Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Fox

Five years ago

Am I seeing things?

No one was ever in the rink at this hour, and definitely not anyone doing that. I leaned against the plastic barrier for a closer look, making sure I wasn’t imagining her. But no, that was most definitely a woman on the ice. And she was most definitely…changing her underwear. She had on a tennis skirt and cropped top, not even any tights in the freezing-cold place. I watched as a tiny piece of red material fell to the ice and she lifted one knee and stepped into what looked like a pair of black panties, three times the size. She shimmied them up her legs, scooped the red fabric from the ice, skated to the sideline, and tossed them over the boards into the penalty box.

I stayed quiet, curious what she’d do next. The pretty redhead seemed lost in her own world as she skated to one corner of the rink. She took a deep breath, stood tall staring straight ahead for a long time, and then began to skate backward with determination. When she got three quarters of the way to my side of the ice, she looped forward and leaped into the air. Her body twisted and rotated so fast, I lost count of how many turns she’d done. As she descended, we locked eyes and her focus broke. She landed hard on her ass.

Shit.

I bolted out onto the ice. Luckily I was already laced up. I leaned down to help her, but she pushed my hands away.

“What the hell were you doing, just standing there?” she demanded.

“I didn’t want to interrupt.”

She brushed ice from her ass and climbed to her feet. She was going to have a nice bruise later.

“That was some move you did there.”

“It would’ve been, if you hadn’t scared the crap out of me. How did you get in here, anyway?”

“I have a key.”

“Oh. Well, can you give me another fifteen minutes before you start resurfacing? I really need to nail this move.”

“Resurfacing?”

“You’re the maintenance guy, right?”

I smiled. It had been a few years since I’d walked anywhere near a rink and someone didn’t recognize me. Especially a few miles from my hometown, no less. But I decided to play along. “Yeah, I can give you another fifteen.”

“Thanks.”

She skated back to the other side of the rink, leaned over with her hands on her knees, and shut her eyes for a while before getting into position again. Then she did the same move, except this time it didn’t seem like she got in as many rotations as she had on the last pass. Though at least she stuck the landing. I was impressed, but she looked annoyed with herself. I’d watched figure skating on TV before, and this woman seemed as good as any of them. She repeated the trick once more and landed looking unhappy again.

Taking a deep breath, she glared over at me. “Do you have to watch me like that?”

“Are you training for a competition?”

“I’m training for the Olympic qualifiers.”

“Won’t you have people watching you when you try out?”

“Yes, but I’ll have things down by then. You’re making me nervous.”

I liked watching her, and it was also past the time I’d blocked off the rink to do my workout, but I appreciated her determination. “No problem.”

Though when I went into the office, I turned on the security monitor and pressed the button to bring up the interior cameras. Kicking my feet up on the desk, I clasped my hands behind my head and watched the woman do her trick five more times before nailing it on the sixth. Her turns were so fast, I couldn’t always count, but the fist pump and smile on her face told me she’d done it. I zoomed in the camera and found myself smiling back at her, though she obviously couldn’t see me. Damn, she’s gorgeous. She started to jump around on the ice, doing some sort of quirky celebratory dance with her arms flailing all around. When she was done, she skated off and stepped into the penalty box. She glanced around the arena, probably to see if I was still lurking, then bent and grabbed something. I couldn’t see behind the boards, but the way she was wiggling around, I was pretty certain she was changing her underwear again. Strange. But show me an athlete who didn’t do weird shit.

A few minutes later, she appeared in the doorway of the office. I hadn’t yet turned off the monitor. She leaned in and looked at the screen.

“You were watching me?”

“You nailed your move. Congratulations.”

“I told you that you watching me made me nervous.”

“You knowing I was watching you made you nervous. Can’t be nervous about something you don’t know about.” I shrugged. “Also, if you skate a little faster, you’ll be able to get more height on your jump and you probably won’t cut it so close when you come down.”

“I was skating as fast as I can.”

“No, you weren’t. You start out that way but then back off because your nerves get to you. You gotta go balls out.”

She squinted at me. “Does the boss know you sit around watching people instead of working?”

I smiled. “I think he’d be okay with it.”

She tilted her head. “Maybe I should ask him?”

“Maybe you should.” I held her stare. “By the way, what’s with the underwear change?”

Her eyes widened. “You watched me do that?”

“It’s not like I was peeking through your bedroom window. You did it center ice.”

“I thought I was alone.”

“Were the other ones too restricting for all those flips or something?”

“No. They just weren’t lucky.”

“Come again?”

“The ones I put on are lucky, and I was pushing myself for an extra turn.”

I didn’t enter the rink before a game without tapping the gate three times, so lucky underwear made sense to me. It wasn’t the objects, but the belief we held about them. Whatever worked.

I lifted my chin to her bag. “Are the underwear in your bag?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Can I borrow them?”

“What are you, some kind of a perv?”

“No. Just need a little extra luck.”

“For what?”

“Hoping a pretty woman I met will say yes to going out with me.”

“You’re not referring to me, are you?”

“I am.”

“You don’t even know my name.”

I extended a hand. “Fox. And you are?”

“Evie. But I’m not going out with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t even know you.”

“Have coffee with me then. Here, right now. There’s a vending machine near the locker rooms. Then you can get to know me, see that I’m a great guy, and say yes to dinner.”

“I don’t know…” She twisted her lips like it wasn’t a hard no. “Don’t you have to take care of the ice?”

I hadn’t lied to her, just let her draw her own conclusions. I grabbed the clipboard that always hung on the wall and looked at the schedule. “No one else comes in until eight.”

She looked over her shoulder at the empty arena. Her face changed, and I got the feeling the seesaw she’d been straddling was about to come down on the wrong side. I might’ve only met the woman, but I knew one thing about athletes: They love competition. So I changed my approach. “I’ll tell you what. How about we race for it?”

“Race? You mean on the ice?”

I nodded. “If I beat you, you have coffee with me. Then it’s up to me to charm you into dinner.”

She laughed. “Are you serious? You know I’m a professional ice skater, right?”

“I do.” I extended my hand. “But you don’t know how well I skate.”

She chuckled. “I think you’re offering a losing bet.”

“Do we have a deal anyway?”

“Sure. Why not?”

I stood. As I rose to full height, Evie almost looked concerned for the first time. She’d only seen me standing from a distance, and the rink was elevated from the surrounding surface.

“You’re so tall.”

I winked. “Longer legs make me a faster skater.”

She smiled, still overconfident. “Whatever you say.”

We walked side by side to the entrance and slipped off our plastic blade guards at the same time before stepping onto the ice. Evie skated backward to one side of the rink. “Do you want to take a warmup lap?”

I was too cocky for that. “No need.”

She laughed. “Where are we skating to? The other side or the other side and back?”

I shrugged. “Your choice.”

“Then let’s go there and back. I’ll count, and we go on three, okay?”

“You got it.”

We both took our stances, leaning over with feet spread and skates digging into the ice, waiting for push off.

“You ready?” she said.

“Born ready.”

She shook her head. “One. Two…Three!”

We blasted off, flying across the ice. I had to hand it to her. For a little thing, Evie gave me a decent run for my money on the way there. But I could cut a turn better than every man in the league, so I smoked her ass on the way back.

She bent over with her hands on her knees, panting. “How did you learn to skate so fast?”

“Years of practice.”

I was about to remind her of our deal and show her the way to the coffee vending machine, when Neil, the actual guy responsible for resurfacing the ice, yelled from the side. “Morning, Cassidy!”

I waved. “Morning, Neil!”

I looked over at Evie. Her brows were pinched together. “I thought you said your name was Fox.”

“It is. Cassidy is my last name.”

“Fox…Cassidy? Like the hockey player?”

I grinned. “Exactly like him.”