Chapter 6
CARTER
A week after my conversation with Miles, the Jaguars host their annual community food drive.
It’s a whole big thing, held in the parking lot at the arena, and as players, we’re all expected to make an appearance.
The signing table and photo station are mandatory for all of us, slotting us into a specific schedule so fans know when to show up to see their favorite players.
Otherwise, we got to sign up for how we wanted to help.
Miles is manning a booth where kids can trade canned goods for a chance to take a shot at our mascot.
Fly and Jordo are set up at a table where people can play “Pin the jersey number on the player,” and Theo, Holly, and I are in an equipment sizing tent, helping youth players decide on the right stick length or helmet size.
There are mountains of donated gear behind us, and if families bring in the requested pantry items for the premade meal kits being assembled in the neighboring tent, they’re free to take home whatever gear we have that meets their needs.
I like the equipment tent. It’s a lot better than where I ended up at last year’s event—running a spin-the-wheel-for-a-prize station.
More than a few fans got a little too close for comfort.
But in here, our purposes are a little more specific, so it doesn’t feel like we’re dealing with the masses in quite the same way.
The downside—or maybe it’s an upside?—is that we’re right next door to the tent where the WAGs are working with volunteers to assemble prepackaged meal kits.
The wives and girlfriends—and Sarah.
I find myself looking that way every time I have the chance. Sarah’s wearing a dark pink beanie, so it’s easy to spot her.
“What about this one?” The ten-year-old kid I’m trying to help, Jamison, holds up a hockey stick that’s much too tall for him.
I force myself to focus and keep my eyes off the neighboring tent. “Maybe something a little more your size,” I say. I swap the stick for a smaller one and hand it over.
“Shouldn’t I have my skates on?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“Not for this. Just hold it right in front of you—good, just like that. You want the top of the stick to hit you here, somewhere in between your chin and your nose. Have you ever played before?”
He shakes his head no.
“Got it. Then I think this one is a good height for you. It’s a little short, but that’ll give you more control, which you’ll need at first.” I reach for the stick and turn it upside down, placing the knob at the top of the handle on the ground so the blade is in the air.
“Okay, now I want you to take this and lean onto it a little.”
“Like this?” Jamison asks.
“Yep. You’ve got it. Do you feel that flex? How the stick gives just the slightest bit? That’s what you want.”
Jamison’s dad is standing off to the side, but he has his phone out, and it looks like he’s taking notes. I look up and meet his eyes. “I think this one is a great fit for him. Do you have any questions?”
“I wrote down every word you said, so I think we’re good,” he says. “Hopefully, as he grows, I’ll be able to help him pick out the next one.”
On the other side of the tent, Holly fist bumps Jamison’s sister, who’s wearing a new set of goalie pads. “Thanks, Mr. Hollifield,” she says.
“No, problem,” Holly says. “You stay tough out there, all right?”
“I’m more than tough,” she says. “I’m a brick wall.”
Holly smiles and laughs, a sight I haven’t seen in a long time.
It was the beginning of last season when his wife’s cancer diagnosis turned terminal. He was out for almost five months, at first, just so he could be with her, and then, after she died, because he was in no mental state to play a hockey game.
He came back just in time to take us to the playoffs and get us all the way to the final game. But I rarely saw him smile, even when we were winning.
He was there because he had a job to do, but it didn’t seem like he was taking much pleasure in it.
Theo steps up beside me as we say goodbye to Jamison’s family. “It’s nice to see him smiling,” Theo says once we’re on our own. He tilts his head toward Holly.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
Holly must sense us staring, because he looks up, his eyes widening once he sees us. “What?” he says as he walks toward us. “Why are you staring at me?”
“No reason,” Theo says. “Just talking about how ugly you are.”
“So ugly,” I agree. We only say this kind of stuff about Holly because the internet has very loudly branded him the best-looking guy on our team. We take our responsibility to keep him humble very seriously.
“Cool,” Holly says. “For our next topic, can we discuss who Carter’s been staring at all day?” He tilts his head toward the tent next door.
My face flushes with heat. I haven’t been staring. At least not obviously.
Or so I thought.
Beside me, Theo starts to chuckle. “He’s staring at Brick’s sister.”
Holly’s eyebrows lift. “For real?”
“I’m not staring,” I say. “And it doesn’t matter.”
“You want to know what Brick asked him?” Theo says, stepping a little closer.
I shoot him a look. “Dude. I doubt he wants everyone knowing about that.”
“I’m not telling everyone. I’m telling Holly,” Theo says. “It’s Holly. We tell him everything.”
“Well, now you have to tell me,” Holly says.
I glance over my shoulder toward the volunteers at the front of our tent.
The event is almost over, and there’s nobody else waiting to see us, which means there’s no one who could overhear.
But I still drag them both to the very back of the tent, stepping outside to make sure there’s no one anywhere outside it.
Once I’m sure we’re completely alone, I fold my arms over my chest and give Holly a shortened version of Sarah’s circumstances and how Miles wanted to fix them.
“Are you going to do it?” Holly asks when I finally finish. His words are measured, like he’s trying hard not to seem like he has an opinion on the matter. It makes me nervous. Outside of my brother, he’s my closest friend on the team, and I care about what he thinks.
“Of course not,” I say. “I already told him no.”
“But you’ve still been staring at her all day,” Theo says. “So…are you sure you’re telling him no?”
“I was not staring at her.”
“You really were staring at her,” Holly says. “I saw you looking that direction at least a dozen times.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” I say. “He’s probably already asked someone else. Or maybe he realized it was a dumb idea and decided to let the whole thing go.”
Holly clears his throat. “Either way, she’s on her way over here right now, and I’m guessing she wants to talk to you.”
I spin around and spot Sarah walking toward us, carrying a small square box. We make eye contact, and she lifts her hand in a wave.
“Hey, can you guys take one more?” a volunteer calls from the front of the tent.
Theo claps me on the back. “We’ll handle this. You go talk to your fiancée.”
I give him a playful shove as he walks away. “Theo, I swear…”
He laughs as he and Holly move forward to help a little boy wearing a Jaguars jersey with Holly’s number on the sleeve.
“Hey,” I say to Sarah as I approach.
“Hi.” She pushes her hands into her back pockets.
Her brown eyes are wide behind a pair of green glasses, her dark blond hair long and loose around her shoulders.
The glasses are different than the ones she had on the last time I saw her, and they make her eyes look more hazel than brown. “Had a good day?”
“Great. It’s a lot of fun working with the kids.”
She nods. “Yeah, I might have spied on you a little bit. Seems like you’re really good with them.”
A burst of warmth spreads through my chest at her words. I shouldn’t like the idea of her watching me quite as much as I do.
“Did your spying happen to catch the time I accidentally whacked a mom on the head with a hockey stick? If it did, could I convince you that was actually Theo?”
She presses her lips together like she’s fighting a smile. “I must have missed that part. Shame on Theo.”
“How was your day? Looks like you guys stayed busy.”
“Yeah. It was amazing,” she says. “I had no idea this was such a huge event. I’m really glad I got to be here for it.”
Her eyes drop to the ground, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am. That she’s here now, but she won’t be for long.
She clears her throat. “Anyway, I picked this up for you earlier today, and I just wanted to drop it off.” She holds out the box. “It’s an apology cupcake.”
“An apology cupcake? What are you apologizing for?”
She bites her lip, her cheeks flushing with color, then she takes a deep breath. “My brother told me what he asked you to do.”
It’s the stupidest thought. But as soon as her words land, the first thing my mind does is wonder if I’m the only one she’s apologizing to or if she has half a dozen cupcakes she’s giving out to my teammates.
It shouldn’t matter either way, but I find myself hoping I’m the only one.
I open the box and look at the cupcake. It’s topped with pink frosting with a single fresh raspberry right in the center.
A raspberry cupcake.
“It’s the same one you said you should…”
Her words trail off, but I remember the moment all too well.
When I tasted the raspberry frosting that I wiped off the tip of her nose.
I lift my eyes to her face. There are freckles on her nose that I didn’t notice in the dim light of the pantry.
Maybe they’re more visible when she’s out in the sun.
Sarah pulls her hair over one shoulder, snapping me back to the present.
“Anyway,” she says, “I was totally mortified when he told me and so, so embarrassed. I just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn’t my doing.
He concocted the whole wild idea on his own, and I’m so sorry he talked to you about it.
He never should have put you in that position. ”
I close the lid of the cupcake box. “You don’t have to apologize. I know how important you are to his family. I understand why he asked.”