Chapter 31
thirty-one
Jeremy
Were you not good enough to go pro?”
I hold back my laugh as Hallie stares at Cam. Fucking kids, man. They have no filter.
“I didn’t want to.” Cam shrugs.
“Why? Isn’t that like the whole point?”
“I don’t think so. I love the sport. I love it a lot, and it’s a huge part of who I am, but I don’t think going pro was ever in the cards for me.”
“It was in the cards for Mr. Jeremy, but then he got paralyzed and lost it all.” Luca shrugs.
Cam’s eyes dart in my direction.
“Is it like this every day?” he whispers.
“Oh, this is nothing.” I clap my hands. “Alright, kiddos, we’ve been working weeks for this. You were broken off into teams after practice yesterday, and now we’re going to try and put some of these new skills to use.”
Damian raises his hand.
“What’s up, Damian?”
“Are we keeping score?”
“Not today. Cam is here today, which works out perfectly for us because he can give you all some great advice when it comes to being a goaltender. It’s a lot harder than some of you might realize.”
“They just sit in a net.” Hallie’s face scrunches. “How is that hard?”
“First, she says I’m not good enough to be pro, and now she’s saying I have an easy job?” Cam bends down next to me.
“Just shake it off, Campbell. They’re kids.”
“Well?”
“It’s not an easy position at all. It can be, if the rest of the team is unstoppable and doing their job without fail constantly, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim.
That’s why goalies are always on alert. They have faith in their team to keep the puck out of their zone, but every once in a while, a player and puck slip through the cracks.
Goalies have to be ready for the unknown. ”
“I think Mr. Cam is really cool.” Luis adjusts his jersey. “I want to be a goalie just like him.”
“Glad to hear it because you’re in the net, Luis.”
The kid will be one hell of a goalie if he keeps up with it. And I think having Cam here today will help him get there.
“Alright, boys and girls, my lovely Assistant Coach is going to put you in your positions, and then we will rotate on and off the ice. It won’t be like an actual game, though. Each team has three groups. Once a team scores, we rotate to the next group on both sides, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
The first group finds their spots on the ice.
It’s crazy to think we’re at this point. It wasn’t that long ago that some of these kids weren’t even sure how to put on their pads. Some of them couldn’t even skate, and now here they are, standing on the ice, looking as if they’d done this for years.
I nod at my Assistant Coach, and he blows a whistle, alerting the kids to the start of the first round. Cam and I study the players on the ice, my gaze darting around, while his mainly focuses on two distinct spots on the opposite ends of the ice.
“Holy shit,” he mumbles.
That’s when I realize his eyes are no longer on the goalies. They’re on number 20. They’re on Henry.
“Makes sense that the kid with Jeremy Moore’s hockey number has that much talent.”
“That’s Tristyn’s son.”
“I didn’t realize that much talent at his age was even possible.”
“He’s a natural.”
He makes it to the net and slaps the puck in. He turns around as he does, and even though he’s far, I can see the gleam in his eyes. Hell, I can read it on his body. If the equipment wasn’t weighing him down, he’d be jumping up and down, I just know it.
“Next group!” I yell as the first group skates off. “Nice work, friends, all of you.”
“Thank you.” All of their tiny voices say at the same time.
Henry pulls off his helmet as he looks at the next group, then his eyes meet mine, and I smile. He smiles too.
I know this feeling all too well. Even if it’s not an actual game, that’s his first real goal.
It’s something he’ll remember forever.
I know I will.
He’s asleep.”
“After the day he had, I imagine he was pretty tired.”
Tristyn curls in next to me on the couch.
“Quite the opposite, actually.” She pulls the blankets up and over her body. “He’s been buzzing since he told me about his goal. Today might’ve topped the hockey game as the best day of his life.”
“That’s fair. Your first goal is something you never forget.”
“When was yours?” Tristyn lays her head on my shoulder.
“I was a little bit older than Henry. My dad entered us in this father-son hockey tournament. I was just excited to do something special like that with him.” I gleam, thinking about the memory.
“And although it might not seem like it, I didn’t hit a growth spurt until I was like ten, so there were a ton of older kids who were just being assholes. ”
“Because of your height?”
“Yeah. And a lot of what they were saying was getting to me, but my dad pulled me aside, and we just had one of the best conversations I could’ve asked for.”
“And then you went and kicked those kids’ asses?”
“On the ice, yeah.” I chuckle. “I honestly think all of that doubt made the goal that much more special. It was a game-winner.”
“And you got to share it with him.”
“And I got to share it with him.”
“Your family sounds great, Jeremy.”
“Well, I can’t wait for you to meet them someday.”
“Me too.” She draws circles against my chest. “I want Henry to have a family like yours. It’s been just us for so long, I want him to have more than that.”
“Does his dad have any family?”
“It wouldn’t matter if his father was one of twenty kids; he wouldn’t get to see them anyway.
That relationship has always been a complicated one.
We were good, then we were worse than bad, and then we got back together for Henry’s sake, and then it just got bad.
Really bad, but he kept just pulling me in. ”
“Bad how?”
His weight shifts underneath me, his eyes finding mine.
“Honestly, I didn’t realize at the time how unhealthy the relationship was.
I think I wanted Henry to have this perfect family so bad that I didn’t realize he was a complete asshole.
The things he would say and how he’d talk about me just wasn’t okay.
It took me getting out completely to realize that. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just like you said about your accident, if I didn’t go down that path, if I never met him, not only would I not have Henry, but there’s a chance I never would’ve met you.”
“And that would’ve been a damn shame.”
“Yeah,” she whispers. “It would’ve been.”
“Mama?” Henry’s little voice echoes from the hall as he enters the living room. “I can’t sleep.”
Tristyn’s eyes brighten the second she sees Henry. She scoots over, creating a space between her and me, which Henry fills, and he lays his head against my chest. I throw my arm over his back, and Tristyn tucks him into the blankets.
Henry’s asleep within minutes.
I take this in. This moment is something I never would’ve imagined a year ago, hell, six months ago. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
This is where I’m supposed to be.
I’m starting to understand that now.