13. Will
WILL
Iget up early so my guest isn’t alone for too long in an unfamiliar home. As warm and friendly as my family members are, I can’t imagine anyone feeling comfortable in someone else’s house.
Priestley caught me off guard yesterday. I thought he was gonna be snooty and look at everything like it was beneath him, but he didn’t. He seemed … shy? Like for the first time in his life, he didn’t automatically fit in somewhere. Like he’d finally realized the world wasn’t made with him in mind.
It’s still pretty gross to get to twenty-two and only just be realizing that the world doesn’t revolve around you, but hey, progress is progress.
My parents are both standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee and chatting. I almost don’t want to interrupt, but I’ll be back at school tomorrow and I know they wanna see me.
As soon as he spots me, Dad puts his arm around me and ruffles my hair.
“How d’you sleep in your old bed?”
“Good.”
“What’s your plans for today?”
“Got a lot of studying to do for the group project thing, but I think I’m gonna take Priestley to the rink first.”
My parents share a look that I try my best to ignore.
“That’s nice,” Ma says.
“Yeah, Jimmy’d love to see you,” Dad adds.
“That’s what I thought. And uh …” I rub the back of my neck while I think of a way to make the competition happen without alerting my parents to what’s going on.
They’d both find it petty. That should be enough to stop me, but it isn’t.
“Priestley wants to check out some tennis courts while we’re here.
Do you think we could use those ones in the sport’s center? ”
“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Dad says. “If you have any problems, you let me know.”
“Thanks, will do.”
Dad doesn’t like to use his elevated—he’d never use the word hero, but I would—status in the community as a firefighter to get perks, but for us, he makes an exception. Call it payback for all the worry he causes us every time he goes out on a call or ends up in the hospital.
Priestley gets up just as the kids are finishing their breakfast and getting ready for Chase’s baseball game. Usually I’d go, too, but we have way too much to do and my talented little brother is gonna have plenty more baseball games in his life.
I can’t tell if Priestley’s wearing pajamas or slightly less fancy clothes than usual. His hair is neatly swept back off his face and he smells like he sprayed cologne when he brushes past me in the narrow kitchen to grab a cup of coffee.
“I thought we could go to the rink and the tennis court today and have our little competition.”
Priestley’s cradling his coffee like it’s his life support. When I look a little closer, his eyes are barely open. I guess he isn’t a robot after all.
“But we have the house to ourselves,” he says. “Shouldn’t we take advantage of it?”
Maybe I’m tired and my brain isn’t working yet, but a rush of blood heads south before I remind myself who I’m talking to.
“What?”
“To study? For the project?”
He hasn’t realized I took what he said the wrong way. Thank fuck for that.
“Relax, we’ve got plenty of time to study. Are you scared I’m gonna beat you? Chickening out already, Ro … Rosenthal?”
He cocks an eyebrow but lets it go. I think I like sleepy Priestley better.
“I am not chickening out. I know you won’t be able to return my serve. I just think it’s a waste of time having this BS competition to prove it when we both already know that I’m the best suited for the job.”
Aaaand he’s back.
I don’t realize I’m clenching my jaw until I go to speak. I take a deep breath so he can’t hear the annoyance in my voice.
“We’ll see. Drink your coffee and get your stuff. We’d better get an early start if we wanna grab the rink before the kids get there for practice.”
He huffs but does as I ask.
There’s a nice crispness to the air as we drive to the rink. I let the radio play and enjoy the sound of voices speaking with a familiar accent. I’ve only been at Princeton a few weeks, but already I’m missing being somewhere I don’t stand out.
There are only a few cars parked at the rink when we arrive.
I leave a few spaces between my borrowed car and Coach Barber’s beat-up Toyota.
Even with Priestley on my heels, huffing about being out so early and spending our morning at an ice rink instead of working on our project, it feels good to be back here.
“Why aren’t we going to your old college?” Priestley asks.
“You’re kidding, right? BC takes that rink very seriously. It’s like asking me why we’re not fucking around at the Garden. Not gonna happen.”
“So where are we now?”
“This is a community ice rink. Junior and amateur teams play here. An old buddy of my dad’s owns it. He said I can use it any time I want.”
I don’t let Priestley’s bitching get to me as I open the doors to the building and look around for Jimmy. He’s out on the rink, resurfacing the ice with a yard hose.
He looks up when he hears the heavy doors slam shut behind us. I note the second he recognizes me from the big smile that splits his face.
“O’Reilly!” He waves us down, shouting to someone to switch the hose off.
“Need some help?” I ask.
“Huh?” Looking down at the hose in his hand, he laughs. “It’s a real professional outfit we got here.” He looks behind me. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Priestley. Priestley, this is my first ever coach, Jimmy.”
Jimmy shakes Priestley’s hand.
“Coach Barber it was to you back then, kid.”
He laughs and slaps me on the back.
“You wanna use the rink?”
“That okay?”
“‘Course, just let me finish up here and it’s all yours until the kids get here at ten-thirty.”
“Need any help?”
“Nah, I got it covered.”
“The spare skates still in the same place?”
“Yep, you know where to find them.”
He dismisses us, the sound of the hose being turned back on following us up the stands and out of the main doors to the equipment room.
I don’t even care what Priestley thinks of this place.
I know it’s a little rough around the edges.
That the equipment room, and the locker room, and most of the hallways, stink of old hockey gear.
But it doesn’t matter. This place is important to me.
It’s where I first learned how to skate.
Where I’d bond with my dad over nasty $2 hot dogs and giant cups of Coke.
After checking what shoe size Priestley is, I grab him the least disgusting pair of skates and hand them to him.
He does give them a snooty once over, but to his credit, he doesn’t complain.
I have my own skates, skates I haven’t worn since my last game at BC.
When I slip my feet inside and lace them up, it’s like putting on an old pair of comfortable slippers.
When we get back out to the rink, I’ve got a bag of pucks, some clip-on targets, and a borrowed stick for Priestley. Jimmy’s set a goal up on either side of the ice. “You need anything else?” he asks.
“Nah, we’re just doing some accuracy shooting.”
“A little competition?” Jimmy asks, eyes lighting up. Despite never having won very much in his life, Jimmy’s still a competitive motherfucker.
“Yeah.”
He chuckles, slapping Priestley on the back. “Good luck, kid. Accuracy was always O’Reilly’s strong suit.”
“Was it now?” Priestley asks as Jimmy leaves us alone.
“Don’t act all innocent. You bragged about being the captain of a championship-winning tennis team.”
He shrugs. “Touché.”
Priestley’s pretty elegant on the ice, of course. But when it comes to stick handling, he’s a mess. Every time I pass him a puck, it gets away from him and he gets frustrated.
“It’s the way you’re passing them,” he complains. “I’m getting my own puck this time.”
“Be my guest.”
I skate backward to give him space. He scoops a puck out of the pile and tries to keep it under control. He manages for a second before it gets away from him again.
“Hold on, you’ve gotta do it like this.” Before I even know what I’m doing, I skate over and show him where he’s going wrong.
Grabbing his hands in my gloves, I move them down the stick to where they should be. I skate in behind him, adjusting his stance, kicking his legs open a little wider and pressing my weight against his knees to get him to bend his legs.
Priestley’s frozen up and I tell him to relax.
“I am relaxed,” he pushes out.
“Are you cold? You’re gritting your teeth.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“When you handle the puck, you’ve gotta keep touching your stick to it, like this …
” I show him, moving the stick with his hands around it while the smell of his hair and his cologne makes my head swim.
I need to move away from him, but I don’t want to let him see that I’m rattled.
I think he might be rattled, too. Blood rushes south again and I ignore it.
“Got it?”
“Yes, yes, I’ve got it.” He clears his throat. “You can stop manhandling me now.”
I force a laugh and skate back to give him space.
He handles the puck a bit better this time. It doesn’t get away from him and he even manages to move closer to the net with it.
“That’s close enough, cheat.”
“Humph.”
“That wasn’t a very gentlemanly sound,” I say, just as he lets rip.
He’s made a rookie mistake and gone for sheer power, but that won’t help you in an accuracy drill.
“I scored!” He turns around with a big smile on his face. It might be the first genuine smile I’ve ever seen on him.
“Congratulations. But you didn’t hit the target.”
The smile drops. I’d feel bad, but I really don’t want him getting too confident out there.
“It was a warmup.”
I snort. “Get back to it. We don’t have all day.”
He lines up another puck, looking comfortable now, and shoots.
This time he holds back and I swallow. He’s catching on quickly and he isn’t half as terrible as I thought he’d be.
He might just hit one. That means I’ll have to return his serve twice to win this competition.
I’ve stopped a puck coming at me over 80mph before, but I was allowed to use my padded body then and I didn’t have to actually get it anywhere particular, just away from the net.