Heat it Up: Off the Ice - Book One (7 page)

“Your challenge. Your choice.”

I scan the area, checking the choices. “How are you with heights?”

She bites her lip for a second and that’s the only answer I need. I slip her hand into mine and squeeze it. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the entire time. And these rides were designed to work with physics, not against it. Nothing bad will happen.”

“Unless I lose my lunch.”

“And if you do, it’s not the end of the world, right?”

She looks at me like I’m nuts but eventually nods. “Okay, let’s do it.”

We walk to the tower ride and join the long line. “You said you took biomechanics last year. Did you enjoy it?” I ask.

The smile from earlier slips back on her face. “I did. I wasn’t sure I would. Math and I aren’t actually besties, so I avoided physics in high school. But I managed to pull off a B in biomechanics.” The smile brightens. “I wouldn’t mind learning more physics. From you.”

“Like what?”

She thinks for a second, her focus on the ride in front of us. The people in the seats around the base suddenly shoot up, screaming, to the top of the tower. They stop, free fall, then bounce up again.

She tears her attention away from the ride, her face paler. “How do Santa’s reindeer fly?” she asks, her face without a hint of humor.

With an equally straight face, I reply, “While the rides here have to abide by the laws of physics as we know them, Santa’s reindeer are able to ignore those laws since they are…they are magical.”

“I knew it!” She laughs. “Okay, tell me something that has to do with physics and hockey.”

A light in my chest flickers on. A light that had burned out after the accident. She remembers what I told her the other day. Which makes her nothing like the puck bunnies who are only interested in fucking me so they can tell their friends that they screwed a NHL hockey player. They never ask anything about me and I never volunteer anything, either. Sofia’s different. She’s interested in the real me and nothing less.

“What do you know about impulse?” I ask.

She bits her lip, again, as she thinks. “Not much. It has to do with momentum.”

“That’s right. It’s based on Newton’s second law of motion. It’s the force applied for a given amount of time. The greater the force, the greater the impulse. If you have two hockey players charging down the ice toward their respective pucks during a drill, the one who hits the puck the hardest will send his puck traveling further, assuming the time of contact between the puck and the stick is the same between the two players.”

“And if one player screws up on the follow through,” she says, “the contact time is less, and the puck won’t go as far even if the force was the same as with the other player?”

The warmth inside me spreads at how she’s listening to what I’m saying. “Exactly. You got it.”

She asks me a few more questions as we wait. We’re almost near the front of the line when she sucks in a sharp breath. We’re in the next group to go on the ride. The physics Q&A isn’t enough to relax her.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I tell her.

She watches as the people in the seats jerk upwards. The muscles in her shoulders visibly tighten. “No, I’m good.”

“Let’s play a game.”

She pulls her attention from the ride. “What kind of game?”

“One person makes a statement about the other person, and if it’s false, the other person has to tell the truth or do a dare.” I used to play this game with Cody. I spent more time doing the dares than telling the truth.

Sofia peers at the ride again. “Okay, you ask first.”

“All right. You ready?”

She takes a deep breath then nods. “Ready?”

“You once played spin the bottle and had to kiss the class geek.”

She laughs and some of her tension drains away. “Is this your way of getting me to kiss you at the end of our non-date date?”

“Hey, just answer the question.”

“False. The bottle landed on a girl. Who later came out of the closet in our senior year and everyone thought she was a lesbian because of my kiss.”

The corner of my mouth slides up. “Can’t say I’m surprised. You’re an amazing kisser.”

Sofia’s face flushes but she doesn’t have a chance to say anything because the line moves forward. We take our seats and I reach for her hand. She willingly accepts it. Within seconds, I swear there’s no circulation left in the hand she’s gripping.

The ride jerks up and my stomach stays behind on a slight time delay. She screams. Her hand releases mine and she grabs the safety harness pressing against her shoulders. She screams like everyone else as we rapidly ascend, then we drop, and for a moment my stomach feels like it was left behind, again.

After a few more rapid ascents and descents, the ride returns to the ground. Sofia’s smiling, and I have a feeling it has nothing to do with the ride being over.

We climb down from the seats and she kisses my cheek. A quick kiss. One filled with gratitude, nothing more.

“Thanks,” she says.

“For what?”

“For taking me on that ride. For challenging me to do something I didn’t think I could do. For being there for me.” She scans the nearby rides. “Okay, where to now?”

We walk around the park, riding whatever ride Sofia’s comfortable with…which surprisingly includes the roller coaster. We also play arcade games while throwing out the occasional question in our True and False game. I fight to keep the limp from being noticeable as the ache in my leg builds. It’s not bad yet, but since I didn’t have a chance to sit in the sauna after work, it’s worse than it might have otherwise been.

“You dated the high school mascot in your senior year.” She sips her smoothie through her straw in a way that’s incredibly hot. As in, I’m-getting-hard-against-my-jeans-zipper hot.

“True or false,” she prompts.

“False. Our mascot was a bulldog. An actual bulldog. You
were
the high school mascot in your senior year.”

“True. But it wasn’t anything sexy. We were the woodchucks and no one else wanted to do it, mainly because the mascot had to do this stupid dance.” She demonstrates, shaking her ass, which does nothing for my situation.

Rain splatters against my arms and my head. Scattered shrieks pierce the air as the rain picks up in intensity and people run for cover.

“We might as well catch our bus now,” Sofia calls out. Her damp t-shirt clings to her body. The image in my mind of peeling off her clothes and finding the body I know is buried underneath also doesn’t help my situation.

“Good idea.”

We walk to the bus stop, the rain no longer bothering us. We’re already wet. The entire time I wonder if I should risk kissing her again, but in the end it doesn’t matter if I want to kiss her or if she wants me to kiss her, her bus is waiting at the stop.

“Thanks for the fun. See ya later,” is all she has time to say.

And I’m left alone, watching her climb on the bus. It drives away as I wonder what the heck I’m going to do. Sofia is getting to me in a way no girl has in a while, and I’m not sure what I should do about it.

Or if I should do anything about it.

The day I walked out of my pity party for one had been the first warm day of spring. Young green shoots were poking their way between the dead brown grass. The early buds were forming on the trees and bushes. Birds were chirping from the branches in my backyard. That was the day I decided to spend the summer in Finland and get a fresh start.

My plan might’ve been to have a fresh start, but so far it hasn’t happened. The same tired Sofia stares back at me in the mirror. My long blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail. The same way it has been for the past year. I can’t even remember the last time I had a haircut.

I take a deep breath and make a decision. Muumu is watching TV on the orange vinyl couch in my room (aka the living room). She nods at me as I enter and tells me I can change the channel if I want. I tell her I’m good, although I’m not sure if it has the same meaning in Finnish as it does in English.

Taking my phone with me, I step out onto the balcony. Laughter greets me from young kids running around the playground one level down. Tall apartment buildings and birch trees surround the area. Even years after I was last here, the area looks the same.

I Google hair salons in Vantaa and I call one to book an appointment for myself and for Muumu. Luckily, the girl who answers the phone speaks English.

“I have a cancellation for one o’clock this afternoon. I can fit you both in then. Is that okay?”

Not only can she fit us in for hair appointments, she can schedule us in for pedicures and manicures. Perfect. Let the girl-bonding session begin. My grandfather died a few years ago and Muumu has lived alone ever since. Who knows when she last did something nice for herself. In the short time I’ve been here, she’s done all kinds of nice things for me.

I return to the living room and sit next to Muumu on the couch. With my smart phone, I Google translate the words I need to help me. I don’t use my phone for translating too often because it’s a major drain on my phone plan. Plus, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s not always the most reliable method. The translations have been screwy more times than they’ve been correct.

Maybe sensing I want to say something, she looks expectantly at me. I say the Finnish word for haircut and I point to her then me. Her expression is blank at first, as she tries to figure out what I said, but after a few seconds she nods. I pretend to paint my fingernails and toenails. Again, I point to her then me.

She nods and I let out a relieved breath. That was easy enough. I tell her the appointments are today, as well as the where and the when. Her eyes light up at the news.

My phone pings. I check the text from Maija. I haven’t heard from Kyle today, but Maija and I have plans for tonight. I respond to her text confirming we’re still on. I’ve already told Muumu that I’m going dancing with a friend tonight. The first thing she asked was if it was Joni. I might have rolled my eyes.

Muumu’s show finishes and a
Friends
episode comes on. I laugh at something Rachel tells Ross. Apparently, Rachel and Ross are just as funny with Finnish subtitles, because Muumu also laughs, albeit a second later because of the delay in translation. By the end of the show, we’re both laughing hard.

Muumu drives us to the hair salon and day spa in time for our appointment. She’s normally animated, but this Muumu is like a kid on candy. She’s as excited about our girl-bonding session as I am, which makes me feel a million times better already.

We arrive five minutes early and are directed to the seats in the corner, where we sit and wait our turn. Muumu picks a tabloid from the coffee table. I select a hairstyling magazine and flip through it. I need a change, but nothing too drastic.

Something to represent the new me.

My phone rings as Nik and I walk along the sidewalk to the dance club. I check to see who it is—my brother, Cody—and accept the call. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing much. What are you up to?” His tone is in the gray zone between interrogation and casual. Which way it falls depends on how I answer.

And since lying to Cody is out, given the loud music spilling onto the streets… “Coaching the guys is going well, but they’re nowhere near as talented as you.” Who knows if he’s buying my bullshit. They’re all equally talented. “Nik and I are just checking out the local night scene.”

My brother groans. He thinks I’m out to get wasted and laid. To forget about last year.

Except this time, he’s wrong.

I’m here to forget the girl who’s starting to get to me in the short time I’ve known her. She’s not what I need. What I need is exactly what I’ve been doing since the accident—living the life I gave up to get married so young.

“I promise, I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Promise.” And this time I won’t be hung over. Or at least I’ll try not to be.

I promise Cody I’ll be careful tonight and end the call.

The nightclub is similar to any other back home. But instead of the normal college crowd, here you’ve got your college-crowd smorgasbord from all over the world.

Nik’s face lights up and he straight-lines for the bar while scanning the crowd. He’s not just hunting for an easy lay for himself. He’s searching for a girl with female friends so neither of us go home empty handed.

I leave him talking to a group of girls Sofia’s age, and walk to the bar. Contrary to what Nik wanted, I haven’t been back here since the night I went home with the girl who looked like a sexy version of Snow White. I order drinks for us and join him and his groupies. I listen to the introductions—and forget their names the instant I spot her on the dance floor. Her long brown hair swings against the olive brown of her shoulders. Her purple dress skims her curves. Gabby.

Except it isn’t Gabby. But that doesn’t matter. Just seeing her is a stabbing reminder of everything I’ve lost. I swallow back the pain and the memories of the last time I saw her, bleeding next to me in the car.

One of Nik’s groupies says something to me. I block her out as I down my beer like it’s a life preserver to keep me from drowning. Once the drink’s finished, I return to the bar and order two more. I don’t give a damn what I promised Cody or my parents. I need this. I’m not planning to get wasted. Just a little buzzed to get me through the evening.

I return to Nik and gulp back some beer. He glances at the two bottles in my hand but doesn’t say anything. The girl who tried to talk to me earlier asks him a question. He nods and they head for the dance floor. Her friend asks me if I want to dance, but since the Gabby lookalike is there, I shake my head and go back to drinking. She quickly loses interest in me and chats with her friends. In Finnish.

As I contemplate the pros and cons of bailing on this fun-filled evening, my gaze catches a familiar blond. A familiar blond who looks…different. Her long blond hair now swings just above her shoulders. She looked pretty before, but now she’s hot. I blink, positive it can’t be Sofia. It must be another look alike. The universe hates me that much.