A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 13

thirteen

KATIE

Since Katie, Connor, Connor’s teammates, and Emmalee were able to get so many of the wedding floral arrangements done yesterday and after she got back last night, Emmalee was confident that she could get everything set up at the wedding today without Katie.

Which was good, because editing videos was a very time-consuming process, and Katie had so much work to do. She really needed to spend every second of the day doing it.

She was glad that it was work she enjoyed doing. She might even like the editing more than she enjoyed shooting the videos themselves. She got to see everything again when the emotions of the event weren’t currently happening and gauge whether she was able to capture that same emotion in the video.

And if it wasn’t quite there, by cutting out parts and placing other parts next to each other, she was able to pull that emotion through. Especially when she added just the right music. Editing was the part of the process when she could look at it most objectively.

What made it hard to be objective? When you kissed your subject the night before editing all of the video footage he was in. Especially when it was a kiss that took the bar she had set, flung it clear up into the clouds, and stayed there. She had never experienced anything like it and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

Was it because Connor was just so much better at kissing than any other guy she’d dated? Or was it because he, as a person, was so much better? Because she had fallen for him so much more? Because he was exactly what she’d been waiting for all along?

Whatever it was, it meant that, as she edited, her eyes were drawn more to things like his lips. To how she could pause it at any moment and study the exact expression on his face, guessing just how he was feeling in the moment. She was working at her desk today, where she could connect her laptop to a much bigger monitor to have more space to move things as she edited. So she got to see him in crystal-clear, ultra-high-definition resolution on an expansive screen.

She’d bought the monitor earlier in the year to increase her productivity, but she couldn’t exactly say it was helping her today. But stopping to smell the roses was an important thing to do, right? A healthy thing. That was basically what she was doing.

Her phone lit up with a picture of Connor’s face that she’d taken just a couple of days ago, and it made her heart leap and get all giddy just at seeing it. She swiped to answer the call and put it on speakerphone so she could still work while they talked.

“Well, hello there. What are you up to?”

“Oh, just looking at the video of you smiling at the camera on repeat. You?”

He chuckled, and the sound made her smile ridiculously big.

“I am getting my suit on…” there was a slight pause before he continued, “because I need to be down at the team bus in about fifteen minutes to head over to the arena.” A few of his words had sounded a little muffled and she was pretty sure it was because he had just taken off his t-shirt. And now she was imagining what that big, strong, athletic body of his looked like without a shirt.

To stop herself from letting those thoughts continue and distract her even more, she asked, “Are you required to always wear a suit to the arena?”

He had an away game today— against his old team, actually— so she’d spent the morning thinking about him as he was getting on the team bus to head to the airport. As the plane was in the sky. As he was landing and heading to the arena for a practice skate. The fact that he’d texted her several times during the day made it that much easier.

“Yep. On home game days, we wear a suit to the arena. When we get there, we change into our practice gear to skate. Then we change into workout clothes, exercise, shower, and change back into a suit. Then we leave and go get lunch or go home for a pre-game power nap and change out of the suit. Then we change back into the suit, go to the arena, change into our uniform, play, shower, change back into the suit, have media interviews, head home, and then change out of the suit again. At away games, it’s not too different.”

Katie couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow, you’re a pro hockey player and a pro clothing changer. I’m pretty sure that makes you a part-time fashion model.”

Connor’s laughter echoed through the phone. “Well, I do like to think I look pretty good strutting down the runway, also known as the arena corridor. But it does feel like we waste a lot of time just putting things on and taking them off. I’m still waiting for quick-change Velcro suits to be invented.”

“Now that would be a fashion statement. They might ask you guys to make a calendar of you in your suits instead of in your team uniform.”

“You do photography as well as videography, right? Maybe we could hire you to make us look good.”

She gazed at his face in the video that was paused on her big screen. “Oh, believe me— you don’t need my help to look good.”

“I think I need to call you before every game to pump me up. You’re quite good at it.”

Katie grinned.

“We had a bit of a break before the game, and I got to see my mom, stepdad, and sister. They met me at the hotel we’re staying at.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic!”

“Not the same as seeing them at Christmas, but still pretty great.”

“Did your mom have a hard time saying goodbye?” She had heard Connor talk about his mom enough to know that she probably did.

“Yep. Since this was our last game before the break, she really wanted me to stay for Christmas instead of flying back with the team. She gets that the storm coming in will cause delays in Denver for days and would compromise my ability to get back for our home game on the twenty-seventh. And that I’m expected to make travel decisions that align with my professional commitments, but that doesn’t make it easy.”

“Well, it’s Christmas, and you’re her son. She has the right to be sad that you won’t be there, even if she does support the reason why.”

“She says she thinks she’ll love you. If she just heard you say that, she’d be convinced of it.”

Katie was grinning, just knowing that he told his family about her. Knowing that his mom liked her without even meeting her was icing on the cake.

“Are you going to watch my game?”

“I will be editing, but you better believe I’ll have it playing beside me as I work.”

“Then I’ll give a little wave to you at faceoff.”

“I’ll be watching for it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yep, tomorrow,” she said, and they told each other goodbye. When she first found out that her dad had asked the guy who had spilled punch all over her dress at her first high school dance to spend his three-day Christmas break at their home, she hadn’t been happy. Now, though, she was very grateful that her dad had that kind of foresight. She chuckled. He would probably say it was “a Christmas miracle!”

Things were going so well with Connor. So well, in fact, that doubts had started creeping in. Could something this good last? Since her dad not only knew way more about hockey than she did but also worked for the Glaciers and therefore often had inside information, she called him this morning. She had never been too interested in hockey, but since she’d grown up in her family, she’d heard a lot of things even if she hadn’t been trying to.

So she knew that there was a trade deadline. Google told her that it was just before the playoffs and that a lot of teams traded players then. That was just a couple of months away. She had already fallen so deeply for this man and knew that with him, she had the potential to fall so much further than she’d ever fallen. She needed to know how much she should worry about him being traded away.

Her dad had confirmed that players were often traded at the deadline. “But sweetheart,” he’d said, “they really wanted Connor and worked hard to get him. They aren’t going to trade him away anytime soon.” It had been a huge relief.

She got to the part of the footage where she’d had the camera on Connor while he and his teammates were arranging the centerpieces, and he’d looked straight at the camera.

At the time she’d shot the footage, she’d known it was something special. The expression of joy mixed with contentment on his face. The amusement in his eyes. The way one eyebrow raised just slightly. The smile quirked up more on one side. What that smile did to the little crease at the side of his lips. The unblemished amaryllis that he held out to the camera. The lighting had been perfect. The chill in the room had given his cheeks and nose a color reminiscent of his look while skating on the ice.

She paused the video and just took in his face. It was unmoving, yet still conveyed so much emotion. But it wasn’t just that his emotions were recognizable on him— it was that his emotions could be felt, experienced, just by looking at him. It was mesmerizing. The longer she looked, the more depth of emotion came through. The more she felt everything.

She wanted to take the still frame image and blow it up large enough to cover an entire wall in her room. She wanted to wake up every morning to that face. To experience that sense of wonder and happiness that he exuded. To look into those beautiful eyes and feel that same bliss, comfort, and contentment.

It wasn’t exactly the footage that the Glaciers had been asking for, but she was going to send it to them, and she hoped that they would show it. If they wanted fans to fall in love with their new player, this was going to do it. Yes, Connor was good-looking, and this was a shot that captured that, but they were going to fall in love because of what it made them feel. This image and this seven seconds of footage had the potential to go viral. If it did, it wouldn’t just be Glaciers fans who would fall in love with him— the whole country would.

When she finished all of her edits of Connor and his teammates working with the flowers in her apartment, she had taken her thirty-two minutes of footage and gotten it down to three files to send to the Glaciers. A ninety-second version that included all five players, a two-minute version of just Connor, and the seven-second clip of him holding out the flower. All three videos captured the mood in the room as the big athletes tackled a delicate project that wasn’t so common for them to tackle, experiencing joy and a sense of fulfillment doing it that maybe they hadn’t expected to experience. It made them relatable. It showed their vulnerability. It captured their humanness.

It was, quite possibly, her best work.

She sent it off to the Glaciers, her chest buzzing with the thrill she always got when she created something, multiplied so many times by what it was that she created. That Connor was the focus of her creation.

She took a moment to stand and stretch, and then she got started on the hay ride footage. Once she finished that, she needed to edit her own family’s video with the activities they’d done this season and the interviews with her family members— the one they’d watch tomorrow, on Christmas Eve. She’d have to work quickly to finish all of it in time and still go to bed at a decent hour.

And she had a hockey game to watch.