Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
She spent her younger years playing hockey, stopping when she turned thirteen and decided she hated it. But Zack still made her come to the rink every single Saturday and Sunday and help the younger kids learn how to skate. She grabs a hockey stick off the side of the wall, making sure she likes it, turning it to the side, and then skates out onto the ice. She goes in a circle before skating to the puck and moving her stick side to side.
People start to trickle on the ice as I grab my own stick and skate onto the ice. I’m gliding on when the puck hits my skate. “Oops.” I look over to see her.
“What is your problem?” I ask her and she shrugs and looks at me.
“Me?” She points to herself as she skates around me and then backward. “I don’t have a problem. What’s your problem?”
“My problem,” I start, skating away from her, also backward, “she’s about this high”—I motion with my hand to her exact height—“has blondish hair and green eyes.” She tries not to smile.
She stops skating and I stop in front of her. “My eyes are blue green.”
I look down at her. “I know exactly what color your eyes are, Elizabeth,” I assure, and it’s like it’s just the two of us on the ice and not the twenty or so who have now started skating around us. “When you are really happy, they turn like a light green.” She doesn’t say a word. “When you get angry, they are more blue than green. When you are mischievous, the bottom of your eyes are a light blue and the top of your eyes are almost a golden. When you are really fucking happy about something, they’re a darkish blue in the middle and then they get a greenish, almost gray around that. But what I love the most, is the dark blue that is on the inside is also on the outside ring. It’s fascinating and also the color I always try and make sure you have.”
I can see her chest rising and falling, but before she can say anything, the sound of a whistle blows and the two of us look over to the side. “Okay, we’re going to do a couple of pickup games,” Zack says, skating onto the ice. “The teams are posted.”
We play hockey for two hours, and by the end of it, I need a shower so bad. “You stink,” Elizabeth declares from beside me.
“Why do you automatically assume it’s me?” I ask her as I untie my skate. “It could be you.” I pull off my skate and she doesn’t say another word to me as we get dressed and then get in the truck to head home.
They are having a pizza party at Zack and Denise’s house in two hours. When we pull up to the house, I get out and grab my bag before walking up the steps to her waiting at the door. “If you would give me the code, I could have been inside and put Whiskey out already.”
I put the code in, and she walks in after me. “I got the dog,” I tell her, dumping my bag and kicking off my boots before heading to the back of the house and letting Whiskey out.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she yells toward the kitchen, and five minutes after letting Whiskey back in, I’m also stepping into the shower.
I get out, grabbing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt before going downstairs. I don’t expect to find her sitting on one of the stools drinking a beer, her hair piled up on top of her head. She’s wearing a black shirt that goes off her shoulder, and it looks like it goes down to her mid-thigh, her legs are bare and one is crossed over the other. “I’m not going for pizza,” she declares and I walk over to the fridge and grab my own bottle of beer. “I already called my mother and told her you were icing your pride because you lost the hockey game.”
“It’s a team sport, I didn’t lose the game, the team lost.”
“You know what I heard from that sentence?” she asks me, and puts down the beer. “You lost and I didn’t, that is the only thing I heard.”
I lean against the counter in front of her, twisting the cap open, tossing it on the counter beside me. “Why did you leave?” The second the words are out of my mouth, her eyes fly up to mine.
“What are you talking about?” she asks me, her hands wrapping around her beer.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Elizabeth. Why did you fucking leave?” I knew we would be having this conversation, I just didn’t know it would be happening now. Even though, after all the years I’ve had to think about how I would have this conversation, it never started out like it just did.