18. February 19, Saturday #4
Then, before Zoey could reply, Madison shoved off the boards and stalked toward the stairs, bee-lining for a knot of other teenagers above the Zamboni entrance. She didn’t slam the half-door or flip Zoey off, which felt like progress.
Zoey watched her go, heart twisting.
She couldn’t fix Madison’s life. Couldn’t rewrite the file that followed her from house to house, couldn’t magically fix whatever landed her in the girls’ group home.
But she could be an adult who didn’t look away from the hurt.
The thought settled in her chest like a small, steady weight.
She pushed away from the boards, gliding back into the fray.
Near center ice, Jason and Tommy gathered a bunch of the younger kids into a ragged line. Jason stood several feet ahead of them, facing the group, blowing a whistle he definitely had not been authorized to possess.
“Okay, leeches!” he yelled.
“Language,” Zoey called automatically. Name calling? Was he serious? She gave him a chastising look and Jason grinned unrepentantly back.
“Okay, adorable tax deductions!” he corrected seamlessly.
“We’re playing Red Light, Green Light. When I say green, you skate your little butts off toward me.
When I say red, you stop. If you move on red, you gotta go back to the blue line.
And if you make me fall down laughing, you win extra points. ”
“What do the points get?” one kid shouted.
“Absolutely nothing,” Jason said. “But you’ll know in your heart that you’re a legend, which is priceless. Ready? Green light!”
The line lurched forward in varying degrees of coordination. A little girl who had a pink tutu under her jersey, tripped over absolutely nothing and took out three other kids in a chain reaction, all four of them collapsing in a pile of flailing limbs and squeaky laughter.
Zoey was already zooming in. She snapped rapid-fire as one determined boy scrambled up and immediately turned to haul up the girl beside him, their hands clumsy in the hockey gloves.
The smallest one just lay there, giggling at the rafters, trying to scoop up ice and letting it drop through the cage into his waiting mouth.
Gross.
And yet…perfect.
Sponsor brochure. Holiday card. Foster or Adoption recruitment flyer.
As the game continued, half the kids toppled in slow-motion dominoes. The laughter that followed ricocheted around the cavernous arena, bounding off concrete and glass, muffling the low, generic pop playlist Zoey put on earlier, “so it wouldn’t be awkwardly quiet.”
Yeah. She needn’t have worried about that.
Tommy hammed it up, flinging himself onto his back in the crease whenever a kid managed to shuffle close enough, legs bicycling uselessly in the air like an overturned turtle. A little girl clambered up onto his massive chest, triumphant, arms in the air.
Zoey couldn’t not get that shot. She framed the chaos, finger clicking, capturing Jason’s exaggerated referee stance, Tommy lying flat with a hand to his brow like a damsel in distress, the tiny girl roaring in victory.
She shifted her angle, and her lens found Ilya in the background.
He was still with the older kids, the drills morphing into a half-mock scrimmage.
He was laughing, teeth flashing, head tipped back as one of the teenagers clearly chirped him.
He slung an arm around the kid’s shoulders, tugging him into a playful headlock, then let him go and pointed toward the net, positioning him for another shot.
Zoey zoomed in.
Purely professional captain content.
Totally not because her lower half got a fun little jolt of lightning whenever she saw how good his ass looked in those sweatpants.
Warmth spread under her sweatshirt despite the cold. She lowered the camera and just…looked, for a beat. She let herself admire the picture: the captain of a struggling team, surrounded by teenagers who didn’t owe him anything, giving them his attention, his time, his stupid dad jokes.
For all his self-flagellation, he kept showing up. He always did.
She exhaled, a thin thread of vapor disappearing into the chill air.
She moved through the rest of the session in a blur of cold and color. Helping a kid re-tie his skate. Answering a volunteer’s question about snack distribution. High-fiving anyone small enough to undercut her balance, dodging the occasional rogue puck.
Everywhere she pointed her camera, there it was: proof.
A boy with a scar along his jaw helping a younger kid up, no hesitation.
A girl hanging off the boards yelling coaching tips with the authority of a tiny drill sergeant.
Nina in the stands, lips pressed together, blinking a little too fast as she watched a foster dad half-sob-laugh when his kid made it across the rink without falling.
These images would be proof that today mattered.
For the kids, who’d take home bruises and wobbly memories and hopefully the sense that adults with their names on jerseys saw them.
For the team, who needed a win that had nothing to do with the scoreboard.
And for the woman behind the camera who, no matter how hard she tried, kept catching one particular captain in every frame.