18. Graham
EIGHTEEN
GRAHAM
Man, I hated being back in this place. It’d been over six years since I stepped foot into the skating arena at NWCU, but there I was, skating across the ice and spending the last of a three-day hockey camp helping kids ages five to twelve work on their hockey playing skills. Dribbling the puck, shooting, and playing defense, we were doing it all, and while I always felt at peace on the ice, being back on campus brought the opposite.
After hearing some of the attitudes of the older kids when we first got started, their cocky little backtalk that bordered on completely disrespectful to adults, I’d chosen to spend my time with the younger group of kids. Which was why I was currently working with a small group of five- and six-year-olds on their passing drills. They skated to the front of the line and passed me the puck. The second time through, I was moving, and they had to pass it to me, guessing where I’d be.
One of the boys skated to the front. I’d had my eye on him for a full three days. He was always smiling behind his cage guard and encouraged every other kid who did something well. He had a great attitude, large dark eyes, and gear that had most likely come from a secondhand store or had been handed down through a handful of kids. His skates were old, laces fraying, and from the way his ankles kept turning in when he skated, it was clear they’d lost strength.
He was good, though. And quick. If he had the proper skates he’d be even better.
“Nice pass, kid,” I told him as he smacked it right into my stick. “That was really good.”
“Thank you, sir.” He skated back to the line, and I passed the puck to the next kid in line.
“Graham!” I stood as Jackson called to me and lifted my hand out to the kid who now had the puck. “Give me one second, little guy, all right?”
Jackson had been a player on our college team and now ran an athletic training facility nearby. He started putting on hockey camps for low-income kids two years ago to build attention for the sport. Every summer he’d called and asked if I could come help him, but until this summer, I’d declined. I wasn’t even sure why I’d agreed to come back now, but maybe it’d been long enough. Six years had to be far past long enough to get over the girl who broke my heart before I truly realized I’d given it to her. But now that I was here, I was counting down the hours until I could leave and head back to Denver. A small town northwest of Charlotte, it’d been the first school district to hire me for a coaching position when I was right out of school. I’d had to substitute teach for two full years before a permanent science teacher position opened up, but I didn’t regret a single minute of those first two years. My dad helped me financially, and I couldn’t have done it without him, even if deep down I knew he wanted me closer to Raleigh.
Denver was also hours away from the college campus, the girl, and the time in my life where everything that I thought I knew and felt turned out to be a complete disaster. Being back on campus made me think of her constantly. I couldn’t stop it. We’d spent a few months together, a mere blink in the span of time, but it wasn’t just the time we had together that made Holly difficult to forget. It was the bomb she tossed in my lap and then walked away, practically vanishing without a trace, that I always came back to.
All these years later, and I was still pissed she didn’t give me the respect of a conversation. Didn’t give me a chance to come to grips with what her father had done and who she was. It all made being back in Boone frustrating, but I wouldn’t take it out on the kids.
It wasn’t their fault I’d had my heart broken by a girl and couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Jackson skated to me, coming to a quick stop and spraying ice into the air. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, you looked tired, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”
“Nothing. It’s…look, I know it took a lot for you to be here. I get it. I just…I appreciate you being here, is all, but if it’s too much…”
He tapped his glove against the side of his thigh. Jackson and I were teammates, but we hadn’t been close. Not like I’d been with Eli and Tanner. He knew about Holly, though. Hell, everyone knew. After I found out about Holly and her dad and then she blocked me and Tracey adamantly refused to give me her address, everyone knew what happened. Things might spread in a small town, but things blew up on a hockey team. Especially when I played like crap for three weeks and almost cost my team a run at the playoffs.
“I’m not going to be a di—jerk,” I corrected. Little ears and all. “To kids, Jackson. And there’s only a couple hours to go, so I’m good.”
“Yeah, well, a couple of guys were talking about getting out of here for the night and going out before everyone heads home tomorrow. You wanna come?”
“That’d depend on where you’re going.”
There were places I would always avoid.
“I heard a place in Deer Creek is pretty cool.”
And that was one of them. “Yeah, I’m out.”
“You sure? We’ve got Ubers planned and everything. There’s a restaurant by a ski slope that sounded pretty cool.”
I swiped sweat off my cheek and tasted dirt and sweat. “It’d take an act of God to get me back in Deer Creek, Jackson. I’m good. Y’all have fun.”
“Oh shit. That’s where…damn, man. I’m sorry. Really. We can change.”
“Don’t.” I was already walking away. “It’s my issue I can’t put to bed. Y’all have fun, and if you’re lucky, I’ll see you here next summer.”
Deer Creek . Damn. Every time I heard the name, which was often considering the tourism and location and the fact it was on my local news’s weather forecast every damn day, my gut still tightened.
Holly was out there. Somewhere. Living her life. Probably killing it at some massive corporation as a finance rep or whatever she’d be doing. She’d be making good money, setting up her own apartment or home. And she’d be miserable. Still locked behind all the walls she never gave me the chance to scale.
Which was what sucked in all of this. If I ever saw her again, even with the past a difficult hurdle to jump between us, I still wanted to try.
“All right, kids!” I slapped my stick on the ice to get their attention. “Ready for some more?”
Tiny cheers went up on bodies barely large enough to skate with all that gear on.
Soon, another area of ice was open where we could practice shooting. I needed something else to think about for a while. Shooting always cleared my mind. “Follow me, guys.”
The kid with the worn skates was at the front of the line. He was adorable. His blue eyes were enormous, round, and bright, and there was a tiny divot in the middle of his chin. He called every coach he saw sir like it’d been so drilled into him it was the first word he spoke, and his r’s sometimes came out as w’s. I taught and coached high schoolers who were all attitude and trying to find themselves and thinking rebelling was cool. Spending my days around high schools was eye-opening. They acted all tough and cool and like they knew everything, but inside, they were tiny adults who needed acceptance as they explored the world and themselves and the future. There was so much to them, so much stress in their lives they needed to navigate. I was glad I could be a part of it.
But there was something so special about the kids I’d spent the last few days with.
It was their innocence and kindness and excitement over the smallest things. It was in the encouraging others when they had a good play during a scrimmage and the way their faces scrunched up in concentration when learning something. Parents joked about kids ruining their lives, and older teachers I knew grew grumpy as the years went on at how much things changed, how disrespectful the youth was.
But I figured that’s because they were focused on it. I saw a lot of good in the world, in school, and on the ice. I saw a lot of goodness in the pint-sized kiddo standing in front of me, already wrapping his fingers around the stick in the exact same place I’d coached him on yesterday.
“Hey kid, what’s your name?”
“Jonah, sir. It’s Jonah.”
“Cool name for a cool kid.”
He grinned at me. “My mom used to love whales.”
I chuckled as the connection hit. Odd thing to name a kid over, but whatever. “All right, Jonah.” I tapped my stick to his and skated in front of the goal. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Immediately, I saw his weakness. Jonah might have been able to pass and dribble the puck well for his age, but shooting was his downfall. He either pulled up too soon so the puck hit the tip of his stick or he dropped his back shoulder, hitting the puck on the stick’s heel. It didn’t matter how many times we tried, how much I coached him, he just could not get his body to stay in the right position long enough to hit the puck toward the goal with any good strength of direction.
“You’ve got this, Jonah. You can do it.”
He squinted and gripped the stick harder.
I passed the puck to him.
He pulled back…and dropped his shoulder. The puck went five feet to the right of the goal. Not even close.
He dropped his head toward the ice and skated to the back of the line, dragging his stick behind him like he’d cost his team the college championship game.
“Hey, Luke!” I called out another coach’s name. His son was now playing in the minor hockey league along with Tanner on opposing teams. “Can you take over?”
He was at the water coolers on one of the team’s benches and didn’t have a group of kids around.
“Just for a minute?”
“You got it.” He downed a plastic cup of water, tossed it to the floor and grabbed his helmet and stick.
I went off to grab Jonah from the back of the line.
“Come here, Jonah.” I steered him away with my hands on his shoulders, pushing him toward an open area on the ice before he could argue. There was something about that sad face he made I couldn’t shake.
The dejection in it, like if he wasn’t good enough to score, he sucked at everything, and that simply wasn’t true. For one, he was six, for crying out loud. But man, it made my heart squeeze tight.
Maybe this was the downfall of teaching kids how to play the game versus coaching kids who thought they were all the best. There was failure in learning.
Without the stress of other players around the pressure to score a puck, I dropped my stick to the ice and skated behind Jonah. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
I walked him through the movements, keeping my hands on his arms and shoulders while he practiced shooting. “It’s just like passing,” I reminded him. “And you did that perfectly every time.”
“I get nervous to miss,” he said after we took a break, and I asked if this was helping. “I don’t want my team to lose.”
“Well.” I crouched down on my skates in front of him until we were eye level. “You’re going to lose sometimes. When the kids on your team miss, do you get mad at them?”
“I mean…sometimes.” He shuffled on his skates, mumbling like he was afraid to admit the truth.
I couldn’t keep in my chuckle. “Okay. I hear you there. I’m going to go to the bench and write some things down, okay? You show it to your dad, and he can help you.”
He looked up at me behind his cage guard. “I don’t have a dad.”
“Oh…” Well, shoot.
“But I have a Papa Paul.” He grinned. I playfully pushed against his helmet.
“Papa Paul will help then, I’m sure of it. And soon you won’t be nervous at all.”
I skated off to the bench as the buzzer rang, signaling the end of camp. I had to check my watch to make sure. Working with Jonah had made the afternoon fly by.
We were done now. Tomorrow, I’d head home and go back to Denver.
I should have been happy about it. Instead, as I skated to the crowd of kids stepping off the ice and starting to strip out of their skates, there was a heavy sinking feeling in my stomach.
I was leaving Boone. Leaving Deer Creek. Leaving the memories of Holly behind again.
None of it felt right.
While the kids went to the locker rooms and changed, I finished writing down some instructions and helpful tips for Jonah.
He dashed out of the locker room, straight toward me, worn shoes on his feet in almost the same condition as his skates, but his smile was as large as Texas. His hockey gear bag slammed against his legs and hit the floor as he ran.
“Hey, Mr. Coach.”
I squatted down to get to him at eye level and handed him the paper. “This is what I have, okay? It’s what we worked on earlier, but you can do it in a garage or anywhere with a flat, smooth surface. You don’t need ice to practice. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“Jonah!”
His grin grew larger. “That’s my mom. Thanks, sir, for everything.”
He bent to grab his gear bag near his feet, and when he stood again, I settled my hand on his head and ruffled his hair. “Good meeting you, Jonah.”
He turned and called out, “Mommy! Mr. Coach says I’m a g reat passer!”
“That’s great, kiddo…”
Her voice came to a halt. Something sparked in the air. In my memory.
I knew that voice, but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her.
Still, I found myself pushing from a squat…turning…
And I came face-to-face with a ghost.
The world stopped. I was pretty sure I stopped breathing. I shook my head to clear it. Blinked to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, but when I opened my eyes, she was standing there, reaching out for Jonah.
She had…a son? My brain didn’t work fast enough to do the math, but if he was six…and I saw her….
“What the hell?” I muttered. It didn’t make sense. We’d barely done anything more than kissing. She hadn’t seemed ready. I hadn’t rushed…hadn’t felt the need to when every time I was near her I felt like I had forever in my hands and arms. Boy, was I wrong about that.
“Holly,” I breathed out.
The kid…no, Jonah…grinned up at me. “You know my mom?”
Her face went white as snow, and her jaw dropped. “Graham.”
My name fell from her full, pink lips with a raspy gasp, drawing it out. At least she was as surprised as I was.
We stood there, both of us gaping at each other, at a loss for words. I was completely unable to move, to say anything more but her name.
Holly blinked first. “Hey, Jonah. We need to get going, kiddo.”
She took his hand and reached down to grab his bag. That got me moving, and I got to the bag first.
“You’re not going to say hi?” I asked and hated the twinge of sadness in my voice.
Holly’s eyes said everything. They always had. It was how I knew she wanted me even when she tried to fight it. It was the interest in her eyes, the way they beckoned me closer and could so easily freeze me in place.
Right then, she was terrified. I didn’t blame her, but man…even confused and shocked to my toes, I wanted those eyes on me. That rich gaze that could turn so angry she could set the world on fire.
She’d definitely done that to mine.
“Hi, Graham,” she muttered. “Thanks for taking care of him.”
“Your son.” I glanced at Jonah, who’d found a puck to take an interest in, and he was tossing it into the air. “You have a son.”
She snatched the bag from my hand. “Goodbye, Graham.”
I stood and stepped back.
She was still here . In the area of the state she once couldn’t wait to run from, and hell if I wasn’t prepared to go with her. Anywhere. I would have followed her to Alaska if she’d asked.
Something happened. Something changed everything, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was all due to Jonah. I was going to figure it out.
“Someday you’re going to end a conversation with me and those words won’t be the last thing you say.”
“Yeah, well, that day isn’t today.” There was a smirk on her face, though. Like she couldn’t resist the sarcastic banter we always had. “Come on, kiddo, Papa Paul’s waiting for us. I need to get back to work.”
Jonah grinned up at me. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll tell him everything.”
I tipped my chin toward him. “Good job today, Jonah.”
He slipped his hand in Holly’s, and she headed off out of the arena without looking back, but Jonah did and waved.
I waved back. Paul.
Her aunt Caroline’s husband’s name was Paul.
At least this time, finding her would be easy.
Jackson glanced at the two walking away, brows pinched together and then faced me. “Is that who I thought it was?”
“Yep.” I rocked back on my heels.
“Well, I didn’t see that coming.”
I hadn’t either, but a smile broke out on my face. Of all the sports, all the games her kid could play, she’d put him in hockey.
She could act unaffected by me all she wanted, but that said enough. I wasn’t any farther from her mind in the last six plus years than she’d been on mine.
I glanced at him. “Think I’ll head to Deer Creek tonight after all.”