The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 18 ● Slippery Road To Something

Wait a second. Not everybody skated that way. Not everybody could dangle the puck in the air, handle it on the ice and flip it with minuscule flicks of their wrist.

I curved a hand by my mouth, took a deep break and asked, "Dean?"

It was him, I realized with a smile when he suddenly braked. He skated around in a circle until he spotted me waving at him. He took off towards me even as I made my way down toward the frozen pier. That was where I found his bag, his shoes and a Thermos. Dean met me there. His cheeks and nose were red from the cold or the effort, I didn't know. It definitely wasn't a blush, though just thinking that was how he looked like when he blushed was probably making me color up. But damn, he was cute. In another lifetime I'd have liked to tease him about it, maybe even flirt and see if I had the power to deepen his color.

Instead I asked, "What the hell are you doing skating on a lake?"

He lifted his eyebrows. "Um, hi to you, too?" A little smile appeared on his face while I continued to look at him like he totally was. "The lake's frozen solid for a few days already. The locals use it as an outdoors skating rink when it's like this."

I covered my eyes with my hand as a visor and made a show of looking around. "Which locals? I just see one weird guy here."

"That's probably just the frozen lake throwing your reflection back at you."

I rolled my eyes, though I admitted that was a good comeback. I did focus on the fact that he was alone, though.

"Why are you by yourself, then?"

Dean scratched his head through the thick green beanie he was wearing, and it liberated a few blond curls from beneath. "Everybody's busy with their families, getting ready for thanksgiving."

I cringed. "Yeah, this weekend's gonna suck."

He titled his head to the side, eyes thoughtful. "You don't get along with your dad?"

"An understatement," I replied with a shrug. "Guess we got that in common."

Without even looking at what he was doing he flipped the puck with his stick and caught it in midair. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Show off."

He grinned. "I could teach you a few things. If you want."

I exhaled, considering the proposal. I had to tell myself that it was a decent one and so I shouldn't feel like he'd just asked me if I was DTF. Freaking hot boys with a constant double entendre syndrome. Or freaking brain who read a second meaning behind anything said freaking boys said.

"Well, okay. I have nothing better to do."

We agreed on meeting there in a few minutes until I went home and got my skates and stick. I nearly did some impressive figure skating at the porch while I was trying to get the key in the lock, not realizing that the entire front of the house was icy. I found dad sitting on the sofa with his laptop, no doubt working on something. We ignored each other during the couple of minutes it took me to put the groceries away, and I made no point of hiding my skates and stick as I made it back downstairs and out. When I made it to the lake again Dean was still there, skating around as though he were doing shadow boxing. Or the hockey equivalent to it where he was pretending to be skating against an opponent.

I put on my skates and descended from the pier with considerable difficulty. I had to nearly slide down one of the poles with all my limbs until the blades of my skates touched the surface of the lake. I had a moment's worth of panic where I wondered if this was a bad idea after all. Somewhere under the layer of ice there was water cold as fuck, enough to kill me. Plus the surface was so uneven that I almost felt like I was learning how to skate again.