1. Meredith - The Hockey Boys: 16 years ago: summer

My broken skate guard snapped back at my blade as I paced the dimly lit locker room hallway. Smoothing back the little flyaway hairs that fell out of my low bun, I sucked in a deep breath, trying to pull myself together and not cry.

Crying wasn’t allowed around here. For one, it’d just make me look “weak” according to Iryna, my coach. And two, it’d completely ruin the mascara my best friend Piper put on me during the last zam. I technically wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet, so I really wanted this little bit to last for school tomorrow.

It’s not like I wanted to be out here in the hallway. I wanted to be on the ice. But Iryna lost her shit on me when I two-footed my throw triple loop for a third time in a row.

“Land the jump!” she yelled across the ice from where she stood in the team box, bundled in her team USA jacket from the last Olympics. “One foot. You act like you have broken leg, you will get broken leg.” Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in the tightest bun known to mankind, making her face look even more angular than usual. “Again,” she ordered.

Dmitry, my new skating partner, blew out an exasperated breath. I knew without looking at him that he probably just rolled his eyes. He didn’t speak much English, but eye-rolling was a universal language. I couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. He wasn’t the one messing up. I was.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Mer? I internally yelled at myself. Just land it.

Dmitry held out his gloved hand to start again. I took it and we began our back crossovers around the edge of the rink to set up the throw jump by the blue line.

We were moving fast, really fast. He skated with much more power than I was used to and I was struggling to keep up.

His hands came around my waist.

My feet melded into the loop take-off position.

My body knew the timing by heart, but my mind was spazzing out. I couldn’t seem to shut off the worries bombarding my brain.

What if you fall? With this force behind you, you could really get hurt, my brain shouted.

What if you blow out your knee?

What if you break your spine?

He launched me in the air.

Break.

Break.

Break.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull in.

I abandoned the jump mid-air, resulting in a pop– which was way worse than two-footing.

Dmitry looked up to the rafters and muttered a foreign curse under his breath.

We glided back to Iryna, maintaining about ten feet of distance between us.

“You are stubborn as ram,” Iryna announced, like I was purposely trying to fuck up.

Dmitry let out a string of Russian that I couldn’t understand and Iryna nodded.

Her cold eyes landed on my face. “Off the ice.”

“Wait,” I swallowed, “ off off?” My eyes bounced between Dmitry and Iryna. I hated when they ganged up on me.

Iryna pursed her lips in distaste and jutted her sharp chin towards the rink’s entrance. “Yes. Off. This is head problem!” She tapped her temple. “Go fix it.”

The time clock on the scoreboard told me there was still a half hour left of the session. Lessons were expensive and my family was currently footing the bill for both me and Dmitry. “W-when should I come back on?”

She harrumphed. “When I say.”

Feeling too ashamed to look Dmitry in the face, my eyes snapped to the ice before I nodded and quickly skated off.

He probably wouldn’t be my new partner for long.

Guys were hard to come by in this sport, girls were not, which was why most guys shopped around for the best deal. They wanted a partner who could win and also pay for everything. Dmitry wouldn't want to be saddled with a liability. He was after a medal.

But it wasn’t exactly my fault that I was being hesitant with these throw jumps. They weren’t giving me any time or patience to get it right.

My last partner, Alexander, was fifteen– the same age as me– and he wasn’t very strong, so he couldn’t throw me all that much higher than I could jump on my own. And that was a problem. I tried like hell to lose weight, but according to Iryna, it just wasn’t happening. I failed us.

After our last competition cycle, Iryna had us split up.

Alexander was now tearing it up with a smaller 12-year-old, while Dmitry and I stumbled and stutter-stepped all over the ice.

It wasn’t Dmitry’s fault. He was a great skater. It’s just… he was 19, and he worked out, and you could tell. He launched me so high that it felt like my knee was going to explode each time I landed. I wasn’t used to the force– so I kept subconsciously two-footing. Because I was scared. So, sue me.

No. No one would sue me. He’d just leave me if I didn’t get my shit together.

Fuck. Now my eyes were burning again. I squeezed them shut, willing myself not to cry as I continued pacing the hallway.

Annnd now my neck was itching again.

Ever since the lead up to Nationals last year, I started getting itchy hives on my neck every time I got stressed. I zipped my jacket higher to hide the evidence of my stress– Iryna would just call me a “basket case” if she saw– and continued pacing.

Right then, a couple hockey players darted from one locker room to the other, making me jump and hold my chest.

Great. Those hives were really itching now.

The hockey players were cackling and yelling at each other, completely oblivious to anyone else in the rink.

Unlike us figure skaters, the hockey players never seemed stressed out. I was jealous of that. They were always messing around with each other, especially in the summer when they were just doing clinics and weren’t in their regular season yet. I could hear them yelling their games throughout the rink and the workout room upstairs: Bet you five bucks I lift more than you today. Bet you can’t get this water bottle stuck up in the rafters . Ten bucks says I can eat this whole pizza . Twenty dollars says you can’t steal the toilet paper from all the locker room bathrooms before Hans gets you.

They were involved in an unspoken war with Hans, the rink manager. He’d always be apprehending one of them, catching them by the back of their shirt and making them clean up whatever mess they made.

They lived in their own little world here.

I guess us figure skaters did, too.

We lived parallel lives. Worked side by side at the rink, but never actually crossed the invisible line and talked to each other– well, at least I never talked to any of the hockey boys. Piper did one time. She yelled at them when they hit her in the head with a soccer ball in the lobby. Piper claimed they did it on purpose. The way they laughed and didn’t apologize made me think she was right…

Honestly, I didn’t want to get laughed at, so I just kept my distance from them.

And I tried hard to tune them out as I paced the hallway.

That is… until one of them stopped about ten feet in front of me.

From the way he wore his dark hair in a mullet and the way he was grinning at me mischievously, I could tell he was trouble. Major trouble. His eyes flashed, telling me I just fell into a trap of his.

He pointed at me and yelled, “Five bucks if you can get her to kiss ya!”

My body jolted with shock.

What the…

Me?

Was he talking about kissing me?

I looked around in the hallway. No one else was around.

Two other boys barreled into him– a lanky blond boy with a buzzcut and blue eyes, and another boy with brown hair that had a slight curl to it and matching brown eyes.

Buzzcut boy stalked toward me. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Well, c’mon, you wanna?”

I backed up a couple paces, my eyes bulging, the word no lodged in my throat. Because no . I did not want to kiss him. What in the world was happening right now?

“Stop it, asshole,” the boy with brown hair grumbled. He grabbed his friend by the back of the shirt and shoved him away from me. “You’re scaring her.”

Buzzcut boy just laughed. “Alright, it’s on you then. Five bucks.” He wagged his eyebrows at him.

The guy that saved me just shook his head at his friend. Then he turned and his warm brown eyes found mine. “Sorry about them.”

“ Sorry about them ,” the other boys immediately mimicked, then cracked up laughing.

“Shut up,” he grunted softly, giving them a harsh look.

The two boys seemed to back off after that, dipping into the nearest locker room and leaving me and the nicer boy alone in the hallway.

I blinked at him, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to say.

“I am sorry, they… they did that on purpose,” he grunted, tugging at the front of his hair. “Assholes.”

Replaying his words, my nose scrunched in confusion. “Huh?”

“Because it's you ,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes lowered. “And they know that I… watch you sometimes,” he mumbled.

Shock washed over me. “ You watch me ?” I asked slowly.

A faint blush colored his cheeks, and I was surprised to see it. For some reason, it seemed like this boy never got embarrassed. “I’m Colt. Colt Conover,” he said with a lopsided grin, placing his hand on his chest.

“Um…” I swallowed. “I’m Meredith… Bennett,” I finally forced out. “But my friends call me Mer.”

“Alright, Bennett.” He smirked.

No one had ever called me by my last name like that before. It made me feel kind of… cool.

Mullet boy’s head popped out from the locker room. “Five bucks!”

Colt’s shoulders deflated and he mumbled “such idiots” to himself. Hitching a thumb over his shoulder to where his friend disappeared, he said, “Please ignore them.”

“No, it’s…” I shook my head, feeling relieved now that buzzcut boy wasn’t stalking toward me to claim a kiss. “It’s okay,” I said with a light laugh. This boy, Colt, had a calmness about him that I couldn’t quite explain, but he put me at ease.

The hand he was raking through his hair froze. “It’s okay?” His eyebrows tugged together. “That they bet five dollars to kiss you?”

“I-I mean… ” Now my cheeks flamed. “Buzzcut boy is not okay,” I blurted out.

He threw his head back laughing, and a little thrill ran through me. I made him laugh. Genuinely laugh.

“Buzzcut boy,” he said with a grin. “That’s a good name for him.”

“What’s his actual name?”

“That’s JP. The other idiot with the mullet is Richard, but he hates when people call him that. His name’s Richard Kappers, everyone here calls him Kappy.”

“Got it.”

“So…” He rocked back on his heels and licked his lips. “It’s not okay for JP, but… it is okay for… me?”

He was watching me so closely that I couldn’t seem to form words. I just shrugged, feeling my face burn again.

“Alright, Bennett,” he said, his lips twitching into a grin.

He came closer to me then. He was tall, like a full head taller than me even though I had skates on. And his smell, it was just so… guy-ish, like laundry detergent and fresh cut grass. His hand touched my side and a flurry of jitters went off inside my stomach. That was… new.

He angled his head down, closer to me. His eyes fluttered closed, and his long eyelashes stood out against his pale face.

I wanted to kiss him. I did. But also…

My brain really was a problem.

“Ahh,” I released a strangled noise and backed up. “Sorry, but I’ve never…” My face burned and my neck itched like hell now. I shook my head and swallowed. “I’ve never… before… ya know?” I bit my lip and squinted up at him, hoping I didn’t completely ruin everything, hoping that he’d understand what I was trying to say.

“Oh?” His eyebrow furrowed. Then it dawned on him. “Ohhh.” He quickly shook his head. “We don’t have to.” A blush crept into his cheeks again.

His two friends suddenly cracked up at something behind us, and their laughter kind of grated on my nerves.

I suddenly wanted Colt to win this bet.

And… I wanted my first kiss to be with him.

Swallowing hard, I gathered up my courage and took a step closer to him. His body went completely still as his eyes met mine. Going on my tiptoes, I whispered, “How bad do you want to win that bet?”

His eyebrows flew up in surprise, then he smoothed his face into a mock-serious look. “So so bad,” he said. His grin was back in an instant. His face was just so smiley . I wanted to reach out and touch his dimple, which was weird– that was weird, right? But he just had a lightness, a happiness, about him. He was the kind of guy that people gravitated toward, that people listened to. I could tell. He was smarter than his friends. And nicer. And cuter. I loved the little freckles I could just barely see under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. He was maybe the cutest guy I’d ever seen.

He angled his neck down to me again and his eyes fluttered closed.

His lips pressed down against mine. They were soft, and I could even feel his smile in the kiss, and then they were gone in an instant.

His buddies hooted and hollered behind us, but his eyes were locked on mine, a grin on his face.

We heard someone coming down the hall then and his eyes snapped to the stairwell that led up to the rink lobby.

“You boys better get back here and clean up that mess,” Hans yelled.

“Oh shit.” He ripped his hand away from my side and I instantly missed his touch. “Sorry,” he cringed, “gotta go.”

I swiftly turned away from him and touched my still tingly lips– Did that really just happen?

A second later, I heard him yell, “Bennett!”

I whirled back around to see him at the end of the hall, wedged in the rink door.

“I’ll be seein’ ya around,” he said with a grin.

I swallowed hard. “You will?”

“Yeah…” He suddenly looked a little shy. “Wait, is that okay?”

“C’mon Colt!” the one called Kappy yelled.

“He’s gonna beat our asses, man,” JP added with wide eyes, craning his neck over Colt’s shoulder to see if Hans was coming.

But Colt wasn’t budging. He was fully focused on me, waiting on my answer.

“You boys better get over here!” Hans practically growled behind me. He was on the stairs now, his face red and his neck veins bulging.

Not wanting Colt to get in trouble, I shooed him away.

“Colt, we gotta go!” His buddies tried to yank him from the door, but he was just staring at me, the picture of calm.

“Is it?” he asked me again, completely patient.

“Yes, it’s okay, go!” I laughed, feeling a genuine smile on my face as I shooed him away. It felt practically foreign. When was the last time I smiled like this?

His face practically lit up. “Good.”

“Quick! Let’s go!” the boys urged him, but he was still looking at me.

“100 bucks,” Colt suddenly announced.

“What?!” His buddies’ mouths dropped open and they stopped pulling at him. They knew this was serious. I’d never heard any of them place a bet that high either. It was always a five or 10, maybe a 20 if it was a huge dare.

Colt licked his lips again and nodded. “Hundred bucks says I marry her one day.” His face was smiley, but his eyes were serious as his friends all roughed him up and shouted out their oooh’s .

I looked around the hallway again to make sure there was no other ‘her’ present. Because what? Was he being serious? Or was he just making a joke and they were all about to laugh at me?

But something in his eyes told me he was being serious, dead serious, and that made a thrill race through my entire body.

For the first time in… ever… I felt seen.

And wanted.

For no reason at all.

It didn’t make sense.

This was… It was crazy.

He was crazy.

“You boys get back here!” Hans yelled from right behind me now.

The boys disappeared then. The heavy rink door clanged shut behind them, making the hallway appear dimmer, but I could still hear their voices as they ran through the rink.

I just laughed at the wild boy and his wild friends.

And I really hoped he was being for real… that I would see him around. That he would kiss me again.

At that time, it really was just an innocent hope.

I had no way of knowing that he was serious. That he’d become my greatest distraction in the best and worst ways possible.

“Mer! There you are!”

I whipped around to see Piper striding toward me in her bright pink yoga set, her long blonde hair swishing in the high-pony she always wore.

“What are you doing?” she asked with wide eyes, grabbing my arm to pull me back toward the rink with her. “Iryna’s been looking for you. Better tell her you were in the bathroom or something, she’s on one today.”

Right.

Iryna.

And Dmitry.

And the throw triple.

My neck immediately itched again.