Hockey Holidays Read online

  I rolled my eyes and edged to the slope. Down I went, the wind bitter cold in my face, my eyes watering, and my heart thumping as I picked up speed. I hit the jump way too fast, I knew it as soon as I cleared the snow-covered picnic table, and when I bent my knees to reach for the board, I threw myself off balance. When I hit the ground, the edge of the board dug into the snow instead of the flat bottom, and I went face first into the snow. My chin caught the brunt of the crash, and I bit down on my lower lip. Blood filled my mouth. I started to snicker.

  Shaun was bellowing my name, the shouts getting closer. I rolled to my back, nose and eyes packed with snow, lip bleeding, laughing softly.

  “Mitch, man, are you okay? Shit, you’re bleeding.” He dropped down beside me, kneeling on my arm then quickly apologizing and sliding his knee off my bicep. “Dude, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I brushed at the powder on my lashes and sneezed a time or two as I sat up and freed my boots from the board. “Just busted my lip, it’s good,” I snorted in amusement.

  “Shit, you look rough,” he said, his voice losing the panic it had held a minute ago. “Here.” He pulled off a glove, dug around inside his thick coveralls, and pulled out a hankie. Resting on his calves, he pressed the red square of soft cotton to my lip. I winced but continued sniggering at myself. The humor of talking shit and then wiping out so royally amused me to no end. He pulled the hankie away, leaning in to study my lip at close range, his sleek eyebrows knotting then smoothing out. “Okay, it’s just a small gash. Don’t think it needs stitches. The moms will be upset.”

  He placed the hankie tenderly to my lip again. I blinked some wetness from my lashes, and met his look, intending to say something about moms and worrying. Instead, I found myself fixated on a perfect little flake of snow landing on a cheek the same color as sunbaked driftwood. The flake rested on his warm flesh for a second and then turned into a small droplet of water. I watched, spellbound, as it ran down over his stubbled jaw.

  “Mitch.”

  My gaze moved up to meet his. His touch was still gentle on my lip, the cotton held in place with two fingers. I reached up to pull the square aside. All I wanted now was…something. Maybe to have him press his mouth to mine again. There was a smoldering fire igniting in his brown eyes. A low flame that told me that his thoughts and mine were running along the same—

  Something plowed into Shaun, knocking him sideways into the snow. I jerked back, the hankie stuck to my weeping lip, to witness Kirk and Shaun pummeling each other as Adam arrived on the four-wheeler and opened fire with premade snowballs. One hit me in the ear, packing snow into it. I snarled a curse, and made a hasty snowball then lobbed it at Adam. It hit him in the face. Things then went downhill rapidly. All four of us ended up slogging back into the house, soaking wet, bruised and bloody, but in high spirits. Mrs. S. gave her sons a lecture, mopped up the snow, and then sent me home with a box of cookies and four new wine glasses with holly or something on the sides.

  Shaun walked me to the Subaru, his usually springy hair flat, and his cheek scraped from a snowball that someone had made from gravelly snow.

  “I think my mom has wine glasses,” I commented after placing the boxed goblets and cookies gently into the passenger seat.

  “Not a clue why she sent them. Maybe they have some sort of hidden message? Like when your dad calls mine, says something about a spark plug, and they both end up over at the golf course.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I chortled then reached out to cup Shaun’s face. A bold move for sure, but it was dark now, and the big pine tree blocked the wall of glass in the living room. “I’m glad we caught up.”

  “Me too.” He placed his hand over mine, and it was strong and toasty warm.

  “Merry Christmas Eve.”

  I pulled my hand away, and his fingers stayed with mine. Hand in hand we stood there smiling at each other.

  “Guess I better let you go. Hope Santa brings you everything you wanted.” Shaun let go of my fingers, gave me a killer smile, and ran back inside before he froze solid out here in his t-shirt and jeans.

  “I think maybe he already did,” I whispered after he was safely back inside.

  The following morning was chaos. I had never seen so many clothes and dolls in my life. There I sat, between four girls under thirteen, with a new pair of Bauer skates on my lap, listening to K pop bands and being asked which perfume smelled better.

  “Uhm…the flowery one?”

  I got cold glares and a couple flounces as the question-askers went off to find people of the female persuasion to make the call. Allison flopped down next to me, wearing her brand-new Philadelphia Eagles jersey.

  “Are you going to Shaun’s?”

  “Yeah. I have to give him his gift.”

  She sighed, and her bottom lip came out a bit. “Bet you’re going to snowboard at his house more, huh?”

  I shook my head. Someone stalked past, complaining about her sister hogging the bathroom all the time.

  “Nope, no boarding today.” I tapped my split lip. “Your grandmother forbids any more snowboarding for the duration of my stay.”

  “So, you’re off to play something else?”

  I glanced around to make sure my mother was still in the kitchen tending to the placement of pineapple slices on the ham.

  “Maybe some hockey at the rink if I can get Gus to let us in.”

  “Ugh. I so hate it that my skates are home, and Mom said I have to leave you alone for five minutes.”

  That made me laugh, and I slipped an arm around her and pulled her into my side for a hug. “I love hanging out with you. Next time we’re here, we’ll play us some big hockey, so make sure you bring your skates.”

  She snuggled in for a long time, then her mother told her to come help in the kitchen and leave Uncle Mitch be. Allison frowned, gave me a solid knuckle bump, and slouched off to the packed kitchen.

  I made like a rug and beat it as soon as it was humanly possible. Mom made me take a dish of green bean casserole to Shaun’s house.

  “I’m not sure why she thought you needed green bean casserole,” I said to Mrs. S as I handed over the small casserole dish.

  “Same reason I sent her wine glasses,” she replied with a smile. “Now head on into the living room.”

  I jogged off, Shaun’s gift under my arm, rounded the corner from the kitchen, and descended the four stairs into the living room. This room had been tidied up, but athletic gear was still everywhere. The massive live pine tree in front of the wall of glass blinked steadily, the lights tiny and white like a thousand stars.

  “Dude, finally, I thought maybe you stood us up,” Shaun yelled from the floor where he sat next to Adam, watching a movie with some major explosions taking place.

  “Mitchell Adams, come give me a kiss on the cheek.”

  I picked my way through ski poles, new snowboarding boots, video games, and packages of socks to Shaun’s grandmother seated in a small rocker. She called it a “lady chair” but her daughter, Mrs. S., called it ‘Mama’s throne’, which I guess it kind of was. It did have the best view of the TV.

  I bent down and pecked her wrinkled cheek. She was weathered and silver-haired and bowed with age, but her brown eyes were sharp like a raptor.

  “You look good,” she said, taking my face between her hands, and gazing into me like her grandson did. Her perusal had a different effect than Shaun’s though. “Wiser. Whiskery.”

  I blushed a bit. “I’m taking a few days off from shaving.”

  She grinned and patted my cheeks. “Work that stubble, honey.” I blushed harder. “Shaun, fetch me the gift I made for Mitchell.”

  Grandma let go of my face, so I straightened and watched Shaun get to his feet. He was in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt that hitched up when he stretched his arms over his head. A strip of belly was exposed. Firm and tight with a line of dark hair leading into the band of his jeans. My stomach flipped over, stirring up the meal I’d just eaten in an uncomfo