Chapter Twenty-Two

Jet lag was kicking Natalie’s ass. Hard. To make matters worse, Darcy looked obnoxiously put together and awake. Natalie rubbed her face for the third time, hoping it might help her wake up. It did nothing other than capture Darcy’s attention.

“Are you all right? Do you need more coffee or something?”

Natalie grumbled. “No. I’ll be fine. How are you so freaking chipper this morning?”

Darcy shrugged. “I’m excited.”

Natalie sat down on a folding chair and watched Darcy flick through her notebook. She was like a kid on Christmas morning. Despite her exhaustion, Natalie felt a nagging sense of anxiety. She’d come a very long way without much training and now they were really going to put her on TV. They had no idea if she would be any good or if she’d fall flat on her face.

No. There was no way she was going to fail in front of Darcy. She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of screwing up.

A production assistant led them to a truck where they had a bunch of equipment waiting. “We didn’t know what you would want to wear for this, so we kind of brought everything.”

The truck was filled with rows and rows of skis, boots, and outerwear. “What do they normally wear for this?” Natalie asked.

Darcy giggled.

Since when did Darcy giggle? Natalie gave her a look.

“Cross-country skiers wear those spandex suits when they race.” Darcy reached in and tugged at the leg of something that looked like it came from Spider-Man’s closet.

Oh hell no.

“You want us to wear tights? On national TV?” Natalie touched the fabric and gave it a tug. Like compression leggings but for her entire body. No one needed to see that.

Darcy laughed again, this time sounding slightly hysterical. “ International TV. Don’t you want to wear this for millions of people to see?”

It was too early for this. “I’m not sure America can handle my hockey ass in those things. Do they even make sizes that would fit us?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s spandex, Carpenter. The whole point is that it stretches.”

“Fine, then you go first.” She sounded like a petulant child. But whether it was jet lag or the thought of cramming herself into full-body spandex, Natalie couldn’t stop whining.

Darcy smiled. “If it will make you feel less scared about the big bad spandex, I’ll go first.” She took the suit the PA handed her. “Come on, you big chicken.”

Natalie took her suit and followed Darcy to the makeshift changing area to the side of the van. On the hanger, the suit looked too small to fit a tween, let alone over her ample thigh and shoulder muscles.

The athletes’ changing area was in a building a few hundred yards away. The sight of it reminded Natalie that she wasn’t one of them anymore. She was a TV person now. Not belonging in those places she used to feel at home made her wince more than putting the spandex on.

She stepped into the suit and the only word that came to mind was wrong . It was all wrong. She was used to the way her hockey gear felt, the way it sat on her shoulders and against her shins. She was at home in her skates. Here she felt like she was back to being an awkward little kid again, feeling like nothing fit right, scrambling along, pushing a chair to keep from falling over.

The suit was too tight. There was no way she was going to be able to fit into it without ripping it or horrifying America. She pulled it up over her shoulders and it felt like it was squeezing her toward the ground. She missed the comfort of her hockey gear. She missed her identity even more.

“Are you done yet?” Darcy’s voice cut through her self-pity.

She looked up. “Hoping to catch me mid-change? Come on, LaCroix, have some class.”

Darcy laughed. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, kid.”

Natalie blushed at the memory.

Darcy rolled her eyes. “We were teammates, or have you blocked that out?”

Natalie turned around and pointed at her back. She hadn’t blocked any of it out. Darcy didn’t need to know how many times she’d replayed it in her head over the years.

She remembered every second of it, from the euphoric beginning to the terrible end. That memory of Darcy blowing her off, pretending Natalie was nothing more than a teammate, was seared into her brain. “I think something’s twisted back there. Do you see anything wrong?”

Darcy stepped closer. Natalie could hear the snow crunching under her feet and the whisper of her breath on the back of her neck. Fuck, this was going to be harder than she thought. No, she would remember that look on Darcy’s face when she left Natalie behind. Fuck her.

The feel of Darcy’s breath on Natalie’s neck sent a shiver down her spine. Natalie chastised her traitorous heart for thumping faster. “It’s something in the suit. Do you want me to look and see?”

No, Natalie didn’t want her to see. Why on earth would she want Darcy unzipping the suit and running her fingers underneath it and along her skin? That was a terrible idea. But there was something wrong in there and it wasn’t like she could see what was going on back there.

“Fine,” she huffed.

Darcy snorted. “Wow, Your Highness. How kind of you to let me have the honor of doing you a favor.”

Natalie stiffened at the first touch of Darcy’s cold fingers. “Jesus, did you dunk them in the snow or something?”

Darcy spun Nat around by her shoulders. “Do you think you could stop giving me shit for five seconds so I can fix whatever it is that’s pissing you off so much? God, you’re a pain in the ass.” She waited for Natalie to say something.

Instead, Natalie turned back around and gritted her teeth while Darcy used her icicle fingers to unzip the suit low enough to see inside it. If she weren’t so grumpy she might have noticed the way Darcy’s fingers trailed along her skin between her shoulder blades, or the way her heart sped up when Darcy pulled the suit back and let her fingers trail down her back below her sports bra. She might have noticed the way her body remembered the last time Darcy had been this close. She might have noticed the way her body reacted to Darcy’s breath ghosting across her skin as she reached into the suit and plucked out the offending object.

She might have noticed all of that. But there was no way she’d admit any of it to Darcy.