Page 14 of Heat It Up (Off the Ice)
I lower my foot. “I want you to start with ten bounces. You can work up to more as you get better at it. Then switch legs.” Fortunately, no one asks me to demonstrate the skill with my left leg. I’m nowhere near as impressive with that leg. Nothing like I used to be before the accident.
I walk around the group as they attempt the exercise. Mikko sends the ball up high, but his paddle tilts slightly and the flight path of his ball is altered. He can’t reach it in enough time, and it falls to the grass. “Keep the bounces small,” I remind them. “You aren’t trying to knock the moon out of the sky.”
Several boys snicker and lose control of their balls. A few curses are muttered in Finnish. I recognize them from when Nik first played with the Bears. Now he swears in English like the rest of us.
Once they’ve finished the drill, I teach them two others. “Whenever you have a spare moment,” I tell them, “you should practice the drills. Alone they won’t improve your skills, but balance, agility, coordination, reaction time, and speed are all important to your overall performance.”
Nik still isn’t here, so I have the boys move onto the agility part of our dryland training. “Do you guys know what the crab walk is?”
They exchange looks. I’m sure they know what it is. They just aren’t familiar with the English word for it. I demonstrate what I want them to do. While they crab walk to the pylons, I let my thoughts drift to Sofia and the kiss. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about it. It was all I could think about last night.
The question is will I get to kiss her again? She made it clear yesterday that she doesn’t want a boyfriend and she doesn’t believe in love. She also made it clear that she isn’t interested in dating casually. Which means she doesn’t view our time together as anything other than hanging out as friends. Now I have to convince her that kissing me again is a good idea, even if we are just friends.
The boys return to the start line, performing the crab walk backwards. By the time Nik shows up, the boys have done leapfrog, the wheelbarrow, and several other drills to work on their agility.
“Miss me?” Even though he sounds amused, he looks tired. All those puck bunnies he’s been hooking up with are wearing him out.
Smirking, I slap him on the back. “Absolutely. I don’t know how I survived without you.”
The boys return to the sideline as they complete the final drill. Nik and I have them each grab two yo-yos from the tote. Last week, the boys worked on their coordination by using two yo-yos simultaneously, one in each hand. They start first with that drill.
“I won’t be going to the gym with you after work,” I tell Nik, keeping things vague. The last thing I want to mention is Sofia. Yesterday morning, he pointed out that he wanted to tap her. Not that he’s seen her since the sauna incidence.
He simply nods, his attention focused on the boys.
I’m impressed at how far they’ve come since last week. They’ve obviously been practicing in their free time.
Nik and I demonstrate the next drill. We both take a yo-yo and I grab a tennis ball. We get the yo-yos going and toss the ball between us. We’re not trying to screw each other up. It also means I need to focus on the ball and not on yesterday’s kiss.
But tell that to my brain.
I’ve practiced this skill numerous times with Cody since the accident, helping him improve his coordination. And several of those times I’d fucked girls just before meeting up with him. But this is the first time I’ve had a pair of luscious lips on the brain while doing the drill. Reciting Newton’s laws of motion won’t help me now.
I’m not the only one who’s distracted. Nik doesn’t seem to be anymore mentally here than I am. He tosses the ball to me but it misses his intended target by a couple of feet and I dive to grab it.
Call it testosterone and competitive stupidity.
My bad leg impacts with the hard ground and a grunt jerks from my throat. Pain shoots up my leg and I groan. I lie still for several seconds, the pain temporarily paralyzing me.
Nik crouches beside me. “You okay?”
Nodding, I push myself up. While Nik gets the boys moving on the drill, I excuse myself and limp to the locker room to grab some over-the-counter pain meds. The entire way, I curse my leg and the drunk asshole for screwing things up for me.
Now I have to hope his stupidity doesn’t mess up my plans this afternoon with Sofia.
Chapter Eight
Sofia
Yesterday’s kiss has turned me into a mess. The entire time I was working, I couldn’t focus on what I was doing. And yesterday, when Joni coughed and interrupted Kyle’s kiss, I wanted to stomp on Joni’s foot for his crappy timing.
But last night, while the memory of the kiss mocked me, I reminded myself that onlyIfelt that way about it.
Even Samantha’s kisses were hotter than yours. I couldn’t help myself.
Luckily, Kyle and I won’t have to kiss, again. The last thing I need is to embarrass myself again with another one. And the last thing I need is to become a basket case for the rest of the summer because of a single kiss. On the bright side, whenever I need to act sappy on the phone while I fake talk to him, I just have to think about the kiss.
“Sofia?”
