audience was ahead of her every time, needing no encouragement because she’d done such a fucking good job.

The sight of her lit up my heart and made my stomach flip in a way that I’d thought only teenage crushes could, and removed any shred of doubt over whether I’m here for the right reasons and whether I’m doing the right thing.

And now, as the audience moves away, this is my moment.

I step forward and have set one foot on the mat covering the ice when she starts talking again, and the crowd turns back toward her.

Shit. And I’m already out here now, exposed.

I try to get back on land, to disappear and not detract from her glory.

“And, I have to confess,” Natalie tells her audience, “the idea to stage it on ice wasn’t mine.”

Is she about to give me credit for this whole idea? Jesus. I’m not having that.

Driven now only by the need to be sure she gets the mountain of praise she’s earned, I continue my journeytoward her, past the kids who lined up on the mat to take their bow. There can’t be more than twenty feet between us now, but as my stomach flips and rolls and my heart pounds, it feels like the longest walk of my life.

“It was—” She’s distracted by muttering as more people spot me and nudge and nod in my direction.

Natalie follows their gaze, shielding her eyes and squinting into the bright lights behind me.

And suddenly the audience standing around the pond, the kids standing behind us, the chill of the evening, everything in the whole fucking world fades away and it’s just me and Nat looking at each other.

Her mouth drops open.

Somewhere someone starts a rhythmic clap and a chant of “Gabe! Gabe! Gabe!” and slowly the rest of the audience and all the play kids join in.

Natalie does not.

She looks at me like she wants the ice under my feet to crack open, sending me disappearing into the freezing water below forever.

Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. Maybe I can’t recover from disappearing and leaving a note. Maybe I’ve put myself in an unrecoverable position.

I have never felt more vulnerable in my life. My heart might as well be on the outside of my chest, and someone might as well be throwing punches at it.

This is why I don’t do things like this. This is why I’ve wrapped myself in that standoffish loner shell for so long.

But, holy shit, if Natalie is willing to forgive me, it will make shedding that shell and crushing it into a million pieces so fucking worthwhile. And I haven’t come this far to not take that risk, no matter how big it is.

I keepmy eyes on Nat. “Hi.”

At my first word, the chanting dies down and I come back to reality, painfully aware that everyone’s eyes are on us. We’re at the center of the stage. The stars of a new show. An unexpected encore.

And as accustomed as I am to having my every movement scrutinized by thousands of people in the stands and millions more watching at home, no audience has mattered as much as this one of probably a little over a hundred.

Natalie moves toward me. “Let’s get out of the way,” she mumbles, grabbing my elbow and urging me off the ice and out of the spotlight.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply loudly enough for at least the front row to hear.

“What are you doing?” she asks through gritted teeth, her brows pinched just below the edge of her blue hat.

Her eyes burn a hole in me, making my stomach twist, and suddenly my plan seems like the worst idea in the world. But fuck it, I came here to do this. I did not get where I am today without being prepared to go for the vital buzzer-beating clutch play.

And this is the most vital clutch moment of my life.

But none of the players are where I’d planned for them to be. I’d planned for the audience to be leaving by now, for me to be standing alone on the ice with Natalie. I need to pivot, adapt to the new circumstances. Fast.

I turn toward Aunt Lou. “O Mayor of Warm Springs,” I say in a loud voice. “I am here to declare how taken I am with your beautiful niece. And though, lo, I have been an idiot of epic proportions, I am here to beseech her to forgive me.”

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