Practice makes perfect, and when you're fighting to be the best in your sport that is especially true. Ryder and Francesca are no exception. They are dedicated to their sport and refuse to let anything distracted. But when a scheduling conflict forc...
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When I arrive to the rink I have one thing on my mind, return Francesca's stupid money. I get out of the car with money in one hand, skates in the other and march inside. I am 20 minutes early so my plan is to set up before she arrives and then pretend I forgot my water once she starts skating and get off the ice and hide it in her bag while she's skating. I still can't understand what her hang up is with a stupid car ride but I refuse to take her money.
When I open the front doors I can hear Francesca's competition song already blasting through the speakers. I am not completely shocked she beat me today, I could tell on Tuesday her nerves were already starting to build. I walk in and set my stuff down next to hers. From the looks of it she's been here awhile. I take a second to slip the money into her backpack between two pages on her notebook before making my presence known.
"Hey butt," I call out to her, trying to lighten the mood. I can see from her rigid posture that her nerves have her wound up pretty tight. I know the feeling, last year before the Frozen Four Finals I was so tense I thought for sure I was going to puke on the ice.
"Ryder please," she begs, looking completely exhausted. She is covered in sweat as she skates over to the wall and finishes the tiny water left in her clear bottle.
"How long have you been here?"
She pauses the music and looks at the time on her phone. "About an hour and a half."
"I always thought you had class before this." She is always running here with her backpack and I know after this she goes home so I always assumed she was coming here from class.
"I do, I skipped today to get in some more time. Barb and Josh said they had the opening and I figured it would be good to get in a few full outs with the entire ice." I look at my side of the ice expecting to see it covered with holes from her toe pick but it isn't. "At noon I asked them to smooth it out and I put the cones out."
"Oh, thanks," I say, completely shocked she did that and gave up time just so I could have clean ice to skate on. Oh how far we've come since she threatened to kill me that first day. Now we've made it two weeks sharing the ice with minimal incident.
She seems distracted with something on her phone so I put my skates on and step onto the ice. Instead of warming up I grab the empty water Francesca has on the wall. She is still frantically typing away as I skate back off the ice and walk over to the old water fountain to fill it up.
When I return she has set her phone down but hasn't restarted the music. "Here," I shove the water at her. She is still out of breath from when I first walked in, even if she is trying to pretend she isn't in front of me. It is like when you walk up stairs with someone and you're out of breath by try to play it cool, that is the best way to describe her right now.
"You filled my water?"
"I'm not all bad butt," I tease, nudging her a little with my foot.
"Can we go back to Beck? I liked that way better than butt."
