Page 14 of Losing an Edge

“Maybe I should have done that—looked for something of my own instead of doing what Jamie was already better at.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. We all followed in Jamie’s footsteps, right down to the seventh Babcock boy. I don’t know if any of us will ever be able to hold a candle to what he’s accomplished, though. Definitely not me.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You’re still playing for one of the best hockey teams in the best professional league in the world, and it’s not like you’re a slouch out there.”

I raised a brow. “You’ve been watching me?”

“I’ve been watching my brother’s team,” she clarified, but I didn’t miss her blush. Maybe she had been paying some attention to me, not only paying attention to her brother’s team.

“Still, Jamie’s the golden boy. He’s the cream of the crop.”

“And what does that make you?”

“Cream of wheat?” I joked.

She pursed her lips in what appeared to be a determined effort not to laugh. “Defensemen take longer to develop. That’s what they always say. Besides, he wasn’t captain of the team and earning a spot on Team Canada the day he got drafted, you know. You’re still coming into your own.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, smiling despite myself, because she was so determined to be a cheerleader for me. I got the sense she was like that with everyone. Always rooting for them. Always finding the brighter side of things. Never allowing herself to get dragged down in the kind of self-defeating negativity I’d been living in for a while. But whether she did it for everyone or not, right now, she was doing it for me.

I could get used to having someone like Cadence Johnson in my corner.

“I got an idea during the show,” she said, dropping her voice down to barely above a conspiratorial whisper, despite the fact that there wasn’t anyone around us to hear. The place was a ghost town at this hour. She took another bite of the pie we were sharing.

“What kind of idea?”

“I want to see if Anthony and I can obtain the rights to use one of the songs from their new album. ‘Sunset Wave.’ It would make for a killer free program. I’m thinking strings. Only an orchestra, no winds or brass or whatever. But maybe it should be something like Trans-Siberian Orchestra, you know? With the full orchestra plus all the electric guitar and drums and stuff? I don’t know. Won’t matter if we can’t get the rights, anyway.”

“Why not use the original The End of All Things version?”

“I still prefer not to skate to anything with lyrics. Used to be a rule that you couldn’t.”

I grinned and forked the bite of pie she’d been going for. “Learn something new every day. So Anthony is the guy you were skating with yesterday? Big blond guy?”

“Yeah. We’re trying each other on for size to see if we’d be a good fit as partners. Connor was practicing feeding him to the alligators today.”

“Practicing?”

“For you.” She winked.

I chuckled. Something told me Jonny had something much worse in mind for me if I fucked up. “So you only stay in Portland if that works out? Or are you staying here regardless, and finding some other partner here?”

“This is going to work out.”

I didn’t point out the fact that she hadn’t answered my question, but I definitely took notice of the change in her eye color. They were darkening again, going back to that near-brown they’d been when I’d first picked her up. I was fishing too much. Time to back off.

How the hell was I ever going to convince her to tell me what I needed to know, though, if every time I got close to finding answers, she closed herself off? This back-and-forth between us was starting to feel like an episode of Tom and Jerry. Every time I thought I had her caught, she slipped out of my grasp.

“So you’re sticking around, then,” I said, brushing off my frustrations. I smiled, hoping to help her relax. “Maybe you’ll let me take you out again?” I left the suggestion hanging as a question.

“Maybe.” Her eyes were still dark. Cautious. She picked up the last bit of pie and chewed thoughtfully. “Levi, I—”

“Don’t tell me no. Not yet. I mean, we’ve had a good time tonight, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And we’re both going to be in Portland. Your brother is one of my teammates. We’ll be seeing each other every now and then, surely.”

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