Breakaway (Beyond the Play, #2)(13)

“There you are.”

I look up at the sound of the voice—and find myself staring at a girl my age.

Scratch that. A beautiful girl my age.

I must be pretty fucking hard up, because I can feel my face redden and blood going to another, more embarrassing place as well. She’s a redhead, her long, light orange hair tossed over one shoulder. Freckles cover every inch of her face like a universe of tiny stars on her skin. Her eyes are blue like mine, but paler, like ice on a winter morning. She’s swimming in an oversized gray knit sweater, but her leggings cling to her thighs and calves enticingly. She has a pair of well cared-for white Riedells dangling from her hands. As we stare at each other, she licks her lower lip, and my stomach tightens.

This is bad. Terrible. I’m about to be around kids. I can’t be thinking about how much I want to peel off her sweater to see what her tits look like.

She cocks her head at me. “Cooper, right? Cooper Callahan?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. She’s skinny, barely any curves to speak of, but that realization just makes me want to get my hands on her, see how big they look on her soft, fair skin. Do the freckles continue all over her body? God, I hope so. “Cool. Are you going to just stare at me, or are you going to help?”

I stand up. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure who to expect.”

She gives me a look, almost like she’s offended, which is weird, because I’ve never seen this girl in my life. I wouldn’t forget a girl with hair like fire and eyes like the sky in early spring. “The kids are coming in soon,” she says. “This is a beginner class, so nothing too intense. They’re still learning how to balance on the ice.”

“Gotcha.”

She gestures to a bag leaning against the boards. “Set up some cones. Couple yards apart, enough to skate between.”

I salute her. “Aye, m’lady.”

She keeps on giving me that weird look, but after a moment, she just shakes her head slightly. “Whatever. See you out on the ice.”

Fucking hell. It’s no wonder I haven’t been getting laid recently. M’lady? If Sebastian heard that, he’d piss himself from laughing so hard.

I pick up the bag and skate onto the ice, the cool, crisp air hitting my cheeks above my beard. I give my head a shake. I need to focus. Why didn’t Coach mention I’d be working with someone so fucking gorgeous? That sort of shit needs to come with a warning label.

I put out all the cones, and not a moment too soon, because then about ten kids come charging onto the ice.

Maybe this won’t be completely terrible. At least I get to check out Little Miss Red for the entire hour.

“Hi,” she says to the kids, hugging them one by one as they skate over to her on wobbly legs. I was around their age when I first got on the ice; after only knowing football fields, thanks to Dad, it was intoxicating. Uncle Blake helped give me a crash course in the basics, but pretty soon I was flying from end to end on my own.

“Penny,” one kid says, pointing to me. “Who’s that?”

“This is Cooper,” she says. “He’s going to be helping us out. He’s the right defenseman on McKee’s hockey team. Where I go to school, remember?”

I glance at her sideways, but she doesn’t look over. It shouldn’t make my stomach tighten pleasantly to hear she knows the position I play, but I can’t stop myself.

“Is he your boyfriend?” another kid asks.

I snort. That makes her look at me; she’s biting her lip like she’s on the verge of laughing. For a second, it feels like maybe there’s something sparking in the air between us; a camaraderie borne out of being the two adults in this situation, which is ironic considering we’re just a couple of college kids. But then she straightens, shaking her head slightly.

“No,” she says. “What do you know about boyfriends anyway, Madison?”

“Lots,” Madison says, crossing her arms over her chest.

I stifle my laughter as Red—well, I suppose her name is Penny, but with hair like that, I can’t resist—deftly brings the subject back around to the lesson. Coach might’ve been right about this. There’s something nice about seeing a bunch of kids be really into the same thing I am. Their eyes are round as saucers, and they keep whispering to each other as Red explains the lesson. They’re still working on skating without holding onto the railing, and I see apprehension in the way they’re crowded against the boards. At the very least, I can keep playing nice.

“Okay!” she says cheerfully. “We’ll do this exercise together, and then you’ll get to practice on your own. Remember, keep your knees bent. We want to keep ourselves low and use our arms for balance. How do we fall again?”

“Not backwards,” a boy says. He’s wearing a hockey sweater, Ovechkin’s. His long blond hair nearly falls into his eyes.

“Right,” she says. “We want to protect our head. We also don’t want to use our hands to break our fall because we could hurt our wrists. When you keep your knees bent, you can fall onto your side more easily.”

She skates in a circle around me. “Want to show us, Cooper?”

“Falling?”

She nods. “Even hockey players fall sometimes, right?”