Page 5 of At the Edge with You

So, instead, I will be what he was. I’ll carry on the legacy that is the Ice Thistle. While I wish he were still here since he was the man to teach me not only to skate but also to run a business, I’m ready to take the Ice Thistle to heights unknown. I’m ready to make the Cook name more than just some shitty blue-collar identity in this town. I want my name to be what the Winthrop name is.

Important.

Worth something.

I press my lips together as a wave of emotion knocks into me.Fuck, I miss you, man.

It’s only been four days, but it feels like years without his guidance. While I know that he didn’t have the best relationship with his granddaughter, I can’t believe she’s not here. Up front sits Penny Winthrop, who goes by Kitty, with her son and daughter-in-law beside her. She sits stone-faced, trails of tears down her sunken cheeks as she wears her husband’s bright-pink beer league jersey. It matches the ones the women in my life wear.

The Beer League Belles. A team Bea started and sponsors every season. A team I play for and captain. I swallow past the lump in my throat as I wiggle the long sleeves of my sweater to cover my hands that hold my nana’s. Not that it’s cold, it’s actually hot as fuck, but just for the comfort it brings me. Bea leans into me, and I’m sure it’s because she’s old and frail and not to give me support.

“Legs giving out?”

“Laugh it up, chuckles. Your knees are no better,” she throws back, and she isn’t wrong. Like most of the men in this town who thought they could leave, I’m a washed-up athlete who came back home with my tail between my legs after a gnarly knee injury. I had every intention of returning to college so I could make it to the NHL, but life happened.

There is only one person who left Thistlebrook and never came back.

I hear the gasps just as the chorus of “Tears in Heaven” is sung, a song I know Phillip hated. But the church group stops at the shocked interruption. I glance over to where everyone is looking.

My whole body goes taut at the sight, and my jaw goes slack.

Holy shit.

She’s here.

And the ice princess has developed curves.

In. All. The. Right. Places.

In a tight black dress, Fable Winthrop runs up a hill with all her might. Her arms are pumping, and in doing so, her full tits jiggle and almost pop out of the top of her dress. She stops, her chest heaving, before kicking her foot to make one pump fly up in the air. She catches it with ease, then does the same to the other, much to the displeasure of the pearl-clutchers in the audience. Me, I get a view of some killer thick thighs that I’m pretty sure are covered in ink since she isn’t wearing stockings. Did the ice princess get tatted? Prim and proper Fable Winter Winthrop, inked up? No way. But I know what I saw, and it has my mouth drying out. That’s hot. I don’t even try to fight back a smirk.

Her brows pull together as she looks toward where we’re all gathered, holding her pumps close to her chest as she fights for air. “Hey, is this Phillip— Oh, thank God, Kitty! I ripped my dress, so I had to go buy a new one, and oh my God, it’s been a day.”

I snort.

“Fable Winter! For the love of God, come sit down,” Elena, her mother, scolds as Fable’s face scrunches up. God, I can’t stand that woman, and not because she loved to scream “toe pick” at me when I was learning to use figure skates. I know shegot it fromThe Cutting Edge, and it wasn’t fucking funny, no matter how much she cackled. No, I can’t stand her because she has always treated her only daughter as if she is the bane of her existence.

With her lips pressed in a thin line, the ice princess makes her way to them. Her wild mane of white-blond waves that used to be down to her ass is now shorter, dusting the tops of her shoulders. Large black sunglasses cover her eyes, but her face is bright red and shiny from the heat. I know she still skates daily from her Instagram posts. She also coaches a lot, so she’s in shape, even if she isn’t the stick she used to be. Now she has thighs meant to suffocate me, hips meant to be handlebars as I pound into her, and a belly that I want to nuzzle. And those titties… There aren’t enough days in this lifetime for me to get my fill.

“You’re drooling.”

I ignore Bea’s quip as Fable waves awkwardly to everyone who is gawking at her. Which is basically the whole town. I bet everyone assumed she wouldn’t come, just like I had, but one thing about the ice princess, she does things in her own time.

Once she’s by her grandmother, she slips on her pumps and asks, “Who picked this song? He hated this song.”

I have to cough to hide my laughter.

Of course, that earns me dark looks from the women around me, but I ignore them, my eyes fully trained on the back of the ice princess’s head. She has to feel my gaze since I can’t help but drink in every single inch of her. Her dress leaves her back exposed, and she has the cutest little roll around the middle that I want to trace my fingers along. I loved her hair long, but I can’t deny how sexy it is all short and sassy. I have known the ice princess my whole life. She never had time for anyone, always so focused on her skating. It took my coming into her world to be noticed, but even then, I don’t think she ever saw me.

I was only her partner, and she was the girl I wanted.

But couldn’t have.

My breath hitches when she looks over her shoulder and lifts her glasses up into her hair. Her green eyes almost glow in the June sun as she looks out at everyone.

Then her eyes meet mine.

It’s like being smacked back two decades to the first time my horny teenage self saw her in a way that wasn’t approved by the church. My body goes still, my heart jumps into my throat, and I’m stunned in place. Still drop-dead gorgeous, with thick black lashes that frame her moss-green eyes. Her lips all plump, kissable, suckable. Her shoulders are thick with muscle, and I want to sink my teeth into the spot that connects her neck to her shoulder. My skin tingles in all the right ways, and my cock throbs against the zipper of my slacks. I swallow hard as I hold her gaze, unable to look away, unable to make myself send her a greeting. All I can do is stare.

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