Page 38 of Can't Take Moore

“Yeah, but fourteen and fifteen-year-olds can be vicious. We were still talking about that incident at graduation, if I remember correctly,” Jack mused, earning him another glare from my man.

As we neared the locker room, I leaned close to Dean. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you some moves on the ice before I force you to ice skate in front of anyone else again.”

Jack shook his head. “Good luck ever getting him to agree to go out there with you. I just don’t see it happening after his embarrassment in high school.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” I disagreed as I flashed Dean a teasing grin. “I have the utmost faith that my man can do anything he puts his mind to…even learn how to skate if he wants to.”

“With you teaching me, how can I go wrong?”

“Exactly.” I gave him a quick peck on the lips before dropping onto the nearest bench. Bending down, I pulled my skates out of my bag and quickly put them on as the hockey players filed out of the locker room and onto the ice. Jack handed me a whistle before I joined them a few minutes later. I skated a few laps to warm up, and then I blew it to get their attention as I moved to the center of the rink.

“Is this everyone?” I asked, scanning the group of teenagers who’d taken a knee on the ice in front of me.

“We’re missing a couple of players who are on vacation,” the player wearing the captain’s C on his jersey answered.

“And Luke’s in Los Angeles,” another boy added.

The captain nodded. “We’re not sure if he’ll be back to play with the team next season. He’s in a band with a few of our teammates who graduated in May, and they went to Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago to audition for the head of Kingston Entertainment while he was doing a nationwide search for new talent. It was totally a fluke that they were even there, but he liked the sound and wanted to work with them.”

“Nice.” I didn’t know anything about the music industry, but it was safe to assume that getting the attention of a big producer was about as difficult as making the Olympic speed skating team. Which was nearly impossible. “He’s Leena’s brother, right?”

The boy who mentioned him being gone nodded. “Yeah.”

Thinking about my first trip to the local chocolate shop, I said, “Then I guess she got her wish and doesn’t have to worry about hearing Luke bang on the drums all day.”

The boys laughed at my little joke, and it broke the ice between us, so to speak. I instructed them to line up on either side of the net at the red line. Then I told them that each side was racing each other head-on to the opposite side of the ice. There was some good-natured teasing about which team would win the most races, but when I blew the whistle, it was as though I had flipped a switch in the players, and they turned serious.

I liked seeing the competitive gleam in their eyes and was impressed by how hard they pushed themselves. There was plenty of raw talent that I could work with, as long as they were willing to put in the effort. And over the next thirty minutes, they showed me that they were. Three of the players, including the captain, tended to win most of their races, but not every single time. A couple of the younger boys had great legs, and with a little work on their stride, I had a feeling they’d be able to outskate the players who were faster than them now.

“I have one mantra when I train.” I scanned the group to make sure I had everyone’s attention. If the players didn’t gain anything else from their time with me, I wanted this to sink into their teenage brains. “You have more in you than you believe. Every time you think you’ve hit your limit, push through to do just one more. A squat, a lunge, a shot, a lap…you’ve always got one more in you. And if you get into the habit of challenging yourself, you’ll find that you can accomplish more than you ever thought.”

The captain nodded. “That’s how we’ll get another championship.”

“Exactly.” I beamed an approving smile at him, thinking about how much I’d like to help them accomplish that goal. Being on the ice with these guys had accomplished what Dean had hoped—my spirits were lifted because my mind was on the ice and not the situation with my mom.

16

Dean

Iwas intimately familiar with every inch of Vienna’s lithe body, but seeing her move on the ice, I was in awe of what she could do. The boys on Jack’s team were good on their skates. They were young and in great physical shape. They’d just won the state championship this past season. But Vienna was skating circles around even their fastest player. Literally.

She was so quick on her skates that she looked like an adult surrounded by a bunch of toddlers who were on the ice for the very first time.

“She’s something else.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment, but Jack’s voice held a thread of masculine approval that had my back straightening. “Who? My girlfriend? Damn straight, she is.”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes and chuckled. “I’d make a crack about how you’re too old to be sounding like one of my players marking his territory over some girl, but that’d just make me feel older than I already do.”

“Then you must be doing something wrong because I feel as young as ever.” I turned my head to meet his gaze and quirked a brow. “It probably has something to do with how fantastic my girlfriend is.”

“One coffee, that’s all I asked her about.” He sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t know things were serious between you two then, Vienna didn’t agree, and I already apologized. You need to let it go.”

I clenched my teeth. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t have to do jack shit.”

He shuffled back a step. “So you’re just going to be like this every time she does a power skating session?”

“Every time?” I echoed.

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