18. February 19, Saturday #3
Zoey’s stomach tightened. Madison’s resting face was usually ninety percent unimpressed, ten percent trouble, but there was an extra brittleness tonight.
Out on the ice in front of them, one of the littlest boys had latched onto a player’s leg and was full-on sobbing, face buried in the man’s thigh. The winger, Christian, a rookie, looked like someone handed him a live grenade. He leaned down awkwardly, patting the boy’s helmet, murmuring something.
Zoey chuckled, automatic, already lifting her camera. The shot lined up perfectly: huge, gloved hand gentle on a tiny wobbly head, jersey numbers vivid, tears glistening at the boy’s lashes. Emotional catnip. She snapped three frames.
There was a derisive puff of air to her right. Almost a scoff, almost a laugh, but not amused.
Zoey glanced over. Madison’s mouth was pressed thin, a tiny knot pulsing in her cheek.
“What?” Zoey asked.
Madison didn’t look at her. “So,” she began, voice flat. “Which puppy are you gonna take home?”
Zoey blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Madison rolled her eyes, finally slanting her a look that was all sharp edges. “You know. Out of the litter.” She tipped her chin toward the tangle of small bodies on the ice. “You’re obviously shopping. Bet you go for, like…a young one.” Her gaze swept the rink. “Like everyone else.”
The words landed with a dull thud.
“Oh,” Zoey said quietly. Her first instinct to deflect, joke, run screaming, bumped up against how tired Madison looked. “Wow. Coming in hot tonight, Mads.”
“I’m fine,” Madison said automatically, defensive before Zoey had even gotten the question out.
“You’re not usually this mean,” Zoey countered. “Impressive, honestly, but also kind of rude. You okay?”
Madison’s jaw tensed. For a heartbeat, Zoey thought she was going to do her usual storm-off special; chin up, shoulders stiff, whole body broadcasting I don’t care even as she fled.
Instead, Madison’s lips pushed out as she ran her tongue along the front of her bottom teeth, jaw thrusting forward, before she looked away, watching the ice with theatrical intensity. Silent.
Interesting.
Zoey rocked on her blades, weighing it. There was a thin, tentative strand between them these days born from Zoey’s frequent volunteer visits to random texts, from Madison grudgingly letting her read an English essay draft, to Zoey not ratting her out to Babs over one ill-advised vape experiment.
Pushing too hard might snap it. But stepping back would leave that raw, accusing puppy comment hanging between them.
Ah, screw it. “Okay,” Zoey said. “Honest answer time?”
Madison rolled her eyes again, but slower this time. “You’re gonna say some inspirational crap, aren’t you?”
“Probably,” Zoey admitted. “I contain multitudes. But no. In a perfect world?” She exhaled, watching the chaos on the ice in front of them. “In a perfect world, yeah. I’d adopt a baby.”
She could feel Madison’s gaze cut to her, sharp and assessing. The other teens had gone quiet in that way that meant they weren’t listening at all but were absolutely listening.
Zoey kept her eyes on the ice. The kid who’d been crying was calming down, hiccupping against Christian’s leg while the rookie talked and pointed at something across the stadium toward the mezzanine, distracting him.
“When I was in college,” she went on, “I had friends whose parents were…terrible. Neglectful. Abusive. Really creative about finding new ways to screw them up.” A flash of memory: Ilya at nineteen, looking forty, sprawled on the couch of a teammate’s grimy off-campus apartment, drunk enough that he’d never remembered the conversation.
If I’d just… done more. Taken more off them.
Maybe Mom or Dad would’ve had more to give Kira.
She swallowed.
“They should’ve been protected,” she said. “But they weren’t. And I wished someone had stepped in earlier. If someone had taken them out of that house, found them a real family who loved them…maybe they’d have a better shot at being happy now. At believing they deserved to be.”
She heard herself and winced a little. Overshare, party of one.
That tired, too-wise expression on Madison’s hard face edged into something more open. More raw.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ilya taking a tight turn with the older kids, his body a perfect curve of power and control. He snapped a shot into the top corner, then exaggerated a celebration, fist-pumping, making the teens laugh.
Her chest squeezed.
How was she supposed to hold all of this—the ache for a child, for healing, for him—in her chest at once?
As if he felt the weight of her attention, he turned. His gaze swept the rink, snagged on her. For a heartbeat, their eyes locked.
His smile was instant. Big, genuine, not the careful one he wore for press scrums. It crinkled the corners of his eyes, softened his whole face.
Relief punched through her.
Okay.
They were okay.
If he could still look at her like that after last night then she hadn’t nuked whatever fragile, complicated…thing existed between them.
She lifted a hand in a dorky little wave, camera bumping her chin.
Beside her, Madison made a small, cynical noise. “Of course,” she muttered, so low Zoey almost missed it.
Zoey tore her gaze away from Ilya and focused back on the girl next to her.
“Anyway.” She cleared her throat. “Back to puppies and shopping.”
Madison’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “You were saying you want a baby like everyone else.”
“In my wildest, Disney-fied dreams, sure,” Zoey agreed. “But that’s not really how this works. Agencies aren’t exactly lining up to hand infants to single Black women in their thirties. People want two parents. Nice house with a yard. A golden retriever.” She ticked them off on her gloved fingers.
“And you’ve got…” Madison looked her up and down, brow arched. “An apartment, a new job, and a plant you murdered.”
“I will have you know, Fernanda is in witness protection at a friend’s house,” Zoey said with dignity. “But yeah. Point is, the system isn’t built with people like me in mind when it comes fulfilling the metaphorical wish list. And that’s okay.”
Madison snorted. “You say that like you mean it.”
“I do,” Zoey said, and realized, with a little surprise, that she did. “Because fostering or adopting someone older? That’s not a consolation prize. It’s still a chance to change a life. To give someone a soft place to land when everywhere else is made of concrete.”
She watched Madison’s throat move, a quick swallow. Her eyes had gone shiny, glittering hard as she stared out at the ice like it owed her money.
“If I have my way,” Zoey went on, voice a little rough, “by the time I’m sixty, I’ll have so many kids in my life, I’ll never get a moment’s peace. Holidays, random Tuesdays, a whole messy, mismatched crew who know they can always come back and raid my fridge.”
“That sounds…annoying,” Madison muttered.
“No.” Zoey shook her head. “It sounds like a family. Even if the kids I foster eventually move on, or age out, or decide I’m not their person anymore, I hope I can be one person who proves that safe people exist, that the worst things that happened to them don’t get the final say on what love looks like. ”
Madison’s face flinched like Zoey had pressed on a bruise. Her eyes were definitely too bright and she turned her head away.
Crap.
“And,” Zoey added quickly, because tact had never been her strong suit but she could at least try to land this plane, “for the record? If it looks like I’m puppy shopping right now, maybe the person thinking that needs to recalibrate.
Whether I ever get matched with one of these kids or some kid I haven’t met yet, tonight isn’t about my future. It’s about theirs…yours.”
Madison’s shoulder rose, hunching, but she didn’t turn back to Zoey.
“You get to just be kids tonight, for once,” Zoey offered softly. “No caseworkers. No meetings. No supervised visits. No one asking you to be grateful or resilient or whatever buzzword adults like this week. No one here wants anything from you but your laughter.”
Silence stretched. Zoey became acutely aware of how grown-up she sounded and immediately wanted to bite her own tongue. That was…a lot. For a hockey clinic.
Jesus, Williams, why don’t you also whip out that PowerPoint on attachment theory while you’re at it? Zoey braced herself for the blowback. Sarcasm, an eye roll, a full-body scoff and exit.
“You talk too much,” Madison grumbled, her voice rough.