The Inside Edge: Chapter Three
By the time that the
rink cleared enough for Brianne to begin her second round of stops, she was
sorely tempted to call it a day. Her thighs ached with the strain of keeping
her body upright and effortless as she glided around, taking the corners,
attempting to keep pace with the boys beside her—which was mortifying, since
she knew how slowly they were moving.
“Doing great!”
“Don’t lock your
knees.”
“Don’t tense so much!”
“That’s it. Ease into
the turn!”
Pleased with herself,
she rather felt she’d more-or-less managed to keep from looking downright inept.
So, yes, okay she fell twice but as Cory and the boys stopped to help her
scramble back to her feet, they didn’t so much as crack a grin, not even when a
small shriek or two escaped her mouth.
Now, watching as a
family slowly levered themselves off the rink, Brianne felt an innate protest
rise up in her throat when Cory turned to her.
“I think we’re clear
for takeoff.”
“Takeoff?” There was
no hiding the reluctance in her voice.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Kelling.
Now that you’ve found a more solid footing, I don’t think stopping will be so
tough.”
Which is how she found
herself, yet again, stationed against one wall of the arena, pushing forward at
the Cory’s go-ahead. Feeling her legs shove and stretch as she raced toward the
opposite end, Brianne’s eyes narrowed on her destination. She tried to remember
their teachings—shift, lean, lift and lower. It was about finding the right
angle…
However, when she felt
her legs fly out from underneath her, the blades of her skates crunching up against
the boards, Brianne only whimpered. Her shoulder, where it’d smacked against
the ice, immediately tensed as pain sliced through her consciousness.
“What a wipeout.”
“Yeah, nicely done.”
Laughing weakly,
Brianne carefully brought herself to her feet. Rubbing her shoulder, she tried
not to wince at the eager faces pointed her way. “Okay. I guess, ah, let’s try
again?”
At the whoop of cheers
her words received, Brianne knew she’d said the right thing. Moving carefully,
she got herself back into position.
“Maybe just…”
Brianne’s eyes shifted
at the reluctant words which had been said from George. When her gaze met his,
she watched a slow rise of color spread across his face.
“Maybe just?”
“Maybe just don’t, you know, skate so fast?”
“Yeah, there’s no
rush.”
“It’s more about
finding the balance than mastering the speed.”
Swallowing past a
surge of bruised pride, Brianne nodded her head once, sharply. “Okay.”
So they tried again.
And again. And she fell again, and again. Until… On her fifth attempt, she
almost had it. She almost stayed upright. Cutting an even angle, she felt her
skates connect on the ice, slide roughly before stuttering to a slow fumbling
stop. For a moment, just one brief moment, she kept her balance. And then it
all fell apart. Her equilibrium crumbled as her body jerked at the unnatural
pitch and position. It began with the slightest sway of her upper-shoulders,
followed by an undeniable pull of gravity. Her hips swerved and before she
could fully let the smile breaking across her mouth come to fruition, Brianne
felt her arms swinging out instinctively, rolling first forward and then
backward, as she tried to pull herself straight.
“Whoa—oh no!”
With a plop, Brianne
landed hard on her bottom. “Well, shoot,” she grumbled, looking down at her
legs spread out before her.
“Oh man, you were so
close!” Charlie cried, coming to flying halt beside her. He smiled widely.
“Yeah,” Cory echoed. “I
thought for sure you had it that time.”
Gingerly, Brianne rose.
“Yeah, me too,” she sighed. She glanced at the boys. “Sorry guys.”
“No way!”
“Yeah—and at least
this time you didn’t scream.”
“Well, not much,
anyway.”
The sudden, shrill
sound of a whistle brought all heads snapping around. Brianne’s eyes widened,
just as they’d done the week before, when she’d first laid eyes on the man now
confidently striding toward them. “All right, boys. Enough for today.”
“Hey Coach.”
“What time is it?”
George asked.
“Ten minutes past warm-ups.”
There was no question
of obedience. Quickly, the group dispersed, heading toward the players bench on
one side of the arena.
“See ya, Ms. Kelling,”
Cory hollered over his shoulder. A few others waved in goodbye.
“Great job, today,”
George said.
At the words, which
sounded so ill-fittingly adult, coming out of the mouth of such a young
teenager, Brianne was forced to bite back a smile. Instead, she nodded
seriously, thanking them quietly as the boys passed by.
Two other adults
gained the ice then. Pushing a goalie net between them, they slowly advanced
toward where Brianne and the Coach still stood. Feeling flustered, and not
entirely sure why, she pushed anxious as her hat, offering a small smile to the
man the boys referred to as ‘Coach.’. “Hockey practice?”
He nodded.
Her cringed “We ran
late, again, didn’t we?”
He nodded again, the
lines around his eyes crinkling a little as something nearing amusement flashed
across his face. “’Fraid so.”
“Shoot. Listen, I’m
sorry,” Brianne rushed to say, not sure if she was apologizing on behalf of the
boys or herself. “I promise, this won’t become a habit.” Shuffling out of the
way now, she watched as the other two men slowly approached, positioning the net.
The coach’s voice,
however, brought her gaze swinging back around. “Like I said last time, I could
have called it quits whenever.”
“Still, I’ll try to be
more respectful of the time.”
Leaning down, his
voice only just carried to her ears. “No one likes a clock-watcher.”
Her mouth gaping at the
words, she glanced up at him questioning. The slight glint in his brown eyes
assured her he was joking. She laughed weakly, one wrist flipping toward the ice
at their feet. “Thank God. I’ve never been terribly good at telling the time from
upside down, anyway.”
He moved back now, his
voice no longer lowered. “Nah, you almost had it.”
Opening her mouth at
the unexpected words, nonplussed, before she could speak, another voice entered
the conversation.
“Especially that last
run. You nearly stuck it!”
Brianne’s eyes widened,
her head shifting to catch sight of the speaker—the voice of which belonged to
one of the other two men on the rink.
The man smiled back at
her. Tall, incredibly slender, his bright red hair was only half-disguised
under the brim of his hat. “Brian Dennis—and this is Fred Coolidge.” With a jut
of his chin, he nodded toward the slightly stooped figure of the man beside
him. Fred looked to be quickly nearing the age of retirement.
“Brianne Kelling,” she
returned, all the while conspicuously aware that she still didn’t know Coach’s
name. Before she could ask him, though, another thought occurred to her. “Wait.
You were watching?” Her eyes flew from one to the next. “The whole time?”
The coach laughed, the
husky sound catching quietly in the air as the men and Brianne, perforce, moved
toward the edge of the rink. “No.”
“Oh.”
“Only once practice started.”
“Oh.”
The coach winked. “I
mean, that’s kind of our job.”
The older gentlemen—Fred—guffawed hoarsely. “You’ve got try, girl. I’ll give you that.”
Brianne smiled shyly,
fighting and miserably failing to keep the blush off her face. “The boys are
good teachers.”
“Yeah.” Brian
whistled, his voice coming out low now, controlled. “That was…that something to
see.”
The coach looked at
him. “I told you.”
“Yeah,” Brian sighed, shaking
his head, “but until today—”
“They were working
together,” Fred said.
“As a team.”
“No bickering.”
“Not once.”
The coach nodded. “No
school pride.”
“No rivalry.”
“Just a bunch of kids,
belonging together.”
Brianne quietly
swallowed these half-statements, realizing that something profound was being
said underneath them. “I, uh, I take it they’ve had a tough year?”
Coach coughed. “Yeah.”
She nodded. “So that’s
why.”
“Why?”
She flicked her eyes toward him. A small frown hinted at the base of his mouth, but she spoke anyway, her words pointed, “Why you could have called it quits at any time but you didn’t.”
With a sidelong glance,
he nodded, the edges of his lips turning down just slightly. “You’ve been oddly
good for them.”
“Hah!” With a smothered
laugh, she stuck her hands in her coat pockets, her feet sure on the ice as
they neared the edge of the arena where her exit awaited. “I guess that makes
it easier to swallow.”
Brian looked at her. “What?”
“Making a fool of
myself.”
“You’ll get it.”
“You almost had it,”
Fred assured her.
“Yeah, you did.”
Ridiculous as it
seemed, those opinions did a lot to bolster Brianne’s confidence. Pushing up
her chin, she forced herself to ask: “What, ah, what did I do wrong?”
A moment of silence
passed as the men looked at one another. Finally, Coach looked over at her. “Nothing
a few more practices with the boys won’t fix.”
“A few more practices?”
Brianne’s voice faltered a little over the words.
Brian lifted his
eyebrows. “I mean, you can’t quit now—not when you’re so close to getting the
hang of it.”
Brianne let out a strangled
laugh. “God forbid.” By this point, they’d reached the far end of the rink. Carefully
stepping over the threshold of the doorway and onto the thick rubbing mating skirting
the arena, Brianne took a moment to look back at the three men. She wiggled her
eyebrows. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
To their credit, each
man looked innocently surprised at the words.
“The boys can tell me
what I did wrong? It would be wrong to quit now?” She pursed her lips. “It’s
fine if I we run into scheduled practice time?”
Brian squirmed a
little under the words and Fred averted his gaze. Coach was the only one who
seemed wholly unaffected by her words.
“You’re using me.”
“That…a bit dramatic.”
“In a mutually
beneficial capacity,” Brian assured her. Fred nodded eagerly.
The Coach only shrugged.
Before she could
challenge them further, she saw the boys out of her peripheral vision, slowly
re-entering the ice.
“Don’t worry, Ms.
Kelling—soon enough you’ll be able to stop like this…” Without further ado, Brianne
watched as Cory and George raced one another down the length of the rink, shreds
of ice swirling around their legs as they each pulled to a dramatic stop inches
away from the boards.
Laughing despite herself,
Brianne raised her arms up in the air and let out a nice cry of cheer. “Nicely
done, guys!”
“See you next week!”
“Don’t forget to
practice—”
“Where is she going to
practice?”
“Well, I don’t know. Simulation
exercises?”
As the boys’ voices
floated overhead, Brianne turned back to Coach. He smiled smugly. “Well?”
Brianne’s eyes
narrowed. “Well what?”
“They clearly expect
to see you next week.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she
grumbled, but not because she was truly upset. “I’ll be there.”
He grinned. He had
nice, even teeth. “I’ll be sure to let them know.”
“I’ll just bet you
will,” she muttered and with a curt nod, stalked away toward the bleacher
surrounding the arena. Sitting down, she began the process of removing her
skates. Bending down to untie the laces, she couldn’t quite fight the grin
spreading across her face.
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