Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The puck dropped at seven, but I’d been pacing since six.
My laptop sat open on the coffee table in my living room, its glow casting long shadows across the half-unpacked disaster I was calling my temporary home.
Soon enough I’d be attending each home game doing in-game interviews and reporting on injuries and player background stories throughout the live broadcast. For that evening at least, I watched the game from the comfort of my apartment.
The broadcast volume was low—not that the play-by-play commentators were saying anything I didn’t already know.
I took three steps across the living room, pivoted, and stalked back the other way. It was a miracle I hadn’t worn a tread in the already thin carpet.
“Out of all the teams in all the leagues in all the cities in the entire country,” I muttered, waving my hands. “She has to play for this one? This team? This city?”
My foot collided with a box labeled Kitchen.
“How did I not know she was here? I read the trades! I follow the leagues! What are the odds?” I flung my hands toward the laptop. “What am I supposed to do? Request a different beat? That’s not professional. That’s pathetic.”
Boston scored. The goal horn blared through my laptop speakers. Dani was in the middle of the celebration, arms lifted, her smile bright enough to punch a hole straight through my sternum.
“Oh, sure,” I scoffed. “Have a great night, Danielle. I’ll just be over here developing stress hives.”
I ran a hand through my hair and resumed pacing, too keyed up to sit, too strung out to do anything useful, when the sound of metal scraping metal cut through the apartment.
A key in my lock.
I froze mid-step, my posture halfway between fight and flight.
The door swung open.
“Reesy?” my mom called, already letting herself in.
I exhaled, a hand pressed against my chest. “Mom, you scared the hell out of me.”
She stepped inside—coat on, hair pinned up, keys jangling as if I needed reminding that she was both my mother and my landlady.
“The door shouldn’t scare you,” she said, peering around the chaos of boxes. “Burglars don’t use keys.”
She surveyed my apartment with a sigh only decades of parenting could produce. “You’re not eating down here.”
“I’m fine,” I stubbornly resisted. “I’m watching the game.”
“Nope,” she cut me off, wagging a finger. “No sports, no TV, no laptops. We’re having a civilized family dinner upstairs, and that’s an order.”
I blinked. “Civilized?”
“Yes. Civilized,” she repeated, already heading toward the door like the matter was settled. “Your father made dinner. He’s very proud of himself. We’re not letting it go to waste.”
“Mom, really—”
“Upstairs,” she said, switching to her kindergarten-teacher voice, the one she still somehow pulled off without having ever taught a day in her life.
My parents’ apartment was a time capsule. They’d lived in the third-floor unit for over thirty years, and it showed in the comfortable furnishings, the overall clutter, and the lived-in creak of the hardwood floors.
My dad was at the kitchen stove, proudly wielding a spatula.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he boasted. “Turkey meatballs. Your favorite.”
I didn’t remember them being my favorite, but sure.
We all shuffled to the dining room table—a small, round thing near the windows overlooking the street below.
“So,” my mom said, settling into her seat and folding her paper napkin over her lap, “first day at work. How did it go?”
I heaped mashed potatoes onto my plate and reached for the meatballs next. “Fine. Normal. Mostly logistics stuff with the staff.”
“Everyone nice?” she asked. It wasn’t nosiness. It was that earnest mom-interest that came from years of worrying about me being on my own in other cities.
“It’s too early to tell, but I think so,” I said. “My editor Mark seems nice enough.”
My dad passed me a bowl of steamed greens. “What are you working on first?”
“The women’s hockey team. I went up to Lowell this morning to get the lay of the land.”
My mom clasped her hands under her chin. “I still can’t believe you’re back after all these years. We’re so excited to have you home, honey. Fifteen years is too long.”
Fifteen years.
The number landed differently now.
My dad cleared his throat. “So …” he said casually—too casually. “Did you see her?”
My fork paused halfway to my mouth. “See who?”
My mom shot him a look. “Walter.”
“What?” he said, shrugging. “It’s a valid question. They were practically joined at the hip for four years.”
My stomach did a weird little drop. I hadn’t even considered—my parents were huge sports fans—of course they’d keep up with the local roster. Of course they’d know she played here. I’d been so wrapped up in my own shock, it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone else might have expected this collision.
I stared at my plate, heart thudding in a way I prayed wasn’t visible.
I could lie. I could pretend the day had been boring, but my dad was watching me with that quiet, perceptive half-smile he used whenever he already knew the answer.
I set my fork down.
“I saw her,” I said softly.
My mom inhaled, her expression slipping from curiosity to something closer to tenderness. “How did it go?”
I let out a breath.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “She was … Dani. And I wasn’t ready. I thought I was, but I wasn’t.”
My dad nodded like he understood something I hadn’t even articulated yet.
“People grow,” he said gently. “Sometimes in ways we expect. Sometimes not.”
I swallowed. “It’s going to be complicated, working around her.”
My mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You’ll be fine. You can handle complicated.”
Complicated. Yep. Covering Dani Callahan was going to be complicated.
But I’d worked too hard for too long to let this unexpected detail derail me.
I was a professional sports journalist. I’d handled more awkward situations than this—like being the lone female reporter in a locker room full of men far too comfortable with their own naked-ness.
Besides: only a few more months remained in the hockey season, and then I’d be on to a new sport, a new team, and a new roster of players to cover.
So I did what came natural—I threw myself headfirst into my new assignment.
I arrived at the practice facility early the next morning to introduce myself to the coaching and training staff.
Being on friendly terms with coaches and trainers had served me well in the past. I needed the coaches’ cooperation for interviews during intermissions, but more than that, it could give me an inside track to specific game strategies.
And in the past, trainers had given me a heads up about player injuries, in-season trades, or if line-ups were being changed up.
Practice was already underway when I arrived, with the team moving through a calm, organized skate that felt more like a pre-game walkthrough than a rigorous workout after the win the night before.
Players cycled on and off the ice in small groups, passing the puck back and forth as they flowed from one end of the ice to the other, stopping now and then when a coach called something out and reset them.
Small groups took turns working near the net, shots coming in steady bursts, while others waited along the boards, chatting quietly and stretching.
I noticed my old friend Cat almost immediately—not because she was doing anything dramatic, but because goalies always stood out. She was easy to spot in her bulky pads, her mask off, leaning on her oversized stick and talking with a coach while the rest of the team skated around her.
I didn’t look for anyone else.
If Dani was out there, she blended into the background, just another jersey on the ice, and I told myself that was enough.
I watched practice for a little bit longer and slipped out before the skate wrapped up. I had a lot of catching up to do.
I headed to a café a few blocks from the arena, hoping a latte and some peace and quiet would help me focus.
The place was busy but not overwhelming, and I found a small table near the front plate-glass windows.
I set up my laptop, pulled up the game replay from the previous night, and started taking notes—who skated well, who mishandled a pass, which lines looked tight, which ones needed work.
I rewound a shift from late in the first period and watched the bench instead of the ice.
I noticed who leaned forward after a goal against, who stayed sitting back, helmet still on.
One winger who’d blown a coverage didn’t get benched entirely, but she didn’t get sent back out until after the TV timeout either. I circled her name.
The longer I worked, the more the rhythm came back to me.
I hadn’t written about hockey in a while—not like this—but it felt familiar in a way that surprised me, like finding my balance again after a long stretch at sea.
I sank into the details, the small things you only noticed when you’d watched enough games: timing, spacing, who trusted whom with the puck.
It felt good, like working out a neglected muscle.
In Arizona, my days had been dominated by basketball—sidelines during warm-ups, timeouts, halftime hits for the men’s and women’s pro teams. Hockey was different. Quieter. And sitting there with my latte cooling beside me, I remembered why I’d missed it.
I paused long enough to take a sip of my drink and let my eyes drift to the window.
Outside, pedestrians passed in loose clusters, bundled up in winter coats, and wrapped in scarves, knit hats, and heavy gloves.
This looked and felt like February—not the desert version of winter I’d experienced in Phoenix, where the seasons blurred together and time somehow slipped by faster than expected.
My phone buzzed on the table beside my laptop. I flipped it over, guilt pricking as soon as I saw Raven’s name. I’d promised frequent FaceTimes when I left. I’d meant it, too. The days had just gotten away from me.