Cold Day in the Sun Read online

  Here’s what I love most about The Cutting Edge: It’s a love story, yes, and it’s a story about overcoming obstacles, but it’s also about a change in perspective. You know the scene when Kate and Doug do tequila shots and she gets plastered and talks about the magnets? That all they needed was a little flip? Flip? Yeah, you know what I’m talking about, don’t deny it. Sure, she’s talking about their relationship, but it’s about life perspective, too. Doug was a hockey god until he got benched with an injury. Figure skating wasn’t in his plan. Kate went through partner after partner. She wasn’t expecting to click with this . . . this cretin!

  Sometimes all you need is a little flip.

  What does this have to do with . . . well, anything? Tonight I stood onstage in a long, black dress (it’s OK, I was wearing my VH striped All Stars) with a bunch of my teammates, part of the Snow Week Royalty. It was weird and not at all something I ever thought would happen. And something else happened, too, something that surprised me, something as simple as posing for a photograph. And it got me thinking about those magnets and that little flip. Wondering if the universe is telling me that’s what my life needs right now. A change in perspective. An openness to new possibilities.

  Flip.

  Has this ever happened to you?

  HARDROCK_HOCKEY: TOP 10 ROM-COMS*

  10. 10 Things I Hate About You

  9. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

  8. 13 Going on 30

  7. French Kiss

  6. When Harry Met Sally

  5. Kissing a Fool

  4. Say Anything

  3. You’ve Got Mail

  2. The Princess Bride

  1. The Cutting Edge

  *I know, right? WHAT? I have favorite rom-coms?

  What’s your favorite?

  m/ 19

  Comments

  11:58 p.m.

  The Princess Bride for sure is my #1. It’s romantic. It’s hilarious.

  Trace

  Reply from HardRock_Hockey

  12:10 a.m.

  It’s so close to number one for me, too. But.

  Hockey.

  11:59 p.m.

  Say Anything is the perfect movie. I kinda identify with Lloyd Dobler, to be honest. Kickboxing. It’s the sport of the future. Haha.

  MetalManiac (Jim)

  Reply from HardRock_Hockey

  12:11 a.m.

  I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.

  Classic.

  12:14 a.m.

  I love rom-coms. Bridget Jones. 13 Going on 30. I just recently rewatched it and I still love it. Oh, and RIP Heath Ledger. I loved 10 Things.

  Rebekah Faith

  Reply from HardRock_Hockey

  12:16 a.m.

  I forgot about Bridget Jones!

  1:32 a.m.

  Does There’s Something About Mary count as a rom-com?

  LizP

  Reply from HardRock_Hockey

  5:45 a.m.

  Yes, for sure.

  Chapter Ten

  Thursday night we lose an away game 1–0, and Friday’s practice is even more brutal. A small part of me wonders if Hot Sauce feels the zing every time we touch, too, and if he might be nicer to me because of it. But he’s disproving my theory spectacularly right now, and the only thing that’s saving me is knowing that practice will be cut short because of the Snow Ball.

  “Dutch!” Hot Sauce shouts after a massive fuck-up in the neutral zone on a penalty kill drill. “Snap out of it already!”

  Yes, I need to snap out of it. Why am I thinking about the zing instead of the drill? Further evidence that I should not date a teammate, no matter how good his hand felt on my waist.

  He skates toward me and I cringe.

  “What the fuck, Dutch?” he shouts, so close to my face I see the flash of pissed off in his dark eyes.

  I flinch. “Don’t call me that!” I yell back.

  “This isn’t Peewees!” His voice is so loud and so close to my ears and damn it, why is it OK for a peer to get in my face like this? Isn’t this against Minnesota State High School League rules or something?

  “No, it is not!” he shouts.

  “Shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

  “Yes!”

  “Stop yelling at me!” I yell. “You’re making me nervous.” That last part I say more quietly. No one else needs to know. And they especially don’t need to know that it’s not the yelling that’s making me nervous, it’s Hot Sauce. He’s too close. He’s been too close since Coronation. I can’t lose the feeling of his fingers resting against my waist, his hot breath in my ear.

  “I am raising my voice so that you’ll hear me, Dutch. Let me help you understand the concept of the penalty kill. That’s when your team is short a player because of a rule infraction, also known as a penalty. The consequence for this infraction is playing without that individual, meaning that your team is down a man and at a disadvantage—”

  I cut him off. “Don’t say man, say player! And I know what a penalty kill is!”

  “So what was that dumpster fire just now? Keep your damn stick on the ice. I know toddlers who could have protected their zone better. Defend, defend, defend!”

  My face is redredredredred.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “Don’t apologize!” he yells. “Be better! Do better! I know you are better than whatever that was.”

  Between Rieland and Hot Sauce, I’m getting my fill of feedback this week.

  He turns and skates away.

  Not long after, Coach gives up and calls practice. Even though I’m dreading the Snow Ball, I can’t say that I’m sorry to get off the ice and away from Hot Sauce.

  I’m still upstairs when the girls get here, but I’m showered and dressed and calling that a win.

  Cora huffs when she sees my wet hair and holds up a sparkly purple tackle box. She flips it open to reveal tubes, palettes, pots, brushes, and sponges.

  “Morgan,” she orders, “go rummage around in the bathroom for Holland’s foundation. I can handle the rest, but we gotta start there. Oh, and a round brush and her hair dryer, if you can find it.”

  She plunks me down in front of my desk, turns on the lamp, and angles the arm so that the light shines in my face. She’s wearing purple—her signature color—a pale lilac shimmery shift that makes her skin glow. “Close your eyes,” she says in her cajoling way, and I do. She attacks my eyebrows with tweezers.

  “Ouch! Settle down there, cowboy.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of time to settle down, Holland. You look so good in that dress. You can’t have two caterpillars crawling across your face like you did at Coronation. You just can’t.”

  Morgan’s back from the bathroom and she tuts. “They’re not caterpillars, Cora. Don’t exaggerate. They just need some maintenance. Some TLC.”

  “TLC,” Cora mumbles. “I’ll give you TLC. Tweeze like crazy.”

  I close my eyes and she resumes her deforestation but more gently.

  “Mascara time,” Cora singsongs.

  “Nope, no mascara. I wore mascara Wednesday night and I ended up looking like Alice Cooper.”

  “I don’t even know who she is,” Cora says. “You have to wear mascara.”

  “She? She? What is wrong with you? Alice Cooper is a shock rocker. A male shock rocker.”

  “Whatever. I don’t know what a shock rocker is, either. Mascara,” Cora croons. She pulls a silver tube from her tackle box. “Good girl,” she says when I don’t blink it onto my cheeks. Next, she colors my lips with a deep plum that complements the rich blue of my dress, and then she starts on my hair.

  The dress is fantastic. The bodice with its sweetheart neckline and wide straps hugs my curves, ending in a band of peacock feather–inspired sequins and a skirt that fades gradually to a lighter blue. It’s nothing I would have chosen, ever, in a million years, but I love it.

  She finishes my hair in a simple style that highlights the stripe on one side and is swept up on the other, secure
d with a vintage peacock hair clip, bronze with turquoise and blue stones.

  “Oh, my goodness, Holland!” Morgan cries out when I stand up. “You look so beautiful!”

  Cora stands back, crosses her arms, and inspects me. “Shoes,” she orders, and I slip into the matching deep blue heels. “Très bon,” she says quietly and brushes her hands together.

  I turn to Morgan, who’s wearing a deep red gown with a full skirt that ends mid-calf. Nothing above the knee for our gal Morgan. Her blond hair is in a complicated updo with curly tendrils around her face. Her lips match her dress.

  “She got to you, too?” I ask, and Morgan nods, smiling.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she says. She turns me to face the full-length mirror on the back of my door and my heart swells. I swallow down a lump in my throat. I look—I look beautiful.

  “Cora,” I whisper. “It’s perfect.”

  “See? I told you that you wouldn’t look like a hooker, o ye of little faith,” Cora says as she packs up her tackle box.

  My mother once again takes several hundred pictures. Carter escaped long ago to pick up Livvie, so those two won’t be subjected to another of Mom’s lengthy photo shoots. Lucky. Eventually, Morgan, Cora, and I leave the warmth and safety of my living room for the cold and uncertainty of the Minnesota winter and the Snow Ball.

  Chapter Eleven

  I wouldn’t say that I go into the Halcyon Days Ballroom kicking and screaming, but it’s close. Cora and Morgan march me toward Showbiz, Matt (who caught wind that Cora wanted to ask him to the dance and was on board one-hundred-percent), Miracle, and Miracle’s girlfriend, Poppy, who all hover on the edge of the dance floor.

  “Whoa,” Matt says. “Holy shit, you three look smokin’.”

  Showbiz whacks Matt on the arm. “Keep your eyes off my girl.” He turns toward Morgan. “I thought you’d never get here. Want to dance, beautiful?”

  Morgan beams. The lovebirds walk hand in hand onto the dance floor, and I watch them go with something like envy. But I can’t fault them for finding each other, even if we were only in ninth grade when they got together. When you know, you know.

  I guess.

  They’re everywhere, these happy couples. Cora’s flirting with Matt now, and Poppy and Miracle are deep in a debate about whether the Minnesota Gophers will make it to the Women’s Frozen Four this year. I turn toward the dance floor where Livvie and Carter sway and grin at each other. Even Lumberjack Lewis found a date to the Snow Ball after I rejected him—Serena Perkins, a basketball player who’s about four inches taller than Lumberjack.

  Ah, young love. So inspiring, so new, so spine-tingling. So glad I don’t date—

  “Hey, Dutch.”

  I whirl around. Why is he forever sneaking up on me? “Don’t call me—”

  Oof.

  Hot Sauce is hot. Holy hot. Even hotter than he looked at Coronation. He’s wearing a damn tuxedo, the top button of his shirt undone and a bowtie hanging loose around the collar like he couldn’t be bothered, or like he’d already lived through ten epic Snow Ball nights. Same with his deliberately messy hair. I would like to place my hands in that deliberately messy hair and tug his face toward mine and . . .

  Whoa. WHAT?

  I swallow. “Is that how they do it in Great River?” I wave my shaky hand in his general direction.

  He swallows, too. “Do what?” he asks in a choked voice, and he doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that his eyes travel from the peacock clip in my hair to the tips of my sky-high heels and back up, lingering at my décolletage, until they lock with my eyes.

  Uhhhh.

  “The, um, disheveled formal look.” I can’t pull my gaze from his. The gold flecks in his eyes glimmer against the dim light from this distance. Which has suddenly become less distance. I don’t know which of us moved closer or if we both did.

  “Dance?”

  Did Hot Sauce Millard just ask me to dance? He did. I wrinkle up my nose and take a step back so he’s not so close. “Who are you here with?”

  “What?”

  “Your date? Who’s your date?”

  He smiles, like he’s keeping a secret and is about to let me in on it. “I’m solo tonight.”

  “I suppose you’re too good for all of us small people in Halcyon Lake, you and your championship medal.”

  His smile falters. I wait for him to shake his head and walk away or tell me to fuck off, but instead he tucks his arm around my waist, and my knees nearly buckle from the shock waves (some advance notice would be nice! For example, “I’m going to touch you now, so lock your knees and brace for impact”), and he leads me to the dance floor, and wouldn’t you know it, they play “Love Song” by Tesla at that exact moment.

  What is it with this guy and me and wretched musical timing?

  And why is the DJ at a high school dance playing a power ballad that’s almost thirty years old? Not that I mind. I love “Love Song,” even if I have to listen to it in the middle of this fancy, old-timey ballroom that smells like my grandmother’s basement, musty with mildew and memories, fake snowflakes dangling from the ceiling. Even if I am in the arms of Hot Sauce Millard, who’s barely moving, holding on to me like he never wants to let me go.

  But I don’t hate it.

  I hate that he basically called me a Peewee on the ice this afternoon. I hate that he’s constantly calling me out and telling me to do better, be better, I know you are better than this.

  “That dress,” he murmurs, his head bent low so that his mouth is close to my ear, almost touching. “You. In that dress. You look incredible.”

  What was I saying? I shiver, and he pulls me tighter, which, I can’t deny, feels amazing and scary and right.

  Oh, no. I can’t let this continue. I step back against the pressure of his arms, creating a space between us the size of Mount Rushmore.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Um.” I bite my bottom lip and glance over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of two chaperones, my humanities teacher, Mr. Neese, and Mr. Briceño, the band director. “Chaperones. God, I hate everything about dances.”

  He turns and looks. “Yeah, me too. Fuck it. You want to get out of here?”

  “Get out of here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With you.”

  He laughs. “Yeah.”

  “But we just got here.”

  “No, you just got here. I’ve been here for forty-five long minutes, waiting for . . .”

  He trails off.

  Wait. Should I leave with Hot Sauce? What will people think if they see me leaving with Hot Sauce?

  He’s waiting for me to say something.

  “Where would we go?”

  “I could eat. Pie? Are you in the mood for pie?”

  Done deal. “I’m always in the mood for pie. Any food, really, but especially pie.”

  “It’s settled, then,” he says. “Shall we?”

  Nope. We cannot be seen leaving together.

  “Uh, why don’t you go ahead, and I’ll meet you outside? I need to tell Morgan and Cora.”

  He tilts his head, regarding me. “Oh . . . kay? I’ll meet you at the coat check.” He walks toward the lobby.

  I’m not actually going to talk to Morgan and Cora. I move over to the dessert table (the tiny cheesecakes look delicious, but I’m holding out for pie) and count to one hundred and twenty. Then I slip out the side door.

  Hot Sauce is waiting for me in the lobby. With my coat. A long black wool dress coat with gigantic white buttons that belonged to Grandma Delviss in the ’60s. A coat I’m wearing for the first time tonight.

  “How did you . . .?”

  “I asked the woman at the coat check.”

  “You didn’t have my ticket.”

  He shrugs. “She knew you.”

  The attendant has got to be pushing eighty if not more. I’ve never seen her before. “How?”

  “Hockey fan. She’s looking forward to HockeyFest.”
/>   “You’re full of shit.”

  “No, it’s true.” He smiles, holds out my coat, and helps me into it. “Stay here. I’ll go warm up the truck and pick you up.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Stay here,” he says again, more firmly. “Did I mention how good you look in that dress? And with that coat? ‘Short Skirt/Long Jacket.’”

  He hurries away, but I swear the tips of his ears are turning pink, and now I’ll have that Cake song in my head all night. I like a girl in a short skirt and a lonnnnng jacket.

  This is not the best time of year for a formal dance, especially with a skirt this short and bare legs, but it’s another one of those Hawks traditions dating back to 1965 or something like that. When I see the truck pull up a few minutes later, I push open the heavy wooden door to a blast of frigid air and hurry down the steps as fast as these heels will allow. I couldn’t get away with my high-tops tonight. He meets me at the front passenger door, opening it and helping me up.

  This is starting to feel like a date. Not that I would know. The closest thing I’ve had to a date was around the time Morgan and Showbiz got together. A mixed group of us went to the movies and a JV defenseman named Chevy Williams held my hand, and later, we fumbled our way through a first (and only) kiss that featured chapped lips (him) and braces (me). The worst first date and first kiss ever. He must not have thought so, because he asked me out again the very next day. I told him I’d had a nice time but that I didn’t think it was a good idea to date a teammate.

  It’s been my MO ever since.

  Chevy moved a couple of months later. I don’t remember the movie, but I do remember that awkward first kiss and his sweaty palm when he held my hand.

  Hot Sauce doesn’t seem sweaty, and I’ve seen him sweaty.

  My cheeks warm at the thought. There’s something seriously wrong with me.

  “Warm up the truck” is relative, because it’s still damn cold in the cab, although the air coming through the registers is warmish. And the music’s good—Foo Fighters, “The Pretender.” The screen reads “Wesley Millard—Barn Burner Mix.” Very good indeed.

  “Turn it up,” I say, and he does, because we both know that “The Pretender” is a song that must be played at high volume.