18 - Kayla
Kayla
The winter market smelled like cedar shavings, roasted pecans, and the kind of crisp, artificial cold that only a South Texas winter could conjure.
Even though the temperature was hovering in the high fifties, the stalls were decked out in aggressive amounts of white tinsel and evergreen boughs, and the speakers pumped out a brassy version of Silver Bells that competed with the chatter of the Saturday morning crowd.
Michael walked to my left, his shoulder occasionally brushing mine in a way that didn't feel like an accident anymore.
To my right, Gabe was actually walking with us, instead of ten paces ahead like he was trying to disown his lineage.
He was busy dissecting a massive churro, his eyes darting between the craft stalls and the people, but his posture was loose.
The rigid, defensive coil that usually defined him had unraveled, replaced by a tentative, quiet curiosity.
"You’ve got cinnamon on your nose, kid," Michael said, not even looking over as he reached into his pocket and handed Gabe a napkin.
Gabe took it without a huff. Without a "shut up." He just wiped his face and kept walking. "Thanks."
My heart did a slow, disbelieving roll in my chest. I’d spent fifteen years navigating the minefield of Gabe’s moods, and I’d seen a handful of men try to cross that territory.
They’d all stepped on a tripwire within the first twenty minutes.
But Michael… Michael moved through Gabe’s world like he was skating on fresh ice.
Smooth, steady, and perfectly aware of the friction.
"You’re staring," Michael murmured, leaning closer to my ear. "It’s a market, not a stakeout. Try the cider."
"I'm not staring," I lied, taking the steaming cup he offered. "I'm observing. There’s a difference."
"Right. And I’m just observing the way you’re holding that cup like it’s a thermal detonator. Relax. We’re just three friends having a Saturday."
Friends. The word still felt like a shoe that was half a size too small, pinching in the wrong places, making me walk a little stiffly.
I knew it was the right move. I knew that for Gabe’s sake, this neutral ground was the only way forward.
But every time Michael’s hand lingered near mine, or he laughed at one of Gabe’s dry one-liners, I felt the friendship label thinning until it was almost transparent.
After an hour of wandering through the stalls, we made our way toward the park's temporary attraction: a large, refrigerated lake that had been frozen over for the season.
It wasn't the NHL-standard ice Michael was used to, but it was open, shimmering under the pale sun, and dotted with families in rental skates.
Michael and Gabe didn't need rentals. They sat on a wooden bench at the edge of the ice, a synchronized pair as they pulled their skates from their bags.
I watched the way Michael showed Gabe a specific way to wrap the laces around the ankle for better support.
It was a small gesture, but to a boy who had spent his life trying to figure out the manly stuff via school friends, YouTube, and trial-and-error, it was everything.
"Stay low in the transitions," Michael said as they stepped onto the ice. "The surface is choppy out here. If you stand tall, you’re going to catch an edge and eat the boards."
"I know how to skate, Michael," Gabe shot back, but he immediately dropped into a deeper crouch, his blades biting into the ice with a confident skritch.
I stood by the wooden railing, wrapped in my heavy coat, clutching the water bottles like a lifeline.
I watched Michael lead Gabe through a series of tight turns, his patience seemingly infinite.
When Gabe fumbled a puck, Michael didn't get angry. He just circled back, tapped Gabe’s shins with his stick, and made him do it again. And again.
The lake wasn't empty. There were toddlers clinging to plastic penguins and couples stumbling through their first dates, but Michael and Gabe created their own private bubble of focus. I could hear the sharp, rhythmic snap of Michael’s instructions over the ambient noise of the park.
"Eyes up! Don't look at the puck, feel it. If you're looking down, you're dead in the water."
"I got it, I got it!" Gabe panted, his face flushed a healthy, vibrant pink.
After twenty minutes of high-intensity drills, Gabe skated toward the railing, his breath coming in white plumes. I handed him his water, and he downed half the bottle in one go, the droplets clinging to his chin.
"How’s it going out there?" I asked, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair back under his beanie. "Is the old man working you too hard?"
Gabe wiped his mouth with the back of his glove, looking back over his shoulder at Michael, who was currently practicing a series of effortless, backwards crossovers a few yards away.
"It’s whatever," he said, falling back on his favorite shield.
But he couldn't hide the light in his eyes.
He couldn't hide the way his chest was puffing out just a little further than usual.
"He knows some stuff. I guess. He’s showing me how to use my peripheral vision so I don't get blindsided on the entry. "
"He knows some stuff, huh?" I teased. "High praise from the master."
"Whatever, Mom." He capped the bottle and shoved it back toward me. "I’m going back in. He said he’d show me the snap-shot release if I could nail three more clean pivots."
He took off before I could respond, his skates spraying a fine mist of ice. I watched him go, feeling a lump of pure, unadulterated gratitude in my throat. Michael hadn't just given him a hockey lesson; he was giving him a blueprint.
I looked out onto the ice, intending to catch Michael’s eye and give him a nod of thanks, but I stopped.
A small crowd had begun to form near the center of the lake.
It started with a few teenage boys in local high school jerseys, then a couple of dads who were pointing and whispering.
Michael was standing still, leaning casually on his stick as he waited for Gabe to rejoin him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the lake in the park had suddenly become a stage.
The whispers were traveling through the crowd like a current: Is that Landry? That’s the new captain. That’s the guy from the Surge.
Michael didn't look like a superstar in that moment. He just looked like a man waiting for a kid. But as Gabe skated back into the circle of light, I realized our private Saturday was about to get a lot more public.
The bubble we’d been living in for the last hour didn’t just pop; it disintegrated under the weight of a dozen iPhones and the sudden, bustling energy of a crowd that had realized there was a celebrity in their midst.
From my spot by the railing, I watched the shift happen in real-time.
It started with two teenage boys in Surge jerseys hovering at the edge of Michael’s skating radius, whispering and pointing.
Then a dad in a puffer vest skated over, nearly knocking over a toddler in his haste to reach the center of the ice.
"Hey! You’re Landry, right? The new transfer?" the man shouted, loud enough to draw every head in the park toward them.
Michael straightened up, his professional mask sliding into place with a practiced ease that made my stomach do a nervous flip. "Yeah, that’s me. How’s it going?"
I looked at Gabe. He was standing three feet away, his stick held limply in his hands, his face a mask of sudden, cold confusion. He’d been mid-sentence, asking Michael about the weight distribution on a snap-shot, and now he was invisible.
"Can we get a photo? My son plays for the Northside Lions, he’s a huge fan!"
Michael glanced at Gabe, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face, but then he nodded. "Sure. One quick one."
One quick one turned into five. Then a group of girls skated over, giggling and holding out their phone screens.
Then someone produced a Sharpie from the depths of a parka.
Michael didn't tell them to back off. He didn't say, 'I’m in the middle of something.
' He stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, the "Cap" of the San Antonio Surge, smiling for every lens and scrawling his name on every offered surface.
"Michael, I thought we were doing the release drill," Gabe called out, his voice sounding thin and small against the growing chatter of the crowd.
Michael looked over his shoulder, his pen mid-stroke on a crumpled program. "Just a second, Gabe. Hold on."
But a second stretched into ten minutes.
The ice around them was becoming a bottleneck.
People were stopping their own skating just to stare, to whisper, to be near the orbit of the man who had scored the game-winner last Tuesday.
Michael looked out of his depth, his eyes darting toward me with a silent plea for help, but he didn't stop.
He was trapped by his own image, tethered to the persona that belonged to the city, not to us.
I watched Gabe’s shoulders hike up toward his ears, the universal sign that the defensive wall was being rebuilt, brick by bitter brick. He looked at Michael, who was currently laughing at a joke the puffer-vest dad made, and then he looked at the puck sitting abandoned near his skates.
Without a word, he turned, digging his blades into the ice with a violent, resentful force as he skated toward the exit ramp.
"Gabe! Hey, wait!" Michael shouted, finally breaking away from a group of fans. He took two long strides after him, but the crowd closed in again, a woman clutching his arm to ask about Grayson’s recovery.
Gabe didn't stop, and he didn't turn around. He hit the rubber matting at the gate and disappeared toward the benches, his head down, his gait an angry blur.
Michael finally managed to disentangle himself, his face flushed and his hair a mess from the wind and the helmets. He skated toward the railing where I was standing, a weak, sheepish grin on his face.
"Man, talk about a home-ice disadvantage," he said, breathing hard as he reached for the railing. "I didn't realize the park was a scout’s convention today. I think I signed more napkins than I did checks this month."
He laughed, a short, nervous sound, looking for me to join him in the joke. I didn't. I stood there, clutching the cold water bottles, my eyes hard.
"Is that what that was to you? A signing session?" I asked, my voice as cold as the lake beneath his feet.
Michael’s smile dropped. "What? No. Kayla, I couldn't just tell them to go away. They’re fans. It’s part of the job."
"Your 'job' was supposed to be out there with Gabe," I snapped.
I gestured toward the empty bench where Gabe was already shoving his skates into his bag.
"He finally let you in, Michael. He finally trusted you to be his mentor, and the second a camera came out, you chose the fans. You chose the job over the kid."
"That's not fair," Michael argued, his voice rising in frustration. "I was trying to keep everyone happy. I didn't want to cause a scene."
"You didn't want to look like the bad guy," I corrected him.
"You were more worried about your reputation than you were about the boy who was standing three feet away waiting for you to finish a sentence. You’re so used to being the star that you don't even know how to be a person when people are watching. "
"Kayla, listen to me—" He reached out, his hand gloved and cold, but I stepped back, the movement sharp and final.
"I think this was a mistake," I said, the words feeling like stones in my mouth.
"I think the 'friendship' and the 'mentorship' and the whole 'happy Saturday' was just a fantasy I let myself believe because it was easier than being alone.
But the reality is that your world is too big for us, Michael.
And my world is too fragile for you to keep dropping the puck. "
"I can fix it," he pleaded, his eyes searching mine. "Let me talk to him."
"No. You’ve done enough talking for one day," I said, turning away from the railing.
I could see Gabe standing by the park exit, his bag slung over his shoulder, looking like he wanted to disappear into the earth.
"I’m going to take my son home. He has a life to get back to.
One that doesn't involve being an extra in your highlight reel. "
"Kayla, wait!"
I didn't wait. I walked away from the ice, away from the man who was currently being swallowed by another wave of fans, and toward the boy who was the only thing I had left to protect. I left Michael standing on the frozen lake, the captain of a team I no longer wanted to play for.