Cement Heart(15)

“I’m so sorry.” She looked down at her lap again.

“Hey,”—I tucked my finger under her chin and lifted her face—“why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know. It’s just— We—”

“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Don’t say you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. Darla, we’ve never put labels on whatever this has been between us, and that’s one of the reasons it’s worked so well for us. We live our lives and whatever happens, happens. Something is happening for you. Don’t you dare apologize for that.”

A pathetic, depressing smile spread across her lips. “You’ve just always been so good to me.”

“And that’s not going to change if you start seeing someone. You’ll always be one of my best friends.”

“It’s probably nothing anyway. We just went for coffee after work yesterday, but it was… different. Weird. Good weird.” She shook her head. “I’m probably overreacting. He’s going to decide he doesn’t like me, and here I am making an ass out of myself over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, D. You’re making an ass out of yourself for a chance at everything, and it’s adorable. You need to go for it. You need to see what this is.” I squeezed her hand. “But just know, if he hurts you, I’ll break both his fucking legs.”





FRIDAY MORNING CAME, and in spite of my talk the night before with Darla, I was pumped. Beyond pumped. I took a picture of my breakfast—oatmeal, a banana, and a Red Bull—and sent it to Big Mike to taunt him, along with a text that said:



Ready to get your ass kicked?



A few minutes later, he responded.



M: Ready to wear a tutu?



I laughed as I tucked my phone into my backpack, strapped it to my motorcycle, and took off.



Arriving at the arena after a nice therapeutic ride on my bike with my iPod blaring AC/DC in my ears, I was more pumped than when I’d left the house.

I pulled into the parking lot and parked in my usual spot in the far corner of the fenced-in lot.

“Uh-oh.” Brody chuckled and slammed the door to his pickup truck as I walked toward the building. “He rode his motorcycle, Mike. That means he’s feeling extra cocky.”

Mike got out of the passenger side of Brody’s truck and lifted his bag out of the bed. “That’s okay. I had Wheaties this morning, so I am too.”

I ignored his Wheaties comment. “Awww, you two drove together today. Aren’t you cute?”

“My car is in the shop, but don’t worry—” He walked over to me and wrapped his giant gorilla arms around my shoulders, squeezing me so hard I thought my head was gonna pop off. “—you’re still my favorite.”

“Weirdos.” Brody shook his head as he walked past us.

“I told you our bromance was real,” I shouted after him. “Next up: Brokeback Mountain, the hockey edition.”



Once inside, it was time to get to work. We all knew that Coach Collins would kick our asses for dicking around on the ice if we didn’t do what we needed to do in the weight room first, so we all went in there to knock that out together.

“I fucking hate leg day,” I growled as I lifted 400 pounds off the squat rack and puffed my cheeks out, watching my form carefully in the mirror.

Down, up.

Down, up.

Down, up.

“I gotta go see the trainer about a weird pain I’m having in my calf,” Big Mike said as he bent over and rubbed the back of his leg. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

I put the squat bar back on the rack and glared at him in the mirror. “Go get that shit taken care of. No backing out.”

“Ha!” he bellowed loudly. “Back out? No way. I’ll see ya in a bit.”

I nodded in response and looked around for Brody, but he was off doing incline presses on his own, so I threw my earbuds in, turned on Korn, and focused on my reps for the next two hours.



“Holy shit. I can’t move.” I was lying on the floor in the corner of the weight room stretching when Brody appeared above me. He slowly sat down next to me, grunting and groaning the whole way down.

“I can move… my arms.” I sighed, suddenly regretting doing all those extra sets of calf raises. My entire lower half was tight and achy. What a long fucking afternoon it was going to be. “Big Mike back yet?”

“Hell yeah.” Brody laughed. “He’s been out on the ice for half an hour already. He’s pumped.”

“Sweet.” Knowing that Mike was out on the ice already, clearly trying to get a head start on what would surely be the ass-kicking of a lifetime had adrenaline flooding my body and speeding through my veins. “Let’s go.” I ignored my sore legs and jumped up, heading for the locker room to change.