Page 14 of Puck Happens

Wait. Could I race with a hard on?

Fortunately, my loose shorts hid the evidence of my interest. I stepped onto the ice and quickly fell in time with her easy stride.

“Good morning,” I said with a cheeky grin. It felt good just seeing her.

“Good morning,” she said with her own cheeky grin.

We had the ice to ourselves today and the building was empty, beyond Hank who was presently and permanently located at the front desk. He told me the high school would be in to practice at seven am so we had an hour.

“So I was thinking,” I began. “I’ll give you one lap to five.”

She shook her head. “No way. You know you’ll beat me at that pace.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

She came to a quick stop on the ice and I had to slide into my stop.

“Look, Dillon, you’re a mildly charming guy-”

“Mildly?”

She laughed and shook her head. “And I have a sense of where this is going. But I’m really not looking for…”

“A race?” I supplied, when her voice trailed off.

“Yeah.Racescan be distracting. I’ve got this new really challenging job coming up. I need to be focused.”

“How long until this job starts?”

“Beginning of September.” That was my countdown, too. Maybe she was a teacher?

“Perfect, you have a few more days of vacation,” I argued. “You don’t have to be focused while you’re on vacation do you?”

“I’m not looking for trouble, that’s for sure. And you reek of it.”

“Okay,” I said, taking my defeat like a man. “Can I still skate with you to warm up or do you want to listen to whatever’s on your phone?”

That seemed to take her by surprise. Like maybe she didn’t think I would give up that easily. But I didn’t pursue women who said straight up they weren’t interested.

Don’t get me wrong, Liv was interested, but something was holding her back and that was enough for me. Guys who pressured women after they held up the no sign always seemed a little pathetic to me. Like, have some self-respect.

“We can skate. Sometimes I like…I like to just listen to the sound of the blades on the ice. You know?”

She took off on her right foot and I joined her, thesnick, snickof our blades across the freshly Zambonied ice the most familiar, comforting and exciting sound in my life.

“So, if we’re not going to race, and now I know you are in fact a figure skater, why don’t you show off with the twirls and such?”

She looked at me with a gleam of suspicion in her eyes again.

“What? You forgot how or something?”

“No,” she sighed. “Jumps and spins are the words you’re looking for. Not twirls. But I can’t do them anymore. I had a bad accident a while back and the spins mess with my brain.”

“Sorry,” I said, regretting being so flip. “I’ve been pretty lucky in the concussion department, but I’ve had plenty of friends who have had their careers ended by a brain injury. Their local league career, that is.”

“Yeah, it was a little worse than a concussion, but it’s all good now. I’m fine. But the doctor says no more jumping and if I spin too fast sometimes it triggers my vertigo.”

“That sucks,” I said, genuinely. But then I added everything up, and it occurred to me how bad that accident must have been. “Should you even be on the ice?”

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