On the Fly

by Catherine Gayle

  I started laughing, and I couldn’t seem to make myself stop even when he gave me a halfhearted glare.

  By the time we got to the rink, about half the team and the coaches were already out on the ice, along with kids and wives and girlfriends. Martha was in a pair of jeans and a Rudolph sweatshirt on a bench at the opposite end, helping to lace up the skates of a boy who must be one of her grandkids. A few of the team executives were out there, too, and I saw a big man in a suit sitting up in the stands, far away from all the fun. I figured that must be Mr. Engels. Who else would be here in a suit instead of something more casual? Even if he wasn’t going to skate, he could have made himself more comfortable. Laughter and shouts rang out in the cavernous space, echoing off the high ceiling and walls, and I quickly forgot to worry about Mr. Engels and his odd clothing choice.

  Brenden led me to a bench near the ice, a little ways off from where Dana was lacing up a pair of skates for Maddie. Jim had asked me about our sizes one day last week to be sure the kids wouldn’t be left out. I’d given him the kids’ sizes readily, but he’d insisted on having skates available for me even though I assured him I had no intention of getting out on a sheet of ice. Martha wasn’t going out there, either. She’d told me so. I figured that once she got her grandkids all situated, she and I could sit and talk.

  I sat down facing the rink and laughed some more because Jamie and his brothers already had Tuck out there. He was still wearing his mask and cape, but someone had thought to give him a helmet, too. Jamie had both Tuck’s hands and was skating backward, pulling Tuck behind him fast enough that the cape was flying.

  “Looks like he’s having a good time,” Brenden said. He sat down beside me and pulled his skates out of his gym bag.

  I shook my head. “Looks like he’s having a great time.”

  “Fair enough.” Brenden pulled another pair of skates out of his bag—skates that were much too small for him. He held them out to me. “Size six. That’s what Jim told me.”

  “Oh, but I—”

  “You thought I was going to let you just sit here and watch? Not a chance.” He pushed the skates into my hands. “Lace them up tight. If you hurt your ankle, I’m just going to have to carry you around a lot more than I already have been. I might just carry you home with me.”

  A couple of the guys were walking past us, and they looked over and pulled faces when they heard what Brenden said.

  “Leave my girl alone, asswipes,” Brenden said to them. Then he turned back to me, his eyes roving over me. “Sorry. It’s just like being back in middle school around here with these jokers sometimes.”

  My pulse kicked into high gear from the look in Brenden’s eyes. He’d clearly already brushed his teammates and their teasing from his mind and had other things there instead…like me. I took the skates from him, hating that my cheeks flushed more at the thought of being wrapped up in his arms again than from the way the guys had been trying to fluster me. Boys will always be boys, after all.

  “Not that that’s such a bad idea,” he said a little more quietly—just for my ears and no one else’s. “Having to carry you around some more, I mean. I like carrying you around. I like holding onto you.”

  I bent over to take my shoes off. “I like being in your arms,” I whispered, shocking myself with my admission. Why did I keep telling him these things? I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “Good.” He leaned over and gave me a loud, wet smack on my cheek.

  By the time I started putting my feet into the boots, Dana and Maddie were already making their way out to the ice. Maddie was wobbling on her skates a bit as they walked, but Dana had a good grip on her, helping to steady her. She went onto the ice first and held both of Maddie’s hands as she carefully put one foot over the barrier. I watched until Maddie was all the way out, smiling as they started to glide together, and then I focused on tightening my laces.

  I still couldn’t quite believe I was going to get out there with Brenden, that I’d given in without putting up much of a fight at all. The thought of ice-skating intimidated the heck out of me since I hadn’t even been roller skating since before I’d gotten pregnant with Maddie, but as long as he was with me I would be okay.

  I was starting to feel that way about everything, not just about ice-skating, and that was a dangerous thought. He looked over at me with a smile that could easily melt the ice, and I pushed the thought away.

  “Ready?” he asked. His hand was out, waiting for mine.

  I took it, letting his hand envelop mine and wrap me in his warmth. “Not really, but as close as I’m gonna get.”

  Brenden chuckled as he tugged me to my feet. I lurched, throwing out my other arm to the side so I could steady myself. He pulled me to him, putting his free arm around my waist and holding me close. “I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

  The way he was looking at me, his eyes boring all the way through to my toes, made me wonder if he was talking about more than just keeping me upright so I didn’t do a nosedive on the ice.

  “Okay,” I agreed. And then I fleetingly wondered if I was agreeing to more. I wasn’t really sure. I was even less sure if it would be such a bad thing—letting him take care of me in more ways than just on the ice.

  He gripped my hand tight enough that I felt secure, and then he guided me the last few steps onto the rink. I nearly lost my footing the second I had both feet on the ice, but Brenden held me until I was steady.

  Sara Thomas zipped past us, spinning around as she went to wave at me. “Tuck’s a rock star out here already,” she shouted. “Daddy’ll be trying to recruit him to play for him in no time.” Then she spun again and went on ahead of us.

  “Scotty might try to use Tuck to replace me, after that last game,” Brenden said. He only half sounded like he was joking.

  I finally felt steady enough to try to move, so I pushed off with my left foot, gliding for a second on the right. “He’ll have to wait a few years, I’m afraid. I’m not ready to let him go.”

  “I’ll let you be the one to break the news to Scotty.”

  “Deal.” The further we got from the boards, the less I felt like I could concentrate on anything but keeping my feet solidly beneath the rest of me. One-word responses might be all I could manage.

  Brenden kept gliding along beside me, moving at my snail’s pace without complaint. I could barely keep my eyes off the ice, certain that the second I looked away I’d end up on my ass. Dana and Maddie swooped around us—I knew it was them because I could hear Maddie chattering a mile a minute as they went.

  “Bend your knees some,” Brenden said, twining his fingers through mine. “It’ll help.”

  “Shush.” I needed to focus, and not on the sound of his voice or the strength of his hand, and definitely not on the heat radiating from him as he tugged me closer to his side.

  “You look cute when you’re concentrating.”

  My left foot took off on its own, heading way out to the side until I feared I might fall into a split. I teetered and tottered, jerking Brenden’s hand and nearly pulling him down on top of me. He spun around in front of me and tugged me close to his chest, putting both arms at my waist and grinning, almost like he was laughing at me.

  I swatted his chest with my free hand, huffing so hard my hair flew. “You’re distracting me.”

  “If I really wanted to distract you, I have much more effective ways of doing it.”

  I scowled up at him. “Like what?”

  “Like this.”

  He picked me up off the ice and held me against his chest. And he kissed me. This time it wasn’t quick and over almost before it started, not like the first time. He teased me with his lips, brushing them over mine with gentle, featherlight pressure that stole a gasp from my lungs. When my lips parted, his tongue traced along the opening.

  I wanted more, wanted to take the kiss deeper and let myself feel these dark and needy things I hadn’t felt in so long. I was on the verge of finding my courage and sliding my ow
n tongue out to meet his when Tuck squealed, “Mommy! Look at me!”

  We barely turned our heads in his direction in time to see him skating straight toward us, both arms flailing about wildly while his cape fluttered in his wake. Brenden half lowered, half dropped me back to the ice just in time to stop Tuck from crashing headfirst into us.

  “I skated all by myself!” he shouted, his grin taking over his whole face.

  I had to grab onto Brenden’s shirt with both hands to keep my balance. He let out a grunting sound, his eyes roving briefly over how I was holding him before moving back to my eyes. “Now you need to learn how to use the brakes, kiddo.”

  I kept feeling Zee’s eyes on me from across the ice, but I tried to ignore it. For a couple of reasons. One, I had been enjoying not having to share Rachel’s attention with her kids or anyone else for the most part, and two, it seemed like the brotherly thing to do for my sister to make him sweat it out a bit longer. Dana might not agree, but that was beside the point.

  In the last little while, Rachel had finally started actually using her legs to skate, bending her knees and propelling herself forward instead of letting the ice dictate how she was going to move. She also wasn’t holding onto me like I was a buoy anymore. She was just holding my hand, not clutching it like her life depended on it.

  Not that I minded either way. It just felt good to have her holding onto me, however she was doing it. Like when she’d fisted her hands in my shirt earlier. I’d had to remind myself that we were in public and her kid was right there, and so I couldn’t just toss her over my shoulder caveman style and take her to bed, where she could be free to rip my clothes off me if she wanted.

  God knew it was what I wanted. I just didn’t know if it was all in my head or if she wanted it, too. The whole time we’d been skating, I’d had to keep reminding myself this wasn’t the time or the place for those kinds of things.

  It hadn’t been very easy.

  That part might get a little easier once we added Maddie to the mix. I didn’t mind that we would have Maddie with us. Now that I understood what she’d been through, I knew where she was coming from. I liked her. I liked both Rachel’s kids a lot more than I had ever expected to. But I still wanted my time alone with Rachel.

  Rachel looked across to the other end of the rink where Babs and his brothers were patiently teaching Tuck how to pass a puck. Webs’s kids had joined them, too. Not that it surprised me. Any chance Katie Weber and Babs got, they were together, especially if Webs wasn’t around to glare at Babs.

  “How old were you when you learned to skate?” Rachel asked me. Her nose and cheeks were red from the cold, which only made her fairy-dust freckles stand out more than usual. It made me want to kiss them. I wanted to find every freckle on her body and kiss it.

  “I don’t ever remember not knowing how to skate,” I said, once again reminding myself that now was not the time for thinking like that. “Dad was a hockey player, so Dana and I grew up on the ice. Mom sometimes jokes that we could skate before we could walk.” That probably wasn’t too far from the truth, if you looked at old family photos.

  “Is Tuck too old to get started?”

  I held back a grin. “You’re never too old to get started. You’re learning now, silly.” Besides, Sara had been right: Tuck was taking to it like a natural. The kid was born to skate. It’d be a good use for all his energy, too.

  “Is he too old to learn hockey?”

  “You’re thinking about letting him play hockey, even though hockey players are barbarians who have unsportsmanlike fights?” I wagged a brow, teasing her.

  She shrugged. “He seems to be having a good time.”

  The way she said it, though, her voice going all wistful, made me wonder just how much she blamed herself for what had happened to Maddie. If she blamed herself at all, it was too much. I pecked her on her nose, tiding myself over until I could get her alone and do more. “Same as with skating,” I said. “You’re never too old. You could learn to play now, too, if you wanted to.”

  Rachel smiled. “That’s good.” She slipped again, gripping my hand tighter than she had been, but she managed to regain her balance all on her own. “I think I’d better leave the hockey playing to Tuck, though. And it looks like Eric is ready for us to go snag Maddie.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that,” I grumbled.

  “Too bad. I noticed.”

  I looked around until I spotted my sister. She still had Maddie with her, but they weren’t alone. Monty’s two little girls had joined them, as well. Stéphane Montfort was the most veteran defenseman on the team. Even though he’d lived in the States for a decade or more, his kids spoke better English than he did.

  Monty and his wife were nowhere in sight. Great, that meant I had three little girls to collect now. I turned us around, heading over toward the benches where someone had stashed a few sleds for the kids. Once we got over there, I grabbed the biggest one and set it on the ice. “Hop on.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “I don’t know…”

  “Do you want to go get Maddie so my sister can get engaged, or do you want to stand here and argue with me?”

  Rachel tried to glare at me, but her laugh ruined it. “Hold me steady while I get on it so I don’t fall on my butt again.”

  I’d accidentally let her fall once. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been an accident, since I had spent the whole afternoon thinking about ways I could get her back into my arms again, to pick her up and hold her. To have her close to me. It had given me a good excuse to pull her into my arms and hold onto her for a minute. And she’d let me, just like she’d let me kiss her earlier.

  Sometime soon—maybe tonight, after we left the party—I needed to get her alone again. To kiss her some more, yeah, but also to be sure we were on the same page about where this was all headed. About where we were now.

  I’d finally figured out exactly where I stood on the whole thing. I was falling fast, and harder than I was prepared for. With Zee getting ready to pop the question to Dana, the whole idea of marriage had been floating around in my head all afternoon, only connected to me and Rachel. I didn’t know if I was quite ready to go so completely all in, but I at least wanted to be more than just some guy who got to kiss her without getting kneed in the nuts for it.

  And then there were Maddie and Tuck to consider, and suddenly the whole idea of kids didn’t seem like such a big barrier…because I liked these kids. I was still surprised by just how much I liked them, but only because I’d never really spent much time around kids or thinking about having kids in my life. Now that I did, at least to an extent, I wanted more.

  I held out my hand for Rachel and used the other to hold the sled still. She plopped down on it a little haphazardly, but she straightened herself out a second later. I picked up the two ropes at the front and pulled, making a beeline for Dana and all those little girls. They were skating side by side, all holding hands. Maddie had Dana on one side of her and the older Montfort girl on the other side, but she didn’t look like she needed help too much anymore.

  I pulled my sled up in front of them so they had to stop. Dana gave me a weird look, like she thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. “All aboard the Soupy Express,” I said. “I have room for three more passengers.”

  I’d never heard such a chorus of little-girl giggles in my life. Well, maybe I had—back when I was their age. But definitely not since.

  Maddie was the first on, plopping herself down right in front of Rachel. Monty’s girls piled on after a few seconds, squishing back to try to make room for Dana. I couldn’t let that happen, though.

  “Sorry, Dana. The Soupy Express is full. You’ll have to catch the next one.” Then I skated off with the sled behind me.

  I pulled them around, making wide circles and figure eights, zooming in between the other skaters on the ice. My eye kept going back to Dana. Zee went out and grabbed her hand almost before we were fully away from them. They skated toward the team
benches, so I took the girls and headed the opposite direction.

  When we passed Jim with his wife, he said, “I hope you’re not planning on giving him another black eye.”

  I allowed myself another glance at Zee, down on one knee on the ice in front of her, and kept skating. The little girls behind me were squealing and laughing, even Rachel. I pushed myself harder, trying to get more speed, even though my ankle was starting to throb. The pain would keep my mind off the proposal.

  We circled around the Babcock boys, the Weber kids, and Tuck. They all ignored us, too intent on their own fun to worry about anyone else, except for Babs. He came up beside me and took one of the ropes, helping me pull the sled.

  I raised a brow in question, but he shrugged and looked across to Zee and Dana. I guess it was his way of showing me his support. Babs was pretty okay.

  By the time we had to circle back around, Zee had Dana up in the air and they were kissing like teenagers, so I figured she’s said yes. I was happy for her, even if I still wanted to knock Zee’s head off his shoulders sometimes when he did shit like kissing her like that.

  We pulled the sled in close to them around the time he put her back down on her skates. Dana turned around with the biggest, wettest, goofiest grin and skated straight into my arms, nearly knocking me over with her enthusiasm.

  “Happy tears?” I asked, furious as hell that my voice cracked on the words. I pulled her close and held on, hoping that would hide my reaction from the boys. I didn’t need to give them any more reason to poke at me.

  “The happiest,” she said.

  That meant I had to give Zee another pass. I couldn’t rip his head off today.

  It was getting to be a habit—letting things slide with him when it came to Dana. Once they got married, I’d probably have to forget about beating his face in entirely.

  She still wouldn’t let go of me. I lifted my head and found Zee staring back at me. Worried. I bit down on my tongue and gave him a nod.

  That would have to do for now because I’d probably lose it if I tried to talk again.