Page 9 of Slapped Into Love

I oiled down the grill and placed boneless, skinless chicken breasts on it after sprinkling them with seasoned salt and garlic. “Your mom sounds like a handful. The apple didn’t fall too far from that tree,didit?”

“Since she’s awesome, I’ll take that as acompliment.”

I measured equal amounts of instant brown rice and water into a dish, covered it, and placed it in the microwave. Then I pulled out my cutting board and sliced a zucchini and squash to put into the steamer. “You mentioned that you were two when you started to skate. Is she the one who got you ontheice?”

“Yeah.” Her tired eyes light up. “If it was possible to learn how to skate before walking, she would have tried itwithme.”

“She’s that into skating?” My parents were supportive, but they hadn’t cared which sport I played growing up as long as I was doing something. They’d just wanted me busy enough to stay out of trouble. It’d been a stroke of luck when I stumbled across hockey and fell in lovewithit.

“She has the Olympic gold medals to proveit,too.”

I hadn’t been expecting that answer. “For speedskating?”

“Yup. It’s kind of a crazy story because she grew up in Russia, well it was part of the Soviet Union back then. She earned some of her medals playing for them, but when she was at her third Olympics in Calgary in 1988, she defected to the States with the help of one of the coaches from theUSteam.”

“Like Sergei Fedorov?” I asked, thinking of the hockey star who’d defected a couple of years later during the Goodwill Games. “He ended up returning to Russia and playing for a team there after his career with the NHL was over. Has your mom been able to goback,too?”

“No, but it’s not that she couldn’t have. It’s more because there isn’t anything left for her there,” she answered with a shake of her head. “My grandparents died before she left, and she was an only child. She wasn’t close to anyone in her extended family since she spent most of her time training from ayoungage.”

“It sounds like you have that in common with her as well if she had you on skates when youweretwo.”

“Yeah, but it was more than worth it since I went to my first Olympics when I was onlyseventeen.”

I did a quick tally in my head and figured her to be twenty-four, a year younger than me. What she’d accomplished was damn impressive, and I wanted to slap myself upside the head for not putting the time in to get to know her back when we first met. But I damn well wasn’t going to waste the second chance I’d been given. “Did you get your work ethic from her, too?” I asked while I piled food onto ourplates.

“Yup. I had the best damn coach money didn’t have to buy—mymom.”

I went to set the plates on the higher part of the counter where she was seated, but then I rethought that decision. “Let’s eat in thelivingroom.”

“Areyousure?”

Hell yeah, I was. It meant I’d be on the couch next to her instead of on separate stools at the counter, and getting closer to her wasmygoal.

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