“Why? You didn’t even have half a Pepsi.”
“You don’t get it.” Jonah leans in and gives me a short hug because his mother is watching. “But that’s okay.”
Jonah waits until I’m inside with the door locked before he leaves my doorstep. I wave out the window to them. Mrs. Choi beeps back.
I’ll let the Chois in tomorrow. You sleep in. I attach the note to Mom’s keys.
Sleep. Right. I spend most of the night replaying our performance on the couch. I give it a perfect score. Then I finally get it. We don’t do anything at 50 percent. It’s all or nothing.
I’m in deep trouble.
Chapter 13
I skid into Ice Dreams at 9:00 a.m. on the dot Sunday morning. The BMW is already waiting for me. Jonah’s at the door before I can even dig my rink keys out of my backpack.
“You didn’t sleep much last night,” Jonah says more as a statement than a question. “You’ve got dark circles under your beautiful eyes.”
“You do too.”
“It was worth it.” Jonah holds the door open for me after I unlock it. “Even if I’m going to pay for it today.”
I bring my fingertips to my lips and slap a kiss on Mom and Dad’s poster as I pass in front of them. As I slide my Ice Dreams jacket off its peg, I watch Jonah walk straight for the locker rooms, his skate bag slung across the body with only 12 percent body fat. The body that was pressed up against mine less than twelve hours ago. The body that ignites mine just looking at it. He glances over his shoulder and gives me a knowing smile. I hang my jacket back up. I definitely don’t need it right now.
I clean skate boots while Jonah does his warm-up. I would do homework, but I don’t have enough brain cells firing to even hold a pencil in a believable way.
“Okay, that’s twenty-five. Come take a break,” Mr. Choi yells across the ice.
Jonah skates over to his dad and talks to him. Finally, Jonah nods and comes off the ice. I put the skate I’ve probably cleaned four times now back on the shelf and decide to take a break too. After Mr. Choi goes into the locker room, I intersect Jonah at Table #1. He slides off his gloves and pulls a box out of his soft-sided cooler. He pushes it to my side of the table.
“No offense, but I can’t do hard-boiled eggs this morning,” I say.
“Open it.”
When I pop open the lid, a cinnamon-brown-sugary smell wafts out. To my horror, my stomach roars.
“Mom was in such a good mood this morning that she got up extra early to make hotteok before my practice, just like Halmeoni used to. I even ate one. Two, actually. She made these for you.”
I try to eat one politely and delicately, but I’m starving, and these sweet pancakes are freakin’ awesome.
“Oh! These are even better than the ones Brandon made. In fact, if your mom wants to make this a weekly habit, I would be totally on board with that.” I snarf down another one.
Jonah looks over his shoulder and then leans across the table to kiss me.
“Good morning,” I say when he breaks away.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Come with me. Right now.”
“What? Where?”
I grab Jonah’s hand, and he stumbles after me in blade-guarded skates to the supply closet. As soon as the door is closed, I launch myself at him, our lips connecting like I’ve wanted them to all morning. As our kiss deepens, Jonah reaches down and pulls me up against him until I’m standing on the tops of his skates. He tilts his upper body back against the door for stability and pulls me in even closer. Cool fingertips glide underneath the back of my T-shirt and up my spine, adding fuel to the fire already burning in my belly. I pull the zipper of Jonah’s skinsuit down to mid-chest, and a wave of heat rolls off the bare skin underneath. Jonah’s breath hitches when I slide my cold hand underneath the fabric.
“Jonah? Son?” Mr. Choi passes by on the other side of the door.
Crap.
I don’t open the door until I hear Mr. Choi’s feet on the linoleum of the snack bar. I take a deep breath and walk out of the supply closet like the hormonal inferno with his son never happened. I hope my performance is convincing.
“Thanks, Jonah. I didn’t want to drop that box of … uh … cleaning solution on my head while trying to get it down. Glad to have such a tall guy around to help me out.” I hope Mr. Choi can’t see the stepstool sitting inside the doorframe like I can.
After a few beats, Jonah comes out of the closet, a case of toilet paper in front of him and his skinsuit zipped back up. He waddles over to Table #1 with it, tosses it on the table, and immediately sits down. He grabs his water bottle out of the cooler and chugs.
“Couldn’t that have waited until after practice?” Mr. Choi says.
“Nope. She needed me right now,” Jonah says.
“True.” I give Jonah a look that makes him grab his bottle of water and chug some more.
“Five hundred in 44.7 or less, five times.” Mr. Choi sits down at Table #1 with us. “We need to go for consistency. That’s what the scout said.”
“I can do it.” Jonah jumps to his feet.
“Son, please,” Mr. Choi says. “We’re not in that big of a hurry.”
Jonah leaves his skate guards on the wall and takes off for the center of the ice. “I am.”
Jonah is at the starting cone before his dad even has a chance to dig the stopwatch out of his bag.
“Who knew?” Mr. Choi says with a chuckle.
“Who knew what?” I say.
“That you were the secret weapon.”
“Excuse me?”
“We agreed earlier that if Jonah can do five hundred meters in 44.7 seconds or less five times in a row, then he gets to spend the rest of today’s practice ‘training’ with you. I’m not sure what that entails, but if it motivates him to skate cleaner, good enough.”
Mr. Choi’s comment cuts me. I’m not some empty-headed, talentless fangirl distracting his son. I can’t wait for Jonah to finish so I can show Mr. Choi who I am and what I do.
The rest of the morning flies by, but Jonah doesn’t make his goal. He can’t get past #4 no matter how hard I pray. I look at the clock. It’s 10:45 a.m. Ernie usually Zambonis the ice at 11:00 a.m. And Mack is always early for her shift. The open skating session starts at noon. I look back at the ice where Jonah is crouched down again. I can tell he’s tired. My heart sinks. We aren’t going to get to skate together. Again. The air horn goes off, and I jump.
“C’mon, son, pick it up. You can do it,” Mr. Choi yells from the wall. “Little faster. This is #5.”
“Go, Jonah! You can do it!” I know Mom told me not to interfere with Jonah’s training, but I can’t help it. This is as much for me as it is for him.
Jonah flies down the back straightaway like he’s on fire. He comes around the second turn, his fingertips dropping to the ice. The same fingertips that traced lines of fire up and down my back when we were in the supply closet.
“Please make it. Please make it,” I chant under my breath.
Disaster strikes. Jonah’s inner foot slips, and he hits the ice hard. He slides out of control across the ice and crashes into the padding. The thud echoes around the silent rink. I drop the skate I was cleaning and rush to the side of the boards nearest where I think Jonah collided.