Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Jamie

How is this my life?

I was fervently defending the merits of Marmite, trying to convince Jackson of its legendary status back in Britain. "You haven't lived until you've eaten Marmite on toast," I insisted, spreading a generous layer on a piece of toast to demonstrate.

Jackson made a face that clearly showed his skepticism. "That stuff looks like tar!" he exclaimed, backing away with exaggerated horror. Then, with a playful shout toward the living room where Oliver was flipping lazily through a sports magazine, he yelled, "Oli, your best friend is trying to kill me with this… this motor oil on toast!"

Oliver laughed from the other room, not bothering to look up. "Just eat it, Jack! It's an acquired taste!"

"You couldn't pay me enough to even sniff it, let alone eat it," he muttered.

Along with my Yorkshire tea and my supply of custard creams, Marmite was one of the other things I'd found online to order in, and after Oli suggested I have a cupboard in the kitchen for my Brit-stuff, as he called it, I now had five jars of Marmite in stock, three packages of biscuits, and over a thousand tea bags.

Just in case.

"It stinks," Jackson said with a theatrical sniff.

"Don't you have donuts to buy and bad guys to arrest, Columbo?" I deadpanned.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't stereotype me, Hugh ."

"Do I need to break this up?" Oli asked, and bumped Jackson off his stool.

"You need to take that black stuff away from here," Jackson said with an exaggerated shudder. "Like far, far away."

"Says the man who can't taste the hot dog for the mustard," I hit back, and couldn't help the smile. Jackson was growing on me—he was good for Oli, and as to Oli and the girls? Well, Oli was besotted, and the girls loved Jackson. Although they still came to me first if they needed something.

Take that Columbo—Brit 1, Cop 0.

"Isn't your meeting at ten?" Oli asked, glancing up at the clock, and the kitchen banter over my choice of breakfast was interrupted by my sudden realization of the time.

"Damn, I'm late to the rink," I muttered, checking my watch frantically as if it was going to say something different. I needed to brush my teeth, check my notes, and god knows what else before I could even leave the house.

An amused smirk played on Jackson's lips. "Why the rush, Jamie? Got a hot date or something at the rink?" he teased.

"It's not a date. I need to gather data today," I shot back.

Jackson, who was still eyeing the Marmite toast suspiciously, chuckled. "Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?" His teasing only added to the light-hearted conspiracy brewing against my serious intentions. I might be dating Craig, hell we might have had three dates since the cinema that included a serious amount of kissing, but I wasn't at the feeling-okay-being-teased stage yet.

I tipped my chin. "Yes, I am dating Craig, but no , today is not a date."

"He's only teasing." Oli elbowed Jackson who snorted a laugh. "We leave in five."

Ignoring Jackson's laughter, I hurried upstairs, did what I needed, grabbed my notes, and met Oli at the door, ready to dart out, but not before hearing Jackson's comment in his best approximation of a Hugh Grant accent. "Take your ‘data gathering' seriously, mate!"

"Jackson is an arsehole," I muttered to Oli as I belted in.

"Sarcasm is his love language." Oli grinned at me and waited for the gates to open before heading downtown to the Storm practice arena. "There was something…" He stopped as the lights changed, and he merged into the traffic.

"Something what?" I prompted.

"Never mind," he said, his concentration on driving.

I sighed. "If you have something to say about me and Craig then stop, I know you never liked Sean, and you were right, but you're not my dad and I lo—I like Craig. Okay?"

Oli shot me a sharp look at my near slip. "That wasn't what I was going to say."

I tipped my chin. "No?"

"No, I was going to… wait a minute…" He indicated to turn into the rink parking, flashed his security pass, and pulled up in the first space he found, which was easy given there were only a couple of other cars parked there, one of which was Craig's. "I'm thinking of asking Jackson to marry me," he blurted.

I spun in my seat to face him. "You're doing what?" I asked to give me a moment to think about how to react. Jackson was a teasing, annoying asshole, but he was also a good guy, loved Oli and the girls, and hell, I liked him as well. Even if he did keep stealing my Custard Creams, and probably secretly loved Marmite.

Or not.

"You think it's a bad idea?" Oli asked, as if my opinion mattered.

"God no, I was just shocked, that's all. It was inevitable it would happen," I said.

"Really?"

"He loves you, you love him, I just… is he the settling down kind of person?"

Oli grinned. "Yeah, he is."

"He's moved in," I said.

"He has."

"The girls love him."

"They do."

"And you love him."

"I do."

I pressed a hand to his arm. "So why are you only thinking of asking him to marry you?"

He blinked at me, and it was as if any doubt he might be having that Jackson wasn't his forever slipped away. "I'm not," he said and sat back in his seat. "I'm not thinking. I am going to ask him."

"Congratulations, bestie." I tugged my best friend into an awkward sideways hug. "You found your man, you keep him."

"And if he says yes…"

" When he says yes."

"You'll be my best man?"

Emotion choked me. I'd seen so much of his grief after Melissa died, of the way he was with the girls, how he'd finally found a new love, and I was so happy for him.

"Of course I will."

He gripped my arm and grinned. "One day soon, I'm gonna ask Jackson to marry me."

"And I'll babysit when you do it."

"You won't need to. I have this idea…"

"What idea?"

"Never mind." He rested his forehead on mine. "You're a good friend, Jameson Hennessy." Then he sat back and gestured for me to get out. "Now, go data collect."

I grinned at him, happy with the world, and now I was going into data collect with Craig. This was a good morning.

This was so not a good morning.

"I don't understand why you're making me bloody skate, for god's sake," I said for the millionth time. And yes, I was exaggerating, but I'm a doctor of mathematics, so sue me. For some ungodly reason, Craig had extra skates with him, and this wasn't just going to be me documenting him when he was determined to get me out on the ice.

"So, you can feel what it's like from a practical point of view," he said again.

Despite my better judgment, I was letting this happen and right now he was crouched in front of me, balanced on his skates, peering up at me from under his messy, flicky fringe, or bangs as they called them here, and no, I had no idea why. He was so beautiful down there, smiling at me as if he were giving me the world when actually he was giving me a pair of used skates and forcing me onto the ice upon which I would likely die.

As we approached the rink, all the injury statistics I had read up on came rushing back to me. "You know, the likelihood of injury on public ice rinks is statistically high for a first-time skater," I told him, hoping maybe this last fact could get me out of having to skate.

Craig just chuckled and handed me a pair of skates. "Well… one, this isn't a public rink. It's just us, and two, I'm right here with you."

Strapping on the skates had felt like gearing up for a dangerous mission, and neither of us was padded up like Craig was in a game. When I stepped onto the ice, my movements were awkward, reminiscent of a newborn deer's first steps. Craig stayed close, and I swear I was cutting off the circulation in his fingers by how tightly I gripped his hands.

"Just keep your knees bent and your weight forward a bit," he instructed, skating backward with ease in front of me.

I grimaced, attempting to mimic his posture while recounting another fact to distract myself from abject fear. "I read about this kid who lost a finger because someone skated over his hand."

"Jamie…"

"Look I know it's pretty rare, but you can see why I'm not thrilled about this."

Craig smiled at me. "You're safe with me, and no one's going to skate over your hands."

"If I fall?—"

"You won't fall."

We took slow laps around the rink, Craig leading and occasionally pulling me along when I froze. Each time I swayed dangerously, his grip would tighten, steadying me.

"There you go, you're getting it," he encouraged, as we completed another shaky circuit.

I managed a weak smile, still tense but no longer terrified. "I'm really only doing this because I trust you, you know." Despite my anxiety and the chilling tales of ice rink mishaps, Craig's confidence and close presence made the experience bearable, and eventually, even a little enjoyable.

He chatted away, and I was caught up in his words as we moved on to his time playing college hockey, and how it was hard to fit in with studying.

"You know," Craig began, his voice reflective as he tugged me in a slow spiral, "college was a real struggle for me at first. With dyslexia, everything just took twice as long, and the words… they just danced around the page."

That lined up with the research I'd done, and I couldn't imagine how hard it had been for him. I shifted my balance, and he corrected it—kept me upright.

"I can only imagine how tough that was. You always seem so together about everything."

He chuckled, a low, rueful sound. "Yeah, well, it wasn't always like that. I had to work my ass off just to keep up. Ended up having to get a personal tutor."

I couldn't resist a tease. "Oh, I've seen that porno. The needy student and the seductive nerd."

Craig laughed. " Imogen Mulroney was far from being my type, trust me. Plus, she was more like a drill sergeant than anything you'd find in those films. No nonsense, all business, no sex or spankings."

I laughed along with him, appreciating the ease with which he could joke about his challenges. It was one of the things I loved about him—his resilience and his ability to not take himself too seriously. I wish I had the skill to not take things über seriously at times.

"But y'know," he continued, becoming more somber, "having dyslexia made me feel as if I was always climbing uphill. Imogen helped a lot, though. She figured out ways to get through to me, techniques that I still use."

I wobbled slightly and he tugged me to the barrier where we stopped and hung for a while. "It's impressive, you know. Not everyone would have stuck it out."

Craig turned his hand to interlace his fingers with mine, giving a gentle squeeze. "Had to. I wasn't going to let it beat me. I wanted to prove that I could do it, despite the dyslexia." The pride in his voice was real.

I felt a surge of admiration for him. "And you did," I said. "You're one of the best people I know, Craig."

He smiled. A soft, thoughtful expression that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. "Thanks, Jamie. That means a lot. Now, back to skating."

"No, please, no."

He ignored me, tugging me back in circles and I tried my hardest to look cool. If cool is a grown man as useless as a baby on skates.

Craig laughed, keeping our pace slow and manageable. "You look so cute out here," he added, and I felt hot.

All over hot.

And so turned on by the capable way he was holding me up, and skating backward, and smiling all the time he was doing it. It would be so easy to fall in love with him, to imagine a life with him. But, when I did that, I wasn't focusing on my studies, and I needed to because Sean was out there riding the coattails of what he'd stolen from me. I needed to prove to him, and the mathematics community what I was capable of.

As if that errant flash of temper was enough to send my legs sideways and I ended up flat on my back, tit over arse, with Craig sprawled over me.

"I fell over," I said with a squeak of indignation.

He made no move to get off me, gently tangled his hand in my hair. "You look so good lying on the ice," he murmured, and I kind of melted there and then. Fuck statistics, I wanted a kiss.

Which led to another kiss, and another, until my back was cold, and I was turned on, and Craig finally backed off and helped me stand.

"I need to collect data," I said, even as I reached for another kiss.

He chuckled and held me close for a moment. "Where do you want me."

"In bed," I blurted, and he tried not to laugh.

"I meant, here, today, spirals… y'know, out on the ice."

"Oh." I blinked at him. "That."

"Yep, that."

"I need to…"

I waved at the seats, and he guided me off the white stuff and helped me take off the skates and lace up my boots. Then I helped add an array of sensors to his jersey, his knees, and his ankles before he glided back out and waited.

"And?" he asked, a stick in his hand and a puck on the ice waiting. I glanced down at my notes and the empty spaces for stats and comments.

"Can you skate, but call on your figure skating days to…" I waved at the rink.

He grinned at me. "Skating I can do," he said.

As I watched Craig glide across the ice with precision, twisting and turning, I considered my theory of a connection between the natural spirals in Fibonacci sequences and the movements in ice hockey. The elegance of Craig's maneuvers from his figure skating past, the way he curved and swirled, almost traced mathematical patterns invisibly on the ice. My thesis was that the same principles dictating the growth patterns of sunflowers and seashells dictated the sweeping arcs of a gymnast, or a football player, or a hockey player. The way Craig pivoted and turned, each could be part of a larger, predictable pattern, perhaps even something that could be modeled mathematically. I took notes, watched my laptop collect data, and as he executed a particularly tight spiral, I pushed aside being turned on, to think logically. This was only the start of the data collection, requiring precise tracking of motions that were second nature and intuitive to players like Craig.

Lost in thought, I barely noticed Craig skating back toward me, a grin on his face, coming to a smooth stop that sent a small spray of ice crystals into the air.

"Was that enough? Or do you need more?"

I blinked at him, lost in equations forming and reforming as I considered variables like speed, angle of attack, and the physics of skates on ice.

"Huh?" I asked, and gazed at the screen where Craig's actions were tracked as strings of ones and zeroes.

"Do you need more?" he asked, and leaned on the barrier, his face flushed from the exercise.

The data was there, the skating was just day one of data collection, but there was only one thing I wanted to say. I shut my laptop and took the three steps to the barrier, leaning into him.

"Your numerical and geometric data is beautiful," I murmured. Oli had said Jackson's love language was sarcasm—well, mine was mathematics.

"My what now is what now?" Craig grinned.

I reached for him and cradled his face, and we kissed.

"You are beautiful."