Derek moved down the driveway, barely able to stay up on his skates. Not only couldn’t he skate, but he got tangled up with his stick. A few times he nearly fell, and when he finally did shoot, it went wide and Chelsea had to run after it.
“You’re watching the puck,” Mark told him. “Keep your head up and your eyes where you want the puck to go.” He tried again, and once again he barely stayed on his skates and Chelsea had to run after the puck. After the fourth straight time, she was getting a little irritated.
“I’m tired of running after your pucks,” she complained as she brought the puck to the middle of the driveway.
“Derek, what is the first rule of hockey?”
“No whining, Coach.”
Chelsea frowned and looked from Derek’s flushed face to Mark. “Is that in the official rule book?”
“Yes. Along with the importance of trash talk.” Keeping his right leg straight, Mark bent down and picked up the puck. “So let’s hear some chatter,” he said as he handed it to the kid.
“Okay, Coach.” This time as Derek skated toward her, he said, “Your hair is stupid and you have a stink eye.” He shot, and the puck hit Chelsea’s stick and bounced off.
“I have a what?”
“Stink eye.”
She raised a hand to the lenses of her glasses. “I do?”
Derek laughed and Mark shook his head. “No. Trash talk doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be distracting.” He picked up the puck and tossed it to Derek. “That was a good one. You do better when you’re not trying so hard.”
This time when he skated toward Chelsea, she was ready for him with something she figured was age-and Derek-appropriate. “You’re so skinny, you can hula hoop with a Cheerio,” she said, thinking she was pretty clever.
Derek shot. It went a little wide but she was able to stop it without have to run too far. He shook his head. “That was stupid.”
This from the kid who said she had a stink eye? She looked at Mark and he shrugged. “Maybe you should work on your trash talk.”
She wasn’t the only one. Other than stink eye, Derek didn’t have any other insults in his repertoire, and after he’d called her that three more times, she was ready to whack him with her stick. So when he got tangled up in his skates and fell, she wasn’t exactly feeling bad for him.
“Ouch.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked as he walked toward the kid.
“The stick hit my nuts.”
“Ohh.” Mark sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That sucks. Ringing the berries is the worst thing about hockey.”
The boy didn’t look too hurt. He wasn’t writhing in pain or anything, and Chelsea could think of a few things worse than berry-ringing pain. Like the puck hitting your face and getting your teeth knocked out.
“It really hurts.”
“I thought there was no whining in hockey,” she reminded them.
Mark scowled as if she’d said something really insensitive. “You can whine about a smashed nut.”
“Is that an actual clause in the rule book?”
“If it isn’t, it should be. Ev k sheryone knows that.” He got down on one knee beside the kid. “Are you going to be okay?”
Derek nodded. “I think so.” He sat up, and Chelsea was pretty sure if she hadn’t been standing there, the kid would have cupped himself.
“Then let’s call it a day,” Mark suggested, and helped Derek stand up.
Chelsea was certainly ready to quit. She walked back to where she’d left her shoes and dusted off the bottoms of her feet. She leaned on the stick as she slipped her feet inside her pumps.
Derek changed out of his skates and shoved them into his backpack. He handed Mark his stick and carefully climbed onto his bike. “Are you going to be okay to ride home? Do you need a ride?” Mark asked, and Derek shook his head.
“I’m all right, Coach.”
She guessed it was okay to make him ride his bike if he was exhausted. Just not with a “smashed nut.”
As Derek rode away, Mark moved toward the garage doors. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” he asked her.
“Answering your fan e-mails.” She followed him, letting her gaze travel from the back of his hat, down his neck and wide shoulders, to his tapered waist and hard butt. The man made everything look good. “Why?”
“Some of the guys are coming over to play poker tomorrow night. I thought if I wrote you out a list, you could go to the store and pick up some beer and snacks.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.” He took her stick and placed it on a shelf in front of a big gym bag. “I’ll give you some cash.” He pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it. “Well, that sucks. I only have a five,” he said, and returned his wallet. “I guess that means we both go.”
She lifted a brow. “You shop? For your own groceries? Aren’t you too big a star?”
“You have me confused with one of your celebrities.” He moved to the back door and reached inside the house. He came back with a set of keys and tossed them to her. “There’s a Whole Foods down the street.”
“Are you going to backseat drive?”
“No.”
She stood her ground and refused to get into the car. “Promise?”
He raised his right hand and looked like he was flipping her off more than swearing an oath. “Not even if you sideswipe a tree and kill me.”
“Don’t tempt me.” She opened the door and slid inside. The seat was so far back, she couldn’t reach the steering wheel, let alone the pedals. “Have you been driving?”
“No.” He looked away and shut his door. “I was looking for something the other day.”
“What?”
“Something.”
He didn’t want to tell her, fine. As long as he didn’t turn into the b kurnackseat driver from hell, he could keep his secret. And surprisingly, he was true to his word. He didn’t complain at all about her driving. Not even when she tested him by coming to a rolling stop at a stop sign.
Whole Foods was one of those stores that took great pride in selling natural and organic foods to people who could afford it. The kind of place that had a killer deli and a kick-butt bakery. The kind that Chelsea generally avoided if she was shopping on her own dime.
She grabbed a cart and they hit the beer aisle first. Mark loaded up on local brew. Everything from Red Hook and Pyramid to beers she’d never heard of. He grabbed bags of blue chips and organic salsa. He bought crackers and three kinds of cheese. Prosciutto and thinly sliced salami.
“Do you know how to make nachos?” he asked as they headed toward the milk case.
“No.” There were certain boundaries she didn’t cross with employers. Slaving away in their kitchens was one of them.
“It can’t be that hard.”
“Then you do it.”
“I tried it once.” He shoved a quart of sour cream and a gallon of milk into the cart. “And I burned my hand and couldn’t wear my glove for a week.”
“Poor baby.”
“You can say that again. That burn was pretty much the reason I didn’t win the Art Ross Trophy in 2007.”
“The what trophy?”
“Art Ross. It’s the trophy given to a player who has the most points at the end of the regular season. Sidney Crosby won it that year. Beat me by five points, all on account of nachos.”
She chuckled. “Is that even true?”
