Pucked Over (Pucked 3)

“Do you want to know what I think you should do?” Sunny asks as she lifts her legs straight up in the air and lets them fall toward her head. Her toes hit the mattress behind her, and her legs are still straight. She’s more flexible than I am, and that’s saying something, because I’m damn flexible. I can practically fold myself in half backwards.

“Take up yoga so I can have super-bendy sex like you and Miller?”

“That’s one thing you should do. Except you can’t have sex with Miller, or me. You can have sex with Randy, though.” She’s definitely drunk.

I smack her ass.

“Ow!” She flips out of her pose and rolls on her side. “I think you should move to Chicago with me.”

“We’ve already talked about this. I don’t have a job there.”

“But it would be so easy for you to get one. Alex says it won’t be a problem to find you a spot as a skating coach, and the money would be way better than here. Plus you get paid in US dollars, not Canadian ones, so if you decided to move back here, your savings would be worth more.”

“I like my job here.” Though I don’t love it like I used to. Lately I like it less and less.

Sunny takes a lock of hair and rubs the end of it over her lips. It’s something she’s always done when she’s thinking, or nervous. She did it a lot at the beginning of her relationship with Miller. I still feel bad about the way I judged him before I knew him. He really is so, so good to her.

“I’m going to say something, and I don’t want you to get mad at me for it, okay?”

I laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you love working with those girls, but Lily, I don’t know if it’s the best thing for you. Sometimes I think it makes you as sad as it does happy. It’s such a reminder of what you missed out on.”

She’s right. Teaching skating in the same arena where I used to prepare for competitions hurts sometimes. Maybe it’s because I get further and further away from my dream while these girls get closer. “It’s a big decision.”

“I know, but sometimes change is good. I love your mom, and she loves you—despite the things she said—but it’s kinda like me and my mom, you know?”

I nod. I do know. Daisy is loads of fun to be around, but she’s got archaic ideas about how relationships work. It never occurred to her that Sunny would want a career and all the other things women in the twenty-first century strive for.

“At the very least, you should take some time off work and come with me to Chicago over the holidays. See if you like it.”

“I can’t do that.” It’s an automatic response.

“Why not? You’re allowed to take a holiday, Lily, and frankly, you need one. You’ve been working two jobs for the past three years, and until April you were in school full-time as well. You need a break. Miller’s off from the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth. Your girls have a break from skating then anyway, right?”

There’s always a two-week break between sessions this time of year. “Yeah. I still have the coffee shop, though.”

“There’s no reason for them not to give you time off, and if they won’t, you should quit. You shouldn’t be killing yourself over the measly twelve dollars an hour they’re paying you.”

She’s right. Again. It’s just that I’ve worked there for a long time, and it’s familiar. But I guess that’s the crux of the problem. It’s how I’ve always done things. I stayed with Benji because he was familiar and I knew what to expect, even if it wasn’t good. I keep living in the apartment with my mom partly because I feel like she needs the help financially, and maybe emotionally, but also because it’s what I’m used to, and the same with working at the arena and the coffee shop.

I’m boring and predictable. Except where Randy’s concerned. With him I do things I never thought I would in a million years. Like let him eat me out against a wall in a public bathroom—with a locked door, but still. Or take Uber all the way to a hotel in Toronto so we could get our freak on for a few hours.

“Plus Randy’ll be around.”

“He rode all the way to Guelph with me this morning.”

“What? But didn’t they fly out today?”

“It was early. He wanted to come for the ride, and then he went back to the hotel.”

“No way! He is so into you.” Sunny sits up and spills her wine all over herself and the comforter.

“He’s so into sex with me, you mean.” I won’t admit out loud that I’m digging him more than I should. Especially if I’m considering moving to Chicago.