“Fuck, the ice is slippery.”
I cock a brow with a no shit expression, and she giggles.
“You know what I mean.”
“It’s pretty different to ballet dancing, huh?” I mock, and she stares daggers at me. “Let’s try this again—properly, okay?” I ask seriously.
She smiles sheepishly at me as she rights her footing until she’s balancing on the ice while I keep my hands securely around her waist.
“Let’s start slow. Grab hold of my wrists,” I instruct before I slowly skate backward, pulling Kaelyn along with me.
She was right about her balance; her ankles don’t waver, and her stance is perfect, but she is looking at me with pure horror in her eyes, as if she’s expecting to slip at any given moment.
“How’s that feel?”
She nods, gripping on to me for dear life. “It’s okay, but I’m kind of afraid to fall on my ass again.”
“You almost fell on your ass. I caught you, remember?”
“Ah, yes, my knight in shining armor,” she teases in a sugary-sweet voice.
I continue backward, pretty much just pulling her along with me.
“I know the gravity of the ice makes it feel like it’s pulling you down with it. Your body’s instinct is to keep upright, but ice is ice; it’s slippery. You can’t let the ice control you; you have to be the one in control.” I slow to a stop. “Bend your knees, so your knees are level with the toe caps.”
She does as instructed, focusing intently on the task at hand.
“Keep the posture up with your shoulders square. Then, with your right foot, tilt your ankle to the side. Then, bearing most of the weight on your left leg, you push off with your right foot and skate forward with your left.”
She pushes off and glides forward with my guidance.
“Okay, great. Now, try pushing off with your left foot.”
I spend the next ten minutes teaching her the basics of skating, and she quickly gets the hang of it, her balance from ballet and yoga really helping her get a good handle on the ice. She breathlessly giggles when she slowly skates toward me without any assistance.
“Oh my God, I’m doing it. I’m skating on my own,” she says in awe, her arms out to the sides as if she were about to take flight.
I’m unable to keep the smile off my face as she comes toward me, but when I see the flash of panic in her eyes as she wobbles to a stop, I’m there to catch her when she almost topples over.
“We still need to work on your stop,” I tell her as I hold her against my chest.
“Okay, big guy, show me how it’s done. I’ve not fallen on my ass yet, and I would like to keep it that way.”
“I’m going to show you a snowplow. This is where you push the edge of the blade inward, creating friction with the ice until you come to a skidding stop.”
I demonstrate by setting off, gaining a bit of momentum before turning my blades out, and I push my feet away from my body until I skid to a stop, ice shavings spraying across the ice. Once she seems confident enough to do it, she makes her way around the rink, clutching hold of the rail as she practices her start and stop.
When I feel she’s ready to skate unaided, I shout over to her, “Okay, I want you to make your way back over to me, and you’re not allowed to hold on to the railing this time.”
I bark out a laugh as she flips me off but accepts my challenge and slides over to me. She keeps her eyes on me as she brings her feet outward before pushing to a complete stop without stumbling.
“I think I’ve got it.” She holds her hand out high, and I give her a celebratory high five. “Can you finally show me why you brought me here?” she asks with a huge smile on her face, almost giddy with excitement.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I tell her before skating off the rink. I make my way toward the control room, which overlooks the ice rink. All it takes is a few seconds and a push of two buttons, and darkness descends over the rink. Then, multicolored strobe lights begin to rotate around the entire rink, the sounds of “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield blasting from the speakers.
When I return to the ice, Kaelyn is leaning against the railing, laughing hysterically. “Oh my God, did you just turn your hockey rink into a roller disco?” she shouts over the music, humor dancing in her eyes.
“Well, it isn’t a roller disco since we’re on ice skates,” I point out, grinning wide. “But that was the effect I was going for. Whenever it’s a kid’s birthday, after a hockey session, we turn the house lights off, turn the strobes on, blast some music, and let all the kids skate for fun for a half hour. They absolutely love it. Most of the kids come from crummy backgrounds and don’t get to goof around and have fun like they should at their age, so I let them be kids for a little while.”
Her eyes sparkle with what looks to be tears, but she smiles through them, gazing at me with a look of awe. “You just continue to amaze me, Chase Henderson. So, this is the reason you brought me here?”
“Yeah, you deserve a little bit of fun, especially on your birthday.”
“What’s with the cheesy ’80s music? All we’re missing are some neon-green leg warmers and a sweatband.” She laughs as “Jessie’s Girl” continues to blast around the ice rink.
“Oh, the kids are obsessed with Stranger Things right now, so they’re on a total ’80s kick, music included. I can change the music if you like.”
She shakes her head. “I never said I hated ’80s cheese. So, for the next half hour, the ice rink is all mine?”
“Yes, all thirty minutes.”
She skates toward me, holding out her hand for me to take, and I eagerly accept it, our cold fingers interlacing together.
“Skate with me.”
And, for the next thirty minutes, we skate circles around the rink and shamelessly sing along to ’80s songs that we pathetically know all the words to.
It isn’t until “Kids in America” by Kim Wilde comes on that Kaelyn really gets into her groove and easily masters the forward swizzle in time of the music, but she falls on her ass when she attempts to do some pirouette figure-skating shit, busting a gut laughing while she does. She then proceeds to do it again and again, each time falling to the ice, but her smile never falters, and I can’t deny that I fall in love with that smile just a teeny-tiny bit.
“Do you have something I can change into? I’m a little wet.”
I fight the innuendo off the edge of my tongue as we return to the changing room. She’s not just a little wet; she’s soaked through to her bottom layer, and her teeth are chattering, her lips turning an almost pale blue.
“Um, I have a few jerseys and some sweats in my locker. Why don’t you jump into one of the changing room showers and get warmed up, and I’ll bring you a change of clothes?”
“That actually sounds perfect. I didn’t anticipate falling so much.” She takes a seat on the nearest bench and begins untying her skates.
“You wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been trying to become the next Torvill and Dean after just twenty minutes of being on the ice.”
She giggles. “What can I say? I’ve always been a daredevil.”
When she heads for a shower, I grab an extra-large hockey jersey, but when I go in search for sweatpants, I come up empty.
“Hey,” I call out as I stand at the showers. “I found a spare jersey but no sweats. We have a laundry room. I’ll throw your pants in a dryer for a bit.”
“Could you throw my bra and panties in as well? Every inch of my clothing is soaked.”
My eyes automatically go to the pile of clothes on the bench opposite the curtained-off showers, and I bite back a groan as I catch sight of a flimsy pair of lace panties in the sexiest color—red.
“Um, sure. Are you hungry? I could order us some Chinese food.”
“Oh my God, yes! I’m starved.”
I chuckle under my breath at her enthusiasm for food.
“Any requests?”
“I could totally go for shrimp lo m
ein and some egg rolls.”
“Coming right up. I’ll be in my office when you’re finished.”
She replies with a simple, “’Kay,” as I grab her wet clothes and head toward the laundry room.
Twenty minutes later, Chinese takeout has been ordered, and I set down two juice boxes I managed to scrounge up from the kitchen.
Kaelyn appears at my open door, and all I can do is blink and gawk at the sight I see in front of me. Her damp hair falls in a cascade over one shoulder, her face is free of any makeup, and she looks so incredibly sexy in one of my oversized hockey jerseys, which falls just above her knees.
When my eyes linger on her silky, toned legs and perfectly arched bare feet, I remember that her panties are currently drying as we speak, and that the hockey jersey is the only thing she is wearing.
Jesus, if she pulled that jersey about eight inches upward, I’d be able to see her bare pussy.
I wonder if she’s clean-shaven or if she has a strip of dark curls.
Fucking hell. Focus, Chase.
“Why are you looking at me like you want to gobble me up?” she asks, her eyes narrowed with humor.
It’s because I do.
“You look better in that jersey than I ever have.”
She flashes me a grin as she walks further into my office and points to one of the juice boxes. “Is one of those for me?” She gives a hopeful smile.
I give a gentle nod as I pass one to her.
“You know, if you had let me buy that bottle of wine earlier, we wouldn’t be subjected to drinking like we were in fourth grade again.” She stabs the straw through the hole, takes a small sip before setting it down on the desk.
I laugh. “Well, the adult-to-child ratio in this place is about one to twenty, so juice boxes trump wine. I mean, I wouldn’t be a very good children’s charity if I had wine around the place.”
“Well, lucky for you, I like a good ole juice box now and again.”
Kaelyn begins to take in my office, and honestly, it isn’t anything special. Just a standard wooden desk, Apple computer, swivel chair, a locker in the corner where I usually keep my gear, a small three-seater leather couch set against the back wall by the door, and a bookshelf with all my hockey trophies on show. She wanders over to them and strokes the gold with her fingers, and I swear, I feel a tingle erupt along my spine and through my body as she does. It’s a strange sensation to feel when she hasn’t even touched me.
“How come you don’t have these on display at home?” she questions without looking at me, continuing to admire two and a half decades of achievements and hard work.
I should be proud of them, but after the past couple of months, I struggle to remember why I was proud of a game that essentially killed my wife.
“Honestly?” I reply, and she turns to me, her browns tuned only on me. “They feel more at home here than they do at my actual house. Plus, having them on display here gives the kids something to work toward, you know? Especially from someone who had a similar childhood to the children who walk through my door daily. I relate to them in a way most other people can’t.”
She walks back toward me and leans against my desk, and I don’t mistake the way the jersey she’s wearing rides a few inches up her leg.
Fucking A.
“Tell me about your childhood.” She doesn’t ask it as a question but rather as a statement.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything, but mostly the reason behind why you created this charity and why you’re the most amazing role model that your kids have.”
That pulls at my heartstrings, and even though talking about my childhood is difficult, I open my mouth and speak because something about being in the presence of Kaelyn makes baring my soul just that little bit easier, “I had a family—well, if you can call a drug dealer father and a prostitute mother a family. They loved me; they just didn’t know how to take care of me. I wasn’t abused or hit or anything like most of the kids here have been through, but I was subjected to a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have been, stuff a seven-year-old should never see but unfortunately can never un-see.”
“What kind of stuff?” she prods gently, her hand coming to rest against my wrist.
She gently caresses the skin there, and more tingles erupt along my body, momentarily making me lose my train of thought.
“My dad being beat up by his drug dealer. Drug addicts coming by the house at all hours of the day, even in the middle of the night, waking me up. Seeing both parents jacking themselves up. I mean, they never purposely did it in front of me, but after being woken up so many times by random junkies, night after night, it created an insomniac effect. For months, I couldn’t sleep, so at night, I would sneak out of my room, sit on the top step of the stairs, and watch their ugly and messy lives unfold in front of my eyes. One night, after I snuck out of bed, I witnessed what can only be described as a bloodbath as I watched a stranger rape and stab my mother to death.”
Kaelyn gasps and tightens her grip on my hand, her complexion turning pale. “Oh my God,” she whispers, a mixture of horror and sadness filling her eyes.
“My father was out on a job, but he got home just as this psychopath was finishing my mother off. Then, as if that front row show wasn’t enough, instead of searching the house for his son, his sobbing little boy who’d just watched the only woman he’d ever loved be killed, all my father could see was his dead wife, and I watched how he wrapped his arms around this man’s neck and choked the living hell out of him. It wasn’t until there were two dead bodies in the middle of our living room that he heard the sobs coming from the middle of the stairs and saw me.”
I let out a struggled breath, averting my eyes when the emotion in Kaelyn’s is too much.
“Chase,” she breathes, tears dripping down her face.
“My father loved only two people—my mother and me. So, in that moment, when he realized what I’d witnessed—not only the death of my mother, but also the revenged death of the man who had killed her—something inside him clicked, and he did something that he should have done a long time ago, something that probably saved me in the long run. He picked me up, kissed my tear-soaked face, and whispered that everything was going to be okay. Then, he took me to the one place that gave me a higher chance at a better life, a better future.
“He dropped me off at the police station before handing himself in. Not for killing a man with his bare hands, but killing a man with his bare hands in front of his son. What he didn’t realize was, that would be the beginning of a long childhood in and out of abusive foster care, but he only did what he thought was best for me. It took me years of therapy to come to terms with his abandonment and the crappy cards I’d been dealt with my parents choosing the wrong lifestyle, which had caught up with my mother, and eventually, my father when he was murdered in prison.
“It was my love for hockey that showed me the way, and something I had done as a hobby on Saturday mornings from the age of five became my reason for breathing by the age of eight. Hockey is the reason I could work through my anger, and I fueled that anger into playing. It made me into a player who won awards, got me a scholarship to college, and got me into a team after college before I got called up to the NHL.”
I don’t mention that Olivia was also the reason I got to where I was in my career because it’s not a rabbit hole I want to go down—not yet, perhaps not ever. Hockey might have saved my life, but it killed another. It killed Olivia.
Tears fall down Kaelyn’s face, but she doesn’t make an attempt to wipe them away. In fact, I’m not sure she’s conscious to the fact that she is crying; she’s too focused on me. Her eyes roam all over my face as she steps between my legs, hands resting against my pectoral muscles.
“My heart hurts so much for that seven-year-old,” she whispers on a shaky breath. “I hate that you had to live through that and witness something like that. I just—”
A sob escapes her mouth, and I pull her into me, wrapping my arms
around her as she cries against my chest.
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be crying when it was your horror and not mine, but when I think of that little version of you watching his mom die, it kills me. No kid should have to deal with that, let alone watch it with those sweet blue eyes,” she says through stifled cries, raising her head to look up at me while I caress a hand up and down her back.
“Shh, it’s okay. Please don’t cry for the life I had. It’s no longer my life, and it hasn’t been for a long time. The things I experienced when I was a kid, the things I witnessed, have made me into a better man. It’s the reason I made a life for myself with hockey, the reason I formed this charity. It’s why I work alongside child protective services to get my kids into the best homes possible. Yeah, I had a shitty childhood, one I don’t wish upon any child but my life could have been a lot worse. I mean, during my entire adolescence, I thought it was the end of the world, but that was until I met the coach who would change my life for the better. For a full year after being taken away from my family, I didn’t play hockey, and I missed it. Being in foster care meant I couldn’t afford hockey lessons, and I wasn’t about to ask strangers for money. I had too much pride for that. When I moved into my second foster home, it wasn’t too far from the local ice rink. Back then, I was a bit of a delinquent. I would sneak in and watch the lessons from afar. After a couple of months of sneaking in, the coach finally caught me in the act. I tried to run off, thinking he was mad at me for sneaking in, but I wasn’t able to outrun him, and he caught up to me.
“We got to talking, I told him that I loved hockey but couldn’t afford lessons. He bargained with me that day. In exchange for my help around the rink, picking up towels and just being his general lackey, he would let me skate. That day, he took a chance on me, so I always promised, if I got a chance at the NHL, that I would pay it forward. This charity is that. I’m giving the kids the same opportunities I got when I had nothing.”
Kaelyn watches me with rapt attention, and I smile at the thought of the children I coach and how incredible each and every one of them is.
“I have so many talented kids. I mean, not all of them are going to go on to be big hockey stars, but I’m hoping the skills they learn here will set them for life.”
My Forever (Our Forever Book 3) Page 9
