Cinderella in Skates

chapter TEN





Shane and I hit the ice the next afternoon right after the final bell rings but this time we kick off practice by doing something a little different: we start with a kiss.

"New goal, new practice routines," Shane says with a wink after our lips break apart.

I'm surprised I don't wobble -- not even a little -- as we stand there together on the ice. Skating's starting to get easier for me every time, which is probably a good thing considering I'm on a team now and might actually have to play.

Hockey practices with my actual team don't start for three days and even then, they don't happen every afternoon so Shane thinks it's important we stick as much to our old schedule as possible. I agree, even if it's only because I want to keep seeing him whenever I can.

I skate over to the bench and get suited up in my goalie pads while Shane takes a few lazy laps around the rink. It takes me longer than usual to get ready -- my eyes keep floating over to him.

There's something about the way he moves when he's on the ice that's so distracting to me. I don't know what it is, really, but it's hard for me to look away. He's so fluid and graceful, his movements working in complete juxtaposition to his big, bulky lumberjack-like frame.

He snaps his head up and catches me staring. Dammit.

"Hey! Quit stalling," he calls out to me. "We've got a lot of work to do today if we're going to whip you into starting shape."

"Watch how you talk about my shape, mister," I call back, and he grins.

I put on the last of my pads and clomp clumsily onto the ice.

"We're just going to do general shooting drills first," Shane says, and I groan. He knows how much I hate them. "Stop complaining. You're going to have to do them if you want this."

"I know, I know," I grumble, gliding over to take my position in the net. "Let's get it over with."

"What kind of attitude is that?" he asks, dragging a bucket of pucks over to the face-off circle on my right.

"The kind you get when your coach is a pain in the butt."

Shane just shakes his head and laughs. "Hey, that coach helped you get a spot on the team, didn't he? Maybe you should listen to him. He might know what he's talking about."

"True," I say with a nod. "Without you, I wouldn't be heading back to Arizona in just a couple of months. I'd have to wait forever."

Shane's face turns cloudy for a second. "Okay. Let's get started."

I frown, surprised at the abrupt change in his demeanor. "Oh. Okay."

He scatters a couple of pucks on the ice in front of him. As I check to make sure my gloves are secure, the door to the rink opens and my new coach walks in.

"Sorry!" she calls out. "Didn't meant to interrupt."

"That's okay," Shane says. "Hey, would you mind helping out with something? I want to work on slide control drills with Natalie but it's hard with just one person."

Coach Dobrov hesitates for a second before nodding. "Sure, Shane, that'll be fine. I have a few minutes."

It startles me to hear Coach Dobrov call Shane by his first name but then I realize that's dumb of me. He was a player here just a few years ago -- of course one of the hockey coaches would know who he is.

She grabs a stick and trots out onto the ice in her sneakers.

"Okay," Shane says to me, his tone all business. "Here's what we're going to do." He proceeds to launch into a long, unnecessary description of the drill he wants me to do that involves him and Coach Dobrov taking turns shooting pucks at different sides of me so I can learn how to slide to stop any rebounds I might give up.

"Nice drill, Shane," Coach D says. "I might have to start doing this one in practice."

I can't help but smile -- I really do have the best coach in Shane. I owe all of this to him if he's even giving Coach D training ideas.

He's so smart about hockey. About a lot of things. I still don't understand how he didn't get drafted when he was supposed to. It makes no sense to me.

The blast of his whistle jolts me out of my thoughts, and I realize both he and Coach Dobrov are staring at me.

"Sorry," I say, cheeks flushing a deep red. I'm supposed to be showing her that I'm capable of being her first-string goalie and I can't even keep my focus together in an afternoon practice. Great. "Let's do it."

Shane nods but doesn't meet my eye, and I wonder if he's mad that I'm making a terrible impression on my high school coach -- and reflecting badly on him.

Coach D and Shane take turns peppering me with pucks and I'm slipping and sliding all over the ice. The look on Shane's face isn't an encouraging one. I'm pretty sure he's horrified by the way I'm playing, and he wouldn't even be wrong about that.

"Okay, wait, wait," Shane calls out, stopping the barrage of pucks coming at me. He walks over to the goal and lowers his voice. "What's up with you?"

I stand up and pull off the goalie mask so it's resting on the top of my head. "What?"

"Natalie," he hisses. "Knock it off. You're better than this and that's your coach. What are you doing?"

"I'm trying," I say honestly. "It's a new drill and it isn't that easy for me."

He rolls his eyes. "This is what you want, isn't it? Figure it out."

My jaw drops -- and he's the one questioning my attitude. Before I can say anything else, he's already walking away from me.

"Let's try that again," he says loudly, his voice considerably more upbeat when he knows Coach Dobrov can hear.

I let out a sigh and crouch down into position as he blows his whistle and sends a puck flying in toward me.

I will my body to keep balanced and in control; this drill is all about lower body strength and clearly mine is still a work in progress but even though he's being a jerk, Shane's right. Coach Dobrov's watching. I have to get this figured out, or at least pretend like I can.

My two coaches continue to fling shots on net and I stare at each puck as it flies toward me, trying to slow it down in my mind and get a pad on it.

Shane blows the whistle to end the drill and I turn around to see how many got by me. I know the point of the drill wasn't to stop every puck, but it helps to see some kind of tangible evidence of how well I did.

About ten pucks are scattered in the net behind me.

Not bad, considering there must be at least a hundred littering the ice that I didn't let in.

"Well done, Natalie," Coach Dobrov says. "I'm impressed. I hope you'll bring that intensity at the end there to every practice with the team."

I smile, a rosy blush coloring my face. "Thanks, Coach."

She nods once, says something quietly to Shane that I can't hear and walks off the ice with her stick. Shane waits until the door to the rink closes behind her before he turns to me.

"That was better," he says, no trace of his earlier irritation creeping into his voice. "Like Coach D said, it's a little impressive."

"That was terrible."

"Nah, you settled down. New drills are always tough at first." He glances down at the watch on his left wrist. "Hey, I've got to cut practice a little short today. Do those off-ice lateral drills I taught you when you get home, okay?"

I nod. "Okay."

"Promise?" he asks, lifting his eyebrow.

I smile, thinking about how I'd never have wanted to do drills on my own when all this started. "Yeah, promise."

"Oh, before I go," he says as I pull off my goalie mask and shake my hair out of its ponytail. "Some of the guys on the team and their girls are going skiing at my family's cabin this weekend upstate. I thought maybe you'd want to come."

I freeze.

We're not dating, not even close, apparently, since he still hasn't said anything about it. And he, what, wants me to go away for the weekend with him? Is he crazy?

But instead of saying that, I just laugh. "Me? Skiing?" I bend down to get out of my leg pads. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't know how to ski."

Shane rolls his eyes. "And? You didn't know how to play hockey before you met me, either."

"And look how long it took you to teach me. We've been doing this for more than a month now."

"Skiing is easy."

"I bet you're really good at it, right?"

He shrugs. "So what?"

"So it won't be any fun for you to have to stick around on the incompetent hill with me when you could be skiing the Olympic courses with your friends."

"First of all," he says, a smile fighting to emerge on his face. "There is no such thing as an Olympic course where we're going. Or an incompetent hill, for that matter. Second, who says it wouldn't be fun for me to hang out with you?"

"You know what I mean, Shane."

He sighs. "I wouldn't ask you to come if I didn't want to spend time on the mountain with you, okay? This doesn't have to be hard."

A hint of his earlier annoyance with me is seeping back into his voice, and I can't figure out why he's so testy today.

I think about what he said for a second, twisting the ring on my right hand. "Doesn't matter. My parents will never let me go."

"Why? Your dad and my dad adore each other."

I smile at that. "Is your dad going to be there?"

He shrugs. "Maybe. They haven't decided yet. But I'm your coach, Nat. I really don't think it'll be a problem."

Despite his confidence that my parents won't care, I'm still pretty skeptical. "There's a difference between coaching me and going away for the weekend with me."

"Just ask them," Shane says. "You're only here for a little while longer. I think it'd be fun." He bends down and kisses the top of my head. "I'm out of here." He grabs his bag and heads for the door before I have a chance to process everything that just happened.

And when I do, all I can think about is that kiss he left in my hair.

He hadn't bothered to kiss my lips. He was rude all day.

What the heck is going on with him?





     ***



I'm sitting in my English class the next day when my phone lights up in my lap. I glance down at it and can't keep the insta-smile from spreading across my face just at the sight of his name on the screen.



So what's the verdict?



I grin. Shane's pushing hard for me to go on this ski trip -- maybe he really wouldn't hate hanging out on the bunny slopes with me. And now that I've had time to think about it, the idea's definitely growing on me. I mean, who wouldn't want to go away for a wintry weekend with a gorgeous college hockey player, anyway?



My parents are cool w/ it as long as urs are going too.



This, at least, is true. Shane was right, at least partially, anyway. My parents absolutely adore my coach, but they don't love him enough to let me go away with him by myself.



Cool. They'll be there.



I raise my eyebrows as Shane's response lands in my inbox. I hadn't been counting on that, but I 'm smiling as I read it. If Shane's parents really are going, then so am I and I'm kind of excited about it.



So what's the plan?



Leaving Fri after hockey prax. I'll pick u up around 5. We'll be at the cabin by 9.



I don't even care that this weekend has all sorts of potential for awkward since I don't know any of Shane's hockey friends or the girlfriends he mentioned would be there. All I can think about now is spending more time with him. I haven't seen him since that awkward practice where Coach Dobrov made a random appearance the other day but I'm not letting it bother me.

Or I'm trying, anyway.

The hair kiss, I've decided, doesn't mean he's not into me anymore. He wants me to go skiing with him for Pete's sake!

But still. I kind of wish I had some idea what that was all about. I replayed that conversation in my head hundreds of times since it happened, and I'm still totally clueless.

Everything had been going perfectly and then boom!

I think about it again, from the first kiss to joking about my shape to me grumbling about the drills he was going to make me do that day. And as I think about that, I key in on what I said for the first time. I'd been thinking so much about his words, his actions and not paying nearly enough attention to mine.

What was it that I'd said right before the shift in his behavior? That without his help, I wouldn't be going back to Arizona as soon as I was because of him?

Could that be it?

It seems too simple, but maybe it's the only thing that makes any sense.

And if that's really it, well, what's that all about anyway? Why? He knew from the start that I was only doing this whole hockey thing so I could go back to Arizona right away.

But I guess I can't lie.

Part of me -- and maybe it isn't a small part -- kind of hopes that's exactly what was bugging Shane that night. Because that means he cares just as much as I do.