Chapter Three [Liam]

"No, no, no, no — Nej!"

I secure Chloe with my hands around her hips so she doesn't land flat on her face.

"You're doing it wrong. Do it right!"

I flash Helga a wry smile at her firm yet imprecise instruction. Our skating coach leans into the rink boards, tiny pale hands resting on the rink topper as the straight line of her spine seems to stretch from her lower back all the way up to the tip of her perfectly round, translucent-blonde bun.

Chloe and I skate back to get some distance for momentum and repeat the lift we just fucked up. Just as her feet take off the ice, a round of cheers and general tumult erupts from the hockey rink behind us.

I am distracted by the noise, going as stupidly far as to try a look over my shoulder, which destabilizes our balance once again. If Chloe didn't trust me to catch her by now, we would've both tumbled to the ground, but I steady her in time. There isn't a single hint of gratitude on her face, though, and I guess that's fair — she was only at risk of falling in the first place because of me, after all.

"You're picking the girl up like she's a potato sac. You're supposed to pick her up like a beautiful princess. Light, pretty, delicate," Helga scolds, hands flailing emphatically at her sides. "Do it again, do it right."

As Chloe and I move back to our pre-lift positions, I take the opportunity to maneuver myself in a way I can get a glimpse of the hockey rink. It takes me only a couple of seconds to find the number I want on the dozens of moving jerseys on the ice.

While it's not uncommon for our rink to be busy at early hours of the day, the hockey team tends to have their practices after school. Guess they decided to start strong this year, though.

Their coach — a big, burly man balding at an alarming speed for his early forties — doesn't seem too used or too happy to be up and working before seven. Helga would let out one of her Helga-typical disapproving sniffs if I pointed it out to her. According to her, in her country, 'we started at five in the morning and finished at six in the night'.

At first, I thought she was from a place like Poland, or the old Soviet Union. Turns out she's from Sweden. They just rise early there, I guess.

On the hockey rink, Eli approaches the rink boards with his buddies at his sides. Big Coach looks down at the clipboard, while a blonde bearded man in a baseball cap — the assistant coach — tells them something and the three of them nod in agreement.

"I'm over here," Chloe speaks under her breath, drawing my attention back to her. There's a mordant glint in her eyes as she smiles at me. "Looking at me might help you not drop me."

I roll my eyes. Message received. With all unnecessary sass and everything.

We repeat the same lift we've done countless times before, in previous practices. This time, she lands on her feet in front of me and we finish the sequence in synchrony. It's clean and technically correct, but too mechanic. Almost smooth, but still with a clunky aftertaste to it. Helga won't like that.

"Nej. It's still wrong."

Called it.

"Fel, fel, fel." She sniffs. "You pay me to train you, but you're not focused. I cannot train you when you're not focused." Helga's thin mouth purses into a barely-there little pucker of red lipstick, sniffing again.

I sigh under the weight of Chloe's pointed look, which feels a little too passive-aggressive if I'm allowed to say so.

"I'm focused, Helga. We'll do it again."

Our private coach opens her mouth, but I beat her to it.

"Yes, yes. We'll do it right and everything."

We go through it one more time. Maybe even a little more fluidly.

"Better. Still wrong." Helga waves her hand, like she's shooing an annoying insect off. "We start again later. Be focused."

And I guess that's that.

On the other side of the arena, the hockey team has already left the ice and is getting rid of their pads and protections and stuff. I try a quick inconspicuous glance, but Chloe deflects my attention again.

"She's kinda right, you know," she says, with just that slight motherly edge of judginess in her tone, as we both sit on a bench to remove our skates.

"Mh?"

Chloe rolls her eyes, taking her skates in her hands to stand from the bench. "I don't know where your head is this morning, but it certainly isn't on this rink."

Just about a hundred feet to the left, that's where, I think as my eyes drift back to where they haven't been able to stay off since I stepped on the ice.

And it's like Chloe reads my mind.

"You didn't catch Gus's obsession for the hockey team, did you? You know it's not even cute when he does that anymore."

Just as she finishes saying that, Gus and Nat walk out of the rink toward us. If there's a God looking out for me, dude's gonna make sure they didn't hear it.

I should've probably gone to church more when my parents asked me to, though, because when we step into the locker room Gus shoots me a devious little smirk.

"Did you finally discover the wonders of the hockey boys?" He nudges my arm with his elbow twice and waggles his eyebrows on the off-beat. It's strangely coordinated, and adequately weird.

I roll my eyes.

Gus doesn't seem to get that as the official non-verbal sign for Ah!-hilarious-now-drop-it.

"Which one caught your eye?"

I ignore him. Fortunately, we don't share the locker room with the hockey team at the arena. They have their locker rooms on their side and we have ours on our side.

"I got my dibs on Owen," Gus declares.

"Not my type."

Gus scoffs skeptically. "Too hot?"

I snort. "Too broody."

"I also kinda want dibs on Eli."

Oh, no, you don't.

I guess that thought sits on my face looking like impatience, because Gus rolls his eyes and exclaims, "He got really hot this year!"

"Didn't notice."

"Bullshit."

And I guess I can't argue with that.

We leave the locker room together and join Chloe and Nat on our way out of the arena. Mack sits outside, in her light-grey Audi SUV — seventeenth birthday present from her parents — waiting for us with a hood over her head.

Mack doesn't do morning practices. Mack doesn't really do anything before midday. She's capable of getting out of bed for school, but she kicks into zombie mode. The only thing that can pull her out of that state prematurely is a good opportunity to mess with Gus.

Chloe, Nat, Gus and I walk in the direction of her car. When we're about halfway there, the arena's front door opens letting out the sound of male voices into the wild.

The swollen mass of bodies breaks down into smaller groups and a cluster of five continues walking in our direction. Chloe's brother Connor, his friend James, Dean Miller, Owen Holmes and Eli Blake.

"Hey, guys," Natalie greets with a smile.

The popular reply is a non-verbal head nod. Chloe and Connor exchange the familiar yet distant acknowledgment of siblings who get enough of each other at home. James — skinny, sweet, insipid James — waves back with a thin, "Hi."

Then his eyes land on Chloe and he blushes. It's faint and subtle, but the guy is pale, so it's obvious. It becomes all-too-precious when he waves again and repeats, "Hi."

"Hi," she returns with a noncommittal smile and barely a look his way.

She might fool the hopeless idiot, who looks down a little disappointed, but not me. If she was really not affected, like she's trying to pass herself to be, she'd give him a weird look for the awkward greeting.

An indecently loud honk startles us all. Mack rolls down her car window just a couple of inches.

"You can exchange pleasantries at school. Get in," she grumbles.

"See you guys there," Natalie says, opening one of the back doors.

James waves again. That boy sure loves waving. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe little James Lowell hasn't quite grown out of his skittish phase yet.

I slide into the passenger seat beside Mack, and look out my closed window to see Owen, Dean and Eli squish into the backseats of James's car. Mack takes off before Gus even has time to shut his door behind me.

"How was Mother Russia?" She asks, turning into the road with a disconcerting lurch.

"Helga's Swedish," Chloe corrects.

I twist around on my seat to face my skating partner, sandwiched between Gus and Natalie. All it takes is a twitch of my lips for her to know what's coming.

"Don't."

I bat my eyelashes provocatively. She scowls.

"For someone who gave me shit for checking out the hockey team, you sure looked sweet on James." I'm aware I sound like a middle-school brat mocking his friend's crush while pronouncing his name, but I have absolutely no regrets.

Chloe rolls her eyes in annoyance and, if I were a better person, I wouldn't get so much enjoyment from it.

"Is that what that was?" Gus exclaims. "That's what it looks like when you're sweet, woman?"

"Shut up."

"Never thought you'd go for skinny vanilla latte," I muse.

Chloe glares hotly. "Wait until I leave this car, Astor."

"You were checking out the hockey team?" Mack asks me, totally missing the point. We're supposed to tease one at the time. It was Chloe's turn to be shamed, not mine. No fair.

I shrug. "I peaked a little."

"He dropped me," Chloe accuses.

"You dropped her?" Natalie gasps.

I roll my eyes. "Did you see Chloe passed out on the ice? Then, I didn't drop her."

"You nearly did," Chloe shoots back.

"And Gus says he nearly lost his virginity. 'Nearly' doesn't count," I counter.

"Hey," Gus protests. "It was like fourth base and a half!"

"There are only three bases in baseball, idiot," Mack says.

Gus looks baffled. "Who ever mentioned baseball?"

Mack rolls her eyes so vigorously it almost hurts me.

"If Moneybags is checking out the hockey guys now, I wanna claim dibs on Miller," she adds as an afterthought.

"Who?" I ask.

"Dean," she clarifies.

"Since when are you into Dean?" Natalie asks, looking strangely curious.

"Since I realized how tall he is," Mack answers. It's so unapologetically shallow I have to crack a smile.

"He's not really your type," Nat says.

"That's what I said," I sing.

"I can decide what my type is for myself."

"I was just saying."

"And I'm choosing to ignore you."

"To change it up," I throw in sarcastically.

Mack sends me a sideways warning glance with only forty-percent of heart in it. "I can leave you on the side of the road, you know?"

"You would never."

"I could."

***

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How do you feel about Liam so far? And what about his friends? I'd love to get some of your thoughts on the characters you've met so far, to get a feel of how they're coming along :)

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