Eli checked his watch and got to his feet. “Can’t. Meeting Dave.”

“Right, I forgot. We’re still on for tomorrow, though? All four of us.”

“Sure.” He gathered his stuff, and couldn’t help chuckling when she began chanting, “He was a skater boy, he said, ‘See you later, boy.’ ”

“C’mon.”

“His friends weren’t good enough for him.”

“It’s for a noble cause.”

“Now he’s a hockey star, driving off in his car.”

“You’re the worst,” he told her lovingly as he slipped out of the room.

The face of Dave Lenchantin was smile-wrinkled and sun-weathered—somewhat surprising, for a man who’d lived two-thirds of his life inside an ice rink. He immediately spotted Eli, and quickly wrapped up a conversation to weave through the crowd and greet him.

The yearly fundraiser was an informal occasion, not unlike the carnival Eli’s middle school had organized when the district refused to allocate funds for graphing calculators. There were bake sales, crafts stations, portrait artists, temporary tattoos, ring tossing, and even a dunk tank—in which, Eli was amused to see, sat a terrified Alec, Dave’s partner. The event was a great moneymaker for the charity initiatives sponsored by the rink. “Dr. Killgore,” Dave said, reaching up to hug Eli. They’d first met when Eli was in his early teens, but the man had never been less than half a foot shorter than him.

“I never did get that doctorate, Coach.” Being reminded of that part of his life never got easier. “I’ll take mister, though.”

“I ain’t calling you mister, Killgore. Not after that time you bent down to pick up a cracker, threw out your back, and sat out three games.”

“Lies.”

“Hell no.”

“It was an Oreo.”

“Well, I hope it was worth your dignity.” Dave smiled, genuinely happy. “Thank you for the generous donation, Killgore.”

Eli shook his head. “Thank you for . . .” Training me for years, even when I was a dumbass teenager who thought he was hot shit and knew better than anyone around him. For believing in me. For calling over talent scouts. For providing me the structure I needed and didn’t even know it. For being there when Maya and I were alone. For my entire fucking life, really. “Making me do bare-knuckle push-ups on the ice that time I showed up wasted to practice, even though it was Rivera’s fault for spiking the Gatorade.”

“It was my pleasure, son.”

“I just bet.” Eli wasn’t sure why he’d responded so well to Dave’s brand of discipline, especially when the relationship with his own parents had always been so strained. He’d been a rebellious, defiant child. One of Eli’s teachers suggested that a physically demanding extracurricular activity might soak up the hostility coursing through him, and he’d been forcibly enrolled in every team sport the greater Austin area had to offer. Only hockey—and Dave—had stuck.

“How’s Maya doing?” Dave asked. “I think I saw her around a couple weeks ago?”

“Visiting Alec, probably. She’s staying with a friend, or she’d be here with me.” When Eli had become the sole caretaker of his eleven-year-old sister, his financial situation had been disastrous. He’d had several minimum-wage jobs on top of debt and a mortgage, which meant long hours and no money left for childcare. Leaving a clearly bereaved, obviously confused, extremely angry child home alone had been out of the question, but Dave had offered Maya a spot on Alec’s figure skating training team—which, to Eli’s surprise, she’d accepted. Access to a rink, let alone a trainer, would have been cost prohibitive, but Dave had covered most expenses—thanks to fundraisers like this one. Maya had never been more than an amateur skater. Nonetheless, the sport had grounded her.

“You two should come over for dinner soon.”

“Just name the night.” Eli smiled. “But let’s order out.”

“You damn princess. It was one time. And how is ketchup on mac and cheese not a good idea? I was just tellin’ Rue that Alec and I have been taking these couples cooking classes—”

“I’m sorry,” Eli interrupted. The hairs at the back of his neck lifted. “Telling who?”

“You don’t remember her? Ah, I bet you were gone when she started training with Alec. But she might know Maya. There she is! Rue!” Dave waved at someone, a wide gesture, impossible to ignore. Blue eyes flashed in Eli’s head.

A small key chain, shaped like a skating shoe.

Minami’s voice: Apparently she was a student athlete.

“Rue, could you come here for a moment?”

She was wearing a Lenchantin Rink T-shirt. Handing a slice of pizza to a child in an ice-skating dress. Focused, a little remote. Out of place in the loud, bustling crowd.

As usual, Eli was irreparably lost at the sight of her.

She didn’t hear Dave calling, but the older woman next to her tapped her twice on the shoulder and pointed in Dave’s direction. Rue’s eyes lifted, met Eli’s, and he thought, Fuck. Me.

He’d managed not to think of her obsessively for the past week—except when he hadn’t. Which was an embarrassing amount of time. Most of the time. All the fucking time.

He didn’t need this. He didn’t need to be reminded of how physical she was, of the way she soaked up the air in his lungs. He didn’t need to witness her full lips parting in surprise, or the moment she went very, very still.

And he certainly didn’t need Dave hollering, “Rue, c’mere. There’s someone I wanna introduce you to.”

17

HER EXISTENCE, APPARENTLY, DID A LOT FOR HIM

ELI

Rue’s mouth shaped a muted excuse me, and she walked toward them, wiping her already-clean palms on the sides of her jean shorts. Eli was suddenly, intensely, pleasurably aware of the warmth of his own blood. He was alive, very much so. Because Rue Siebert was walking toward him with the air of someone who’d rather be anywhere else.

Her existence, apparently, did a lot for him. More than an elaborately staged erotic show.

“Rue, this is Eli. Used to be on my hockey team before you began skating with Alec.”

Rue and Eli regarded each other, the usual current lighting the space between them. Wordlessly, they reached the same decision.

Fake it.

“Nice to meet you, Rue.” He sounded too intimate to fool anyone.

She, too sultry. “Likewise.”

They shook hands, and a spark traveled through him, positively pornographic. He wanted to take her home and spread her out on his sheets. He wanted to tie her to his bed. He wanted to exhaust her until she could no longer fight this unyielding pull between them. His hand engulfed hers, and he imagined drawing her closer. Pressing an open-mouthed kiss into her palm. Taking her away, someplace that could only be classified as elsewhere.

He was unstable. She made him so.

“When you were training with Alec, you might have met Eli’s sister. Maya Killgore?”

She looked away from Eli, with some difficulty. “Younger?”

“Early twenties now.”

“I doubt it, then.”

They stared at each other with a touch of resignation. Some excitement. Relief. And when Dave spotted someone else and excused himself, they remained there, unmoving, the chatter in the hall receding past this moment in time.

Eli tried to imagine a reality in which he didn’t know Rue Siebert existed. The empty misery of it. The sheer relief. “Hi, Rue,” he said softly.

Her braided hair hung past her shoulder, as thick as his wrist. She nodded her head. A somewhat awkward response that somehow made perfect sense. “Why is it that we keep meeting like this?”