I stop to see what has them so flustered. My stomach flips. There’s a man who looks distinctly like Randy leaning against the boards. He lifts a hand and waves. My girl parts swoon.
“Oh my God!” one of my girls whisper-shrieks. “Is that Randy Ballistic? From Chicago? Why’s he here?”
“I’ll be right back,” I mutter and skate down the ice toward him.
The girls are freaking out. I guess I am, too, except I’m better at managing myself. At least on the outside. I stop in front of him, a small spray of ice puffing out from under my blade. A grin makes his eyes crinkle. He has a tiny dimple up near his left cheek. I want to press it, like it’s a button that will undress him.
“Hey.” I play it cool, propping a hand on my hip and cocking my head to the side. It would work well if I wasn’t huffing from exertion. “What’re you doing here?”
“Surprise.” He does half-assed jazz-hands while looking me up and down.
I feel naked. And hot. And sexually frustrated. “It sure is.” It comes out sounding all raspy, like I’ve just had an orgasm.
His lip quirks up. I want to lick it off his face right after I smack it. Or his ass.
“I figured if you couldn’t come for me, I could come for you.”
The innuendo is intentional. I ignore it. For now. “How’d you know—” I shake my head. “Sunny told you I work here?”
“She gave me directions last night.”
“It’s a miracle you made it.” I snicker. Sunny is not the go-to girl for directions. Sometimes she gets lost coming to my place.
I glance over my shoulder; the girls are twittering in a little cluster. They’re making their way closer. One of the girls steps in front of the others. She clamps onto her friend’s arm with wide, starstruck eyes.
“You’ve been recognized. Get ready for the fangirling.”
Randy waves to the girls. They burst into giggles. I give him a look. “You shouldn’t encourage them.”
“Why not?”
One of the girls finally takes it upon herself to skate over. She glances at Randy and then me, wringing her hands together, then playing with the end of her long ponytail. “Miss LeBlanc, um… should, uh…” She glances at Randy again. “Should we practice one more time or get changed?”
I look at the clock. It’s almost eleven-thirty. “Oh! You girls can get changed.”
“Okay.” She nods frantically and then gives Randy the side-eye again.
“Unless you all want to show Randy your routine. He’s not a figure skater, but he plays hockey for Chicago.”
“Oh my God!” She looks over at the other girls, who are pretending not to watch us, and screeches, about six inches away from my ear, “You were right!”
I cringe at the excited squealing. For the next ten minutes, Randy’s bombarded by thirteen-year-old girls. He’s sweeter than maple-butter tarts while he signs things like binders, notebooks, and backpacks that the girls retrieve from the locker room.
Then their parents show up and do the same thing. The moms are the worst. Especially the pretty ones. They put their hands on his arm and simper compliments. It makes me want to barf. It also makes me want to boob-punch a couple of them. I pretend to keep busy checking my clipboard. After a while it’s clear they’re not going anywhere, and I still need to get changed—and shower now that Randy’s here. Usually I do that at home as the locker room showers are questionable.
I’m a little concerned about what the plan is going to be. I don’t have a car, so I would’ve taken the bus home, but I don’t want to take Randy there for a multitude of reasons. My mother will not approve. Also, the underwear guy has been over a lot. He puts on sweats now, but he walks around shirtless quite a bit. It’s unpleasant.
I shoulder my bag and start toward the locker room. Randy grabs my wrist. “Just wait a minute, ’kay?”
“I’m going to change.”
“Is anyone on the ice after this?”
“There’s another class in less than half an hour.”
Randy frowns. “That’s too bad. I wanted to watch you skate.”
“Some other time. I’ll be out in a few.” I leave him with the parents. He’s used to dealing with this kind of attention, and he doesn’t seem to mind it.
As soon as I’m in the locker room I call Sunny, but her phone goes to voice mail. I get her message about chi-cleansing and karma being her friend and wait for the beep.
“I can’t believe you didn’t warn me that Randy was coming here! I didn’t even shave my girl parts, and now I’ll have to… I don’t even know. It’s not good. My situation is dire here. My garden needs to be pruned. No, not pruned, sheared. I’m mad at you until further notice! God, he’s so hot,” I tack on at the end.