The Year We Fell Down: A Hockey Romance (The Ivy Years Book 1)

—Corey—

“Oh, my head,” I complained the next morning, crutching towards the dining hall for brunch.

“You should have taken a couple of Advil before bed,” Dana pointed out.

“If there were things I could redo about last night, that wouldn’t even be near the top of the list.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It was just embarrassing. I had to be rescued. By Hartley.”

Dana smiled. “And we know how much you enjoy being rescued.”

“And by him. Ugh. And then I had to listen to Stacia complain about it. Then I’m pretty sure he went back over to her place afterwards to do the horizontal mambo.” I had lain in my bed last night, watching the room spin, and trying not picture his big hands removing her fancy nightgown.

“Look on the bright side,” Dana said as we approached the Beaumont gate. “It’s waffle day. Shall I meet you inside?”

I shook my head. “Today I’m taking the stairs. I really need the practice.”

Ten minutes later things were looking up. I’d climbed the stairs without tripping or panicking. And Dana and I got our favorite table near the door. I was just finishing my waffle when Daniel slid his tray next to mine. “Morning, lovelies,” he said. “Can I sit?”

“Of course,” I said. “Dana, this is Daniel. He’s the captain of our water polo team. Daniel, this is my roommate, Dana.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Daniel said. “It would be an even greater pleasure if you would join the team.”

Dana laughed. “Sports and I do not get along.”

“Inner tube water polo is not a sport, it is a calling.” He aimed his crinkle-eyed smile at Dana, and I thought I saw her flush. Dana had a thing for British accents. “We have nice parties afterwards.” Then he turned to me. “You disappeared last night, Corey.”

“I did?” It was funny to think that he hadn’t noticed my departure. I always assume that my awkward comings and goings were as vivid as neon.

“Did you leave before or after the fireworks?” Daniel asked.

“What fireworks?”

“Ah…” His expression took on the flavor of conspiracy. He swiveled around to look over both shoulders before continuing. “Your friend Hartley and his ice queen had a spat in the hallway. It was quite the blow out, really. Very theatrical.”

Dana leaned forward in her chair. “What happened?”

“Well…”

Just then, Allison set her tray down across from Daniel. “Good morning!”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “I was just telling Corey about the neighborhood brawl. She missed it.” He leaned in. “It began with Stacia shrieking ‘Nobody dumps me, Hartley!’ for all the world to hear.”

I felt my heart skip a beat, and Dana gasped. “He dumped her?”

Allison clapped her hands with glee. “He did. But not before she whipped out the L word. But then he said that if she loved him she wouldn’t be fucking her…” Allison broke off to laugh. “…Her ‘Italian Stallion’ all over Europe.”

I just sat there, dumbfounded, while my hope fairy flew in through the open door, wrestling with the duct tape across her mouth.

“Wow,” Dana breathed. “Stacia must be pissed.”

“Oh, she is,” Allison nodded. “She went right from ‘I love you’ to ‘you were a big mistake.’ And he said ‘my work here is done,’ and then he left.”

“And then we all started placing bets,” Daniel said, folding a slice of bacon into his mouth.

“Bets on what?” I asked.

“On which of them will pair up first,” Allison said. “My money is on Stacia, because she’s all about her image. She has to have man candy on her arm. Now, the line of women waiting for Hartley to be single is pretty long. But he won’t replace her right away. At least I hope he doesn’t. I need time to line up my shot.” She mimed throwing a ball into a polo net. “A girl can dream, anyway.”

That was the moment Hartley walked into the dining hall, and the four of us looked up just quickly enough to make it clear that we’d been talking about him. My stomach did a little flip flop as I looked up at the newly single Hartley.

Easy, I cautioned myself. There’s no reason to get your hopes up.

But my hope fairy ripped the tape off her mouth and yelled, YES THERE IS!

Daniel wiped his mouth. “You look a little banged up, mate.” And it was true. Hartley’s eyes were red and tired.

“I may have done a little drinking late last night.” He limped around the table, circling behind Daniel and Dana to stand beside me. He dug a little pill bottle out of his pocket and tapped a couple of tablets into his palm. Tossing them in his mouth, he picked up my juice glass and drained it.

“Hey!” I protested, out of habit.

“Bad night?” Daniel asked.

Hartley shook his head. “Pretty good one, actually. But everyone I wanted to talk to was asleep, except for Bridger and his bottle of Bourbon. Hang on.” He walked my glass over to the juice dispenser and refilled it. When he came back, I could see that he was limping badly. And that would be my fault, of course.

“Your knee,” I said when he got back.

Hartley shrugged. “It’s just stiff. I woke up face down on Bridger’s floor this morning. Good times.” Then he put his fingertips under my chin, tipping my face up, and frowned. He took the bottle back out of his pocket and tapped two more tablets onto my tray. “Shake off that hangover, Callahan. We have plans tonight.”

My pulse leaped. “Since when?”

Hartley put two hands on the table and bent down, his eyes level with mine. “Since now.” Before I could register my surprise, his lips were on mine. The kiss was gentle, and over much too quickly. He straightened up, leaving me reeling. “Don’t make me beg, Callahan. It’s hard on the knee.” And then he walked away, into the kitchen.

There was a deep silence at our table for a moment, punctuated by a squeal from Dana. I felt myself turning a dark shade of red.

“Already?” Allison gaped.

Daniel snickered. “Looks like Corey lined up her shot before the whistle blew.”

It was just like Hartley to plant a kiss on me without filling in the details. I wanted to yell, “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?” at the top of my lungs. But I’m a coward. So the question I texted him was a small one.

Hartley?

Yes, beautiful?

Where are we going tonight?

You’ll find out later, he replied. Dress is VERY casual. Take your sticks, not your chair. We’re riding the van. Meet me @8 at Beaumont gate.

I spent the day with an entire flock of butterflies in my stomach.

“What do you think it could be?” Dana asked for the tenth time. She was painting my toenails pink.

“I don’t KNOW!” I yelped. And that wasn’t even the biggest question in my heart.

What did it mean?

Dana read my mind, which probably wasn’t difficult. “He dumped her for you. It’s true, Corey. He grew a pair of balls and did it.”

My stomach lurched again. I wanted so badly for it to be true. But when was the last time I got exactly what I wanted?

“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I asked as we waited for the gimpmobile. I was feeling positively giddy, standing next to Hartley, ready to embark on his strange little adventure.

But all he would give me was a maddening grin. And when the van turned up, he asked the driver to take us to the intersection of Sachem and Dixwell. But I didn’t know the city map all that well, and couldn’t guess what was there.

To my enduring surprise, the van stopped in front of the hockey arena.

“Really?” I asked as I levered myself off the one low step, onto the sidewalk. “I don’t go in there,” I said, hearing the sound of dismay in my own voice.

The van pulled away, and I realized how quiet it was. There was no hockey game tonight. There was nobody around except for Hartley and me.

“I know you don’t,” he said, stepping close to me. “But I want you to come in with me, just this once.”

“But why?”

He only shook his head. “If you hate it, I’ll never ask you to come back.” He leaned down. And in the orange glow of the street lamps, he gave me a single soft kiss.

My heart contracted in my chest. There was plenty I would do to get a few more of those kisses. But Hartley didn’t know that I hadn’t been into a rink since my accident. I wasn’t afraid to go in — I just didn’t want to. Too many happy hours of my life had been lived at rinks. And now that entire part of my life was gone.

“Please?” he asked. He put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “Please.”

Who could say no to that?

Hartley walked me downhill, around to the side of the building. Taking a set of keys from his pocket, he opened the ice level door.

Inside, the familiar sensations overwhelmed me immediately. Every rink I’d ever visited had the same smell — the crisp scent of ice, mixed with body odor and salty pretzels. I breathed it in, and my stomach did a little twist.

“Just a little further,” Hartley said. He walked me right down the chute, where the players step onto the ice before the game.

Ice gleamed a few feet ahead of me, its surface a recently Zambonied sheen. I stared down at the threshold between the rubber matting and the clean edge of the rink. The memory of how it felt to put one skate over the lip, push off, and fly was so vivid. The lump in my throat swelled.

“Have you seen one of these before?”

I looked down. Hartley knelt in front of two…sleds? Each one had a molded plastic scoop-shaped seat. When Hartley tipped the thing to the side, I could see two blades underneath. A wooden strut stretched forward from the seat, toward a footrest with a metal ball under it.

I shook my head, clearing my throat. “What is that?” I asked, my voice hoarse. “Some kind of adaptive bullshit.”

He looked up at me, his expression worried. “They’re…it’s fun, Callahan. I tested it out first. You can go pretty fast.” He positioned one of them next to my feet. “Let’s just give it a little spin. If you hate it, we’ll go home.”

Still, I hesitated. How many times had I stood a few feet from the ice, ready to step out onto it, without ever a clue that it was a privilege? A thousand? More? I’d never known that I had so much to lose, that a few bad minutes could end it forever.

Hartley stood up and came around to stand behind me. He put his hands under my arms. “Just bend at the waist, and I can set you down on it.”

With a sigh, I gave in. I bent.

It took the usual eternity to remove my braces, strap me in and set me up. Then Hartley handed me not one, but two, short little hockey sticks. “Be careful of the ends,” he prompted. When I studied them, I noticed that each stick had three little metal spikes sticking straight out of the top. “That’s how you push yourself,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Then he wrestled my sled over the lip and shoved me out onto the rink. I skidded about thirty feet, then came to a stop. Raising my chin, I looked up at the stadium lights several stories above. Harkness had a gorgeous arena. I’d watched my brother play here. And after my Harkness acceptance letter arrived, I thought I’d play hockey here, too.

Hartley slid onto the ice beside me. “Come on, Callahan. Let’s move.”

I turned to look at him, but his smile did not reach all the way to his eyes. He waited, watching me while I wrestled with invisible demons. “Alright,” I said, finally. With one stick in each hand, I reached down, digging the ice picks into the surface. My sled shot forward about three feet. The blades under my backside must have been decently sharp.

“There you go,” he said. Hartley dug in too, and went shooting off toward the blue line. I watched him pick up speed. The ice looked enormous from where I sat. I dug in my sticks and pushed. He was right — it was possible to pick up velocity. But when I leaned my body to turn the sled, I quickly lost speed. A real skater tilts on a single blade edge to turn. The sled was less negotiable.

But still, it worked.

I took a few deep, steadying breaths of ice rink air. And then I turned around and skated towards Hartley.

“Getting a feel for it?” he asked, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a puck and tossed it onto the ice.

“It’s not very maneuverable,” I said. “How am I going to get past your fat ass if I can’t turn?” I shot forward and smacked the puck with the business end of one stick.

He grinned. “Actually, the blades can be set closer together. But you tip over a lot. It’s kind of like kayaking.”

I skidded to a stop. “Hartley, are you telling me you have this thing on the baby setting?”

He raised both his sticks defensively. “Simmer down. It was an oversight.” He hitched himself closer to me. “Bail out for a second.” I tipped myself onto my side, and he reached over to adjust the sled. “Try it now.”

I righted myself, and immediately fell onto my other side. “Wait…” I pressed up again and then began sticking like mad. I shot across the ice, leaned, and turned quickly in an arc. When I looked back at Hartley, he was kneeling on the ice, tweaking the blade under his own sled. I fetched the puck while he strapped himself back in. “Face off?”

“Bring it,” he said, steering himself toward the dot.

I tossed the puck up into the air, and it came down to his advantage. Hartley hooked it with his stick, keeping it out of my reach. But then he fumbled, trying to use the wrong end of the stick for propulsion. I shot ahead and took possession, stickhandling toward the net. The next thing I saw was Hartley’s sled skating past. He spun around, taking a defensive position. With a stick in each hand, his long arms covered quite a bit of the crease. I lined up a wide shot, watching Hartley stretch in preparation for meeting it. At the last second, I flipped my stick around and shot the puck backhand, into the narrow space between his sled and his stick. The puck sailed through into the net.

The look of surprise on his face was priceless. “You deked me?”

I began to giggle, and my sled tipped onto its side. Poised with my forearms on the ice, I shook with laughter. But the joy unhooked something else in my chest, and my eyes got suddenly hot. There were too many ghosts on the ice with me — sweaty little versions of my former self, darting around on sharpened skates, shooting to kill. My chest tightened, and my breath came in heaving sobs. And then tears began running down my face, falling onto the ice beneath me.

Seconds later, Hartley swept into place beside me. With gentle hands he pulled me up off the ice, leaning me against his body. There were sweet words spoken into my ear, but I couldn’t hear them. I was too busy shaking, and crying into the collar of his jacket. “Shh,” he said. “Shh.”

“It’s…” I tried. “I was…”

He only held me tighter. “This was a mistake,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “No, it’s good,” I bit out. “It is. But before…” I shuddered. “It’s so hard…to accept.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hartley said, his own voice breaking. “I’m so damned sorry.”

“I was perfect,” I said. “And I didn’t even know.”

“No,” he whispered into my ear. “No, no. Perfect isn’t real.” I took a deep, shaky breath, and the feel of his strong arms around me began to feel steadying. “There’s no more perfect, Callahan. Now there’s only really damned good.”