Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Whatever.
I’d said what I’d needed to and drawn the proverbial line in the sand. With any luck, our paths wouldn’t cross much during his hopefully very short stay.
Now I just had to figure out how to get into my truck without looking like an idiot.
I studied the two-inch gap the Jeep owner had left between us with a sigh before rounding my vehicle and opening the passenger side door. A blast of heat engulfed my face like a furnace. Fuck me, the faux-leather interior scorched the skin my shorts didn’t cover on my lower thighs and the back of my knees.
I leaned over to insert the fob in the ignition and rolled down the windows for a little relief. Then I began the tedious contortion-like maneuvering necessary to hike my long legs over the console and behind the steering wheel. Not pretty.
Without skates on my feet, I was kind of a klutz, so it was no surprise that I kneed the horn and that sudden noise startled me into jostling the volume on the “Out and Proud, Give it to Me Loud” playlist my best friend in LA had personally curated for me. Gloria Gaynor’s survival anthem rocked my truck at ear-splitting decibels worthy of a gaggle of teens screaming their hearts out at a Harry Styles concert.
Holy fuck. I couldn’t get in my seat fast enough to adjust the sound. And when I finally did, my thighs sizzled on the hot upholstery.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I winced in pain and punched the Off button on the stereo, slumping in relief, my heart pounding against my chest as a welcome silence descended.
Well, not total silence.
Laughter floated in the air. The doubled-over, uncontrollable, tears-running-down-your-face kind of laughter associated with extra funny shit. It didn’t take a brainiac to figure out who that was.
I glanced in my rearview mirror at Vin chuckling merrily at my expense. Jerk. I fastened my seat belt and noticed I’d accidentally left the passenger door open, so I undid my seat belt and leaned across the console, singeing my arm hair and bruising my knee in the process. I was able to accomplish the chore without additional acrobatics so…yay me.
I took a deep breath and buckled up again just as the Jeep on my left fired up its engine.
“Oh, shit. You meant this Jeep? Sorry, man.”
I probably looked like a befuddled cartoon character, going from confused to comically irate in seconds flat. I was Elmer Fudd to Vin’s Bugs Bunny, always thinking I’d finally gotten the last word only to have a stick of dynamite blow up in my face.
I fixed him with a blank stare. “You haven’t changed a bit, Vinnie.”
He waggled his brows and grinned, so…I maturely flipped him off with as much cool as I could muster and got the hell out of dodge.
3
VINNIE
Well, so much for a sneak-attack icebreaker.
I should have known that joke wouldn’t land. It was too high school and too presumptuous. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have led with a prank at all. I should have gone with serious and polite and—shit, I sucked at apologies.
I stared after Nolan’s truck for a beat and sighed, then killed the engine of my Jeep and headed for the main entrance to Elmwood Rink.
Memories flooded over me like a tidal wave the moment I set foot in the lobby. We’re talking a base level, organic, déjà vu times a thousand feeling. This was hallowed ground.
The squeak of the scuffed tile floor, the hint of ice in the air, the wall of photos lining the wide corridor to the dented wooden reception area. This hallway had seemed so long when I was a kid. It would take forever to slog my gear from my dad’s SUV, across the lot, along this very corridor, and into the locker room. I remembered telling Dad they should build an ice escalator so we didn’t have to waste so much time getting to the good stuff.
Now, I could see the rink through an adult’s eyes and…it wasn’t much to look at. It was too quaint, too small, too worn down. I’d been in arenas all over the globe, and Elmwood Ice Rink would never measure on anyone’s cool meter.
It was marked by multiple generations of townsfolk who’d poked through the photos tacked on corkboards to find themselves, kicked their skates against the front desk, and carved their initials into the locker room benches.
Nowadays, they’d call it vandalism and charge the guilty party for defacing private property, but back in the day, we were just marking territory. My initials were under benches and in at least two bathroom stalls. Oh, yeah, and I’d drawn penises under every other seat of the last row under the projector window when I was eight or nine, too.
I would have kept going, but I’d gotten caught and the threat of being expelled from the rink had been enough to curb my naughty graffiti streak for a while. I’d scrubbed the crayon off, tears in my eyes, while my dad had sat nearby grading papers, occasionally looking over to inspect my work. I’d done my best, but I’d bet the smudges were still there. Unless Ronnie had installed new stadium seating.