Heat it Up: Off the Ice - Book One (15 page)

“I never doubted it for a moment. You’re one of the most driven players I’ve worked with.”

We talk for a few more minutes, then we both have to get back to work. The boys are waiting for me when I enter the gym. Like with all the strength and conditioning sessions, Nik’s boys have joined mine.

“Five minutes of jogging to warm up,” I direct them. “We’re starting a new training program today.” I send them off on their run.

“Do you wanna explain the drills to them?” I ask Nik.

“You’re the one planning to be a coach. You can do it.” His gaze drops to my injured leg. “I’ll demonstrate.”

I clench my teeth together. It’s not Nik’s fault he has to even suggest it. He’s not the one I’m pissed at.

And since I don’t want the boys to know I’m not thrilled with this arrangement, I release a long breath and will myself to get over it. Easier said than done.

After the boys finish their laps and we guide them through the stretches, I ask, “Who’s heard the term plyometric training before?”

A few hands are raised.

“Hockey isn’t just about being strong. It’s about combining speed and strength to provide power behind your movements. Or in physics terms, the rate you can move an object with as much force as possible. With skating, that translates into how fast you can skate down the ice and therefore beat your opponent to the puck.”

I explain what plyometrics are and why they’re an important part their conditioning program. “We’re only introducing you to them. Once you get higher up in your hockey career, they’ll be a key part of your training.”

After we guide them through the warm-up, Nik walks them through each exercise we want to teach them, starting with the standing long jump. I provide the necessary feedback. The workout is simple for now. The goal is to teach them proper technique.

I try to focus my attention on the boys, but memories of kissing Sofia sneak in. Memories of our texts before I showed up at the soccer practice also sneak in. Especially the text in which she jokingly asked if hers were turning me on.

I hadn’t been turned on, but one question has bounced around in my head ever since: what is her stance on phone sex? This is usually followed with me wondering why I’m even thinking about it.

Following the afternoon session on the ice, I join the boys in the classroom to analyze the video of a NHL game from last season. Afterward, they’re dismissed for the day, but one player remains. He shifts on his feet and looks everywhere but at me. Which is odd since Mikko is normally confident and tells it as it is.

“What can I help you with?” I ask.

“You understand physics, right?”

I nod. I’ve occasionally explained the physics behind a skill to show how the skill works. “Is there something you need help with?”

He hesitates for a moment and nods. “I’m taking the physics course this summer, but I’m not doing well in it. It makes more sense when you explain things to me.”

One of the camp’s features that makes it different from others like it—other than it’s offered for eight weeks instead of for just one—is that the hockey aspect is combined with summer school. It enables the boys to reduce their course load for the school year so they can focus more on the sport during hockey season.

“If you want, I can try to help you Tuesdays and Thursdays after camp.” The days when Sofia is too busy to hang out with me.

“That will be good. Thank you,” he says. I walk him out of the classroom and meet up with the staff for our regular weekly meeting. By the time we’re finished, Sofia’s at the movie with her grandmother.

Nik has plans, so I head back to our apartment and read my emails. My old agent sent me a message, checking up on me. He does that every so often. He hasn’t fully accepted my career as a player is over. Before the accident, I was making two million dollars annual salary.

But this email is different from the previous ones.

Hello Kyle,

Hope things are going well with you. I wanted to let you know of two career opportunities I’ve heard about through the grapevine. Both would be perfect for you given your experience and background.

He goes on to explain the positions. Both are with college hockey teams. One is for an assistant coaching position in Seattle. The other one is a scout in Texas. He tells me not to wait too long if I’m interested.

I email him back, thank him, and briefly fill him in on my stay here. Then I spend the next hour thinking about the two positions. Both are far from my family, not that Finland is a five-minute drive from their house. But Finland is temporary.

In the end, I update my resume, write cover letters for both positions, and email them to the contacts Ben sent me. At least if I land one, or something similar, I’ll still be involved in hockey, even if it isn’t as a player.

Sadness and pain grip my heart hard at the thought and I grab a beer from the fridge. Once it’s finished, I drink a second one while watching mindless TV. It takes me a few minutes to realize the show’s in Finnish.

Get over it, Kyle. You need to move on. That’s why you’re here. Remember?

Helsinki is a chance for a fresh start after my year of moping around, drinking, and screwing anyone willing to spread her legs. So far the only thing I’ve cut back on is the moping. I’m still drinking, just not as much as before. When it comes to screwing, other than the one time with Sofia, I haven’t fucked another girl in a few weeks. Which is impressive when you think about it. I have a feeling it has more to do with Sofia than anything else. After tasting her, she’s the one I crave.

Unable to stop thinking about her, I send her a text:
You’ve had phone sex while watching
Star Wars
. True or false?

Sofia responds almost immediately.
Isn’t that like every guy’s fantasy while they’re watching Princess Leia in her bikini?

That was
Return of the Jedi
.

You’re such a dork!

But a loveable dork, right?
Oddly enough, her opinion matters.

Very.
Then she replies,
Is this your way of saying you’re watching
Star Wars
?

Is this your way of saying you want to have phone sex with me?
I can almost imagine her face turning that cute shade of pink it goes whenever she’s embarrassed. It’s sexy as hell.

Goodnight, Kyle. :)

Too bad we won’t be the only ones at the cottage this weekend.

Or maybe it’s just as well.

Sex between us will complicate everything. One-night stands are one thing. I’m used to those. Beyond that, Gabby was my first girlfriend and then my wife.

And the last thing I’m looking for right now is another relationship. Not when I need to focus on my future.

The apartment door buzzes. “I’ll get it,” I call out, even though as far as Muumu’s concerned, I could have said “there’s a pink unicorn at the door.”

Kyle’s standing in the doorway, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but the t-shirt hugs his body in a way that makes me want to rip it off him. Not because it says
Never trust an atom. They make up everything
and I want the t-shirt (which I do!). Not because I want to see his ripped muscles without the impediment, though I’m not complaining if this happens. It’s because I want to be the one touching his body, his skin.

Although from the way his gaze roams
my
body, barely hidden under the white tank top and denim shorts, it’s obvious he’s thinking the same.

Yes, the lines of our friendship have definitely become fuzzy. Fuzzy in the least scary way.

“Hey.” I pick up my duffel from the floor near the door. “
Hei, hei
, Muumu.” Joni already explained to her that I’m spending the weekend with some friends. I didn’t mention that it included Kyle—my supposed boyfriend—but I got the idea she figured it out on her own.

Muumu responds, either telling me to have a great time or telling me that Stockmann is having a special on kitchen knives.

Or since Mom decided to go along with my lie—after much begging on my part—and Muumu still thinks Kyle is my boyfriend, she might’ve been warning Kyle to keep his man parts to himself.

Who knows?

Shutting the door, I step into the hallway. I barely have time to turn around before I find myself in Kyle’s arms, his lips on mine. My bag slides to the floor and my arms, on their own accord, loop around his neck. The electrified buzz I felt the other day, when he touched my arm in the parking lot, hums through my body. Equally on its own accord, my body presses against his.

I open my mouth and welcome him inside. It’s been four days since we last kissed, but it seems like forever. I breathe in his ocean scent and get lost in him and the feel of his tongue stroking mine. But just as things get heated between us, Kyle pulls back and pushes his hand through his hair as he looks away. The dark curls wrap around his fingers. His hand continues south and he rubs the back of his neck, deep in thought.

“We should get going,” he says after several seconds. He picks up my bag and walks down the stairs. I hurry after him, confused at the sudden change in him.

“Is something wrong?” I say.

“No, why would you ask?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that we were kissing back there, and it was feeling good, very good”—I’m not sure why I’m saying any of this, other than lying isn’t my forte, and the words are tumbling out—“and you suddenly stopped.”

He pauses. “What? You wanna have sex in the hallway?”

I’m not sure if I should laugh or be concerned at how he didn’t answer the question. But since I don’t want to ruin the weekend by pushing him to talk about something he obviously doesn’t want to talk about, I let it slide. “Good point.”

I almost expect him to jump on how I responded to his question. I didn’t say I
didn’t
want to have sex with him. But if he caught that, he doesn’t let on.

Heck, I don’t even know if he wants to have sex with me. We’ve kissed a lot, he’s gone down on me, but he’s never indicated he wants to go further than that.

At his car, he loads my bag into the trunk before we climb into the vehicle. “True or false,” I say as we drive along the road out of Vantaa. “You have a huge crush on Princess Leia, back when she was in the original
Star Wars
movies.”

“What guy doesn’t have a crush on her from back then?”

“True enough.” And hence his text about phone sex while watching
Star Wars
.

“True or false.” He taps his fingers against the rim of the steering wheel. “You crushed on your high school American History teacher.”

I scrunch my face. “You’ve obviously never met Mr. Winters. He was alive during the American Revolution.”

The corners of Kyle’s mouth twitch up. “I take it he didn’t preserve well.”

Two hours later, as we get closer to our destination, Kyle becomes less talkative and we just listen to a classic rock station. An odd sort of tension grows and I squirm in my seat, thinking back to his reaction when we kissed at Muumu’s.

“I’m sorry,” Kyle says after our conversation has lagged for twenty minutes. I almost jump at the sound of his voice after not hearing it for so long. “I’m just worried about this weekend.”

I turn down the volume on the radio. “Why?”

“’Cause I know how things are when it comes to Nik and his parties. He likes to drink. But off-season. While he’s playing hockey, he knows to draw the line…” Kyle doesn’t say anything else, but I manage to fill in the blanks. He doesn’t know how to draw the line when it comes to alcohol.

“If you want, I can help you out. If you don’t want to drink too much. I’m sure I can find a way to distract you.”

Kyle laughs and my face heats up at how that must have sounded. “I bet you can.” His smile fades and he steers the car into the marina parking lot.

“Nik’s cottage is here?” I ask, looking around. Nothing in the area resembles anything close to what I would call a cottage—other than a small wooden building at the far end of the parking lot. The only other things around are the parked vehicles and boats. And when I say boats, I mean smaller boats, like rowboats, sail boats, motorboats.

“No. His cottage is on an island on the lake. We have to take a boat there.”

“You mean a rowboat?” The voice coming from my mouth doesn’t sound like mine. It squeaks.

“No, a motorboat.” He climbs out of the car.

I scan the dock for Nik, but there’s no sign of him yet. I open my door and join Kyle at the trunk. He grabs the bags from the back.

“What time is Nik meeting us here?” I ask.

“He and his friends are already there.”

“B-but how are we getting there? Is someone dropping us off?”

“No, I rented a boat. Don’t worry,” he adds, taking in my panicked expression. “I know what I’m doing. Plus, Nik gave me a map and showed me how to get there.” He studies me for a second. “Are you afraid of motorboats?”

“Nope, I’m good.” But it tumbles out as a squeak again. At his raised eyebrow, I continue, “When I was eleven, I was in a motorboat with my uncle and cousins. He lost control of it and hit a tree that was in the water. I hit my head and nearly drowned.” I wasn’t wearing my life jacket.

“Was he going fast?”

I nod, again.

“Then I won’t.” He takes hold of my hand. “Will that make you feel better?”

I assume he means the speed and not the holding my hand part, although either way is good. I nod, and he leads me to a store near the dock. He tells the teen we’re here for the boat, and fifteen minutes later we’re ready to go.

“You’ll want to keep off the water once the storm hits,” the seventeen-year-old says in perfect English, reminding me once again that when they handed out language skills, I was taking a nap.

“Storm?” Kyle and I say in unison. I look at the clear sky and frown.

“Yes, there’s a storm rolling in later this evening. You don’t want to be on the water when that happens. The waves can become dangerous. People have died during storms.”

Oh goodie. Just what I needed to know.

“Thanks for the warning.” Kyle squeezes my hand to tell me I’ll be okay. “We’ll be off the water before the storm hits.” While I know it’s true, it doesn’t keep my legs from going rubbery. And they’ll stay that way until we’re safely back on shore.