Page 17 of 50 First Skates

“No, she’s crying, numb nuts,” Noah snaps.

Coach smacks him in the pec. “After she got back from the skating lesson today, I think she wanted to call you. She figured out the combination to my safe to get out her phone. And she found all the journals I’ve been hiding in there. The ones she’s written in since we brought her back from the hospital,” he says. “We explained everything. Jessie came over to tell her about that night, February sixteenth. She’s been really upset. Even more upset than she was every day at the hospital. But it sounds like she’s settling down in there. She read all of her journal entries.She asked if you knew about her condition. I told her what you told me a week ago and what we’ve been doing every day since. She said she wants to see you.”

This is a relief. This is better than her finding out in the morning, I think. “Can I go in and show her the video, then?” Coach knows that I’ve been preparing for this.

“Yeah. Now’s the time.”

“What video?” Noah asks.

“You’ll see, Tiger. Simmer down.”

“Shit, I forgot to bring my laptop.”

“You can use hers. It’s out of the safe now. Digital Detox Week is officially over.”

I follow Coach B inside the house. Wait for him in the hallway when he knocks on her bedroom door. He goes inside first and then comes out, along with Soleil’s best friend. Jessie’s eyes are all puffy, but she’s smiling. She pats me on the shoulder and gives me two thumbs up, which is encouraging, I guess. Coach gestures for me to enter her room and makes a point of leaving the door open a crack.

Soleil is sitting cross-legged in the middle of a double bed, surrounded by notebooks. The skin around her bright, blue eyes are pink and puffy, like Jessie’s were. But she seems calm. Not too sad. She’s changed out of the clothes she was wearing this morning. She must have showered after I dropped her off. Her hair’s up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. No makeup.

I slowly approach the side of her bed, holding the Fluicer box, waiting for her to speak first. She looks so pretty and young and innocent. She looks up at me and sniffles. I expect her to say something that’s going to break my heart.

But what she says is “Have we had sex yet?”

The wordyetis interesting.

I hear Noah mutter, “I will punch him in the nuts if he’s?—”

“Get away from there,” Coach calls out to him.

I can hear Noah grumbling as he walks off. “We have not,” I say, loud enough for her brother to hear. “But we’re getting to be pretty good friends. And we have a lot of chemistry. And you’ve kissed me on the cheek every day for the past week.”

She smirks. “I read about that.”

“How are you holding up?” I ask, placing the box on an empty space atop her dresser.

“Oh, you know…” She makes a pile of some of the journals so I can sit on the bed with her. “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me I left out the part about us having sex in my journals.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Lowering my voice, I say, “It really didn’t seem appropriate.” I reach for her hand and stroke her fingers with my thumb. “But I think about you all the time.”

Her eyes well with tears and her lower lip quivers. “You’ve really been teaching me to skate every day for a week?”

I nod. “Yeah. And I saw you several days before that too.”

“Why do you keep coming back? Even though I always forget you? You’re so hot—you could be with a woman who remembers you in the morning.”

I pull a small red USB drive from my pocket and hold it up to show her. “I tried to explain everything in a video I’ve been putting together for the past few days. Where’s your laptop?”

She reaches for the laptop on a side table and hands it to me. When I wake up the monitor, I see my face and a few candid images of me in sweatpants all over the screen. She grins at me, sheepishly. “I Googled you and your butt. Shut up.”

I click on the video file, increase the volume, and turn the laptop so she can see the screen.

“I’m gonna leave a note for you to watch this video every morning, okay?” I was always the guy who’d edit together videos for my friends when they had birthdays or if a coach was retiringor a player was traded to another team. The video nerd. That skill has come in handy for this particular situation.

After a brief opening title introduction with royalty-free music I purchased and edited in, my voice comes up as I talk to the camera. “Good morning, Soleil Barrett. Or good afternoon, if you’ve slept in. I’m Dean Rafferty, and I first met you on March twenty-fourth this year. I was in Whisk It Good, looking for some kitchen items when you walked in. You were the prettiest woman I’d ever seen, and we had a lot of banter.” I then act out our conversation about the slapper and the thermal slab and the Fluicer for her in the video. “I wanted so badly to date you that I bought two Fluicers. You can have the other one. I don’t need it. I really only need to see you every day. That’s what I want anyway. The problem is you probably don’t remember me. And I’m going to throw it over to your best friend and your dad to tell you why.”

I got Jessie to film herself explaining what happened on the night of February sixteenth and Coach Barrett to explain everything thereafter and edited it in. Then I come back on and say, “I’m really sorry this happened, Soleil. I wish my contract with the team in Calgary had ended sooner so I could have moved up to Kenton sooner and I could have met you sooner so you’d remember me from before the accident. Or, to be honest, I’d like to think that if I’d met you before Valentine’s Day, none of that would have happened. Because I would have taken you out on Valentine’s Day and every night since then. No offense, Coach and Noah, if you’re watching. But I would have been determined to show you guys it was okay for me to date Soleil. However, in case you’re wondering, we’ve just been skating together.”

Then I edited in the video footage Jessie shot of Soleil skating with me. I watch Soleil’s wet eyes light up. “Wow, I lookhotskating!” she exclaims.