Chapter 21
ELIDA
Tara chooses the Italian place on Main Street, which turns out to be warm and cozy. She arrives in a red dress like she’s decided this is a proper occasion and everyone else should keep up.
Calloway is already there, coat folded over his chair, glass of water in hand, looking faintly amused by the level of effort.
I slide into the booth beside Tara and she immediately tops up my wine glass from the bottle she’s already ordered.
“This is very kind. Both of you.”
“It’s entirely selfish,” Tara says. “I wanted an excuse for the pasta.”
Calloway smiles. “A goodbye dinner is the least we could do for you after everything you’ve done for us.”
We order and the food is excellent. The conversation is easy.
They ask a lot about my upcoming qualifier, and Tara tries to convince Caden that they should do a staff trip to Europe to support me. He’s very unconvinced.
The women’s team is going well and is being allocated even more funding. They want to attract another skating consultant once I leave.
“They have so much potential. Dani in particular is going to be exceptional.”
“Largely because of you,” Calloway says simply.
I study my pasta.
“And the men’s team. The improvement this season has been… measurable doesn’t cover it.”
“They did the work.”
“They did,” he agrees. “But they wouldn’t have known where to start without you.
You’ve made a huge difference to a few of the guys in particular.
Russo has had some interest, mainly from overseas.
But it’s a valid route into the NHL He’s been considering his options.
I think he’ll land somewhere good. He’s earned it. ”
I’m surprised by this - he hadn’t mentioned anything. “Where overseas?”
“He’s keeping it open for now,” Calloway says. “Ireland was mentioned - we have the connections with the Belfast Giants. He’s been trying to sort a few things out first before he commits to anything.”
I think about him at my door that time Jake was there and the phone call where I rambled on and didn’t give him a chance to speak.
He’s been trying to tell me.
I pick up my wine.
Beside me, Tara puts her hand briefly over mine under the table.
“More pasta?” she says brightly to the table.
ELIDA
I didn’t think I’d be leaving this quickly.
That’s the thing about decisions - once you make them properly, fully, without the hand brake on, everything accelerates. The Brita sessions have been everyday this past week. The qualifier paperwork is submitted. The apartment is half packed, the suitcases open on the floor.
Jake has texted a few times. Kind, easy texts, checking in, wishing me well. I’ve replied but briefly, not because I don’t care but because the last week has been a blur of video sessions and packing and planning, and suddenly, faster than I expected, it’s my last game.
Northern State.
Of all the teams. Of all the possible opponents for the last game I’ll watch from these stands - Northern State, Jake’s team, the first game I ever watched here, the night I met him.
Perfect symmetry, I think, settling into my seat. Slightly cruel, but perfect.
He finds me before the game starts.
I’m sipping my coffee when he drops into the seat beside me.
“Last game?” he asks.
“Last game,” I agree.
He looks out at the ice being resurfaced, pale and clean under the lights. “You know the first time we played your team, I’d already started to notice a difference in their skating. Took me about thirty seconds to figure out why.”
“Flattery.”
“Fact.” He grins. “Good luck to your guys today. They’re going to need it.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.” He stands. “I’ll come find you after.”
He leans down and presses a kiss to my cheek - and then he’s gone, back to his bench.
I watch him go and feel a little sad. He belongs to a different chapter. I can feel that already. But it was a chapter that did what it was supposed to do and has been closed properly.
I open my notebook.
The teams file out.
They win.
3-2, third period, Ward with the winner off a setup that Mateo reads perfectly - the transition clean and certain and exactly what we’ve been building toward since January. I watch it happen from the stands and I feel the satisfaction of seeing work pay off.
Jake finds me afterward like he promised, making his way through the dispersing crowd, and his face is genuinely delighted- no ego in it, no complicated feelings about losing, just a good person being happy for someone else’s win.
“You can see the technique coaching there – incredible improvement.”
“They worked hard.”
“You worked hard. I’m so pleased for you, Elida. All of it. That it’s working out with Brita - Sweden. All of it. You know… if you wanted to try to keep this going…”
“Jake-”
“I know,” he says. Uncomplicated to the end. “I know it’s a no. I think I’ve known for a while.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Genuinely.”
“Don’t be.” He opens his arms. “Come here.”
I hug him properly. He holds on for a moment and then steps back and looks at me.
“Thank you,” I say. “For Brita. For all of it. That was one of the kindest things anyone has done for me in a long time.”
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing.”
He smiles. Shrugs in his Jake way. “Go skate, Eriksson. Go show them what you are.”
“Take care of yourself,” I say.
“Always do,” he says.
I turn back to the ice and my eyes seek out Mateo involuntarily. He glances up at me and our eyes meet.
I look away first and gather my things.
I have a qualifier to prepare for.
I have a whole life waiting to be reclaimed on the other side of an ocean.
So why, I think, furious at myself, why am I still this aware of him?
MATEO
She joins us at Tierney’s because it’s her last time with us.
I can see the respect in how the guys treat her now. Ward pulls out a chair for her without being asked. Barrett, who spent the first three weeks of January making her life difficult, brings her a drink she didn’t ask for and says something that makes her laugh.
Even Mercer.
I watch him walk up to her near the end of the first hour. He stands in front of her with his hands in his pockets, looking a little awkward.
I can’t hear what he says.
Whatever it is, she listens, and then she says something back, and he smiles and nods once, and that’s it, he walks away. I think she might be moved by it and is managing it with her usual precision.
Chen appears beside me. “You going to talk to her?”
“Probably.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, Chen. Tonight.”
“Because she leaves in-”
“I know when she leaves.”
He picks up his drink. “Just checking.”
Every time someone stops her, there’s something in the exchange that tells me how far this room has come since January.
And then she’s beside me.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
We stand at the bar for a moment, side by side. It feels both normal and weirdly charged at the same time.
“Can we talk?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s get some air.”
“No, I mean properly. Not here.”
“Yeah,” I say. I set down my beer. “I know a place.”
ELIDA
The cocktail bar is perfect - dark wood booths and low lighting. It’s the kind of place that exists for intimate conversations. We slide into a booth near the back and order cocktails without checking the menu.
“So,” he says. “What did Mercer say?”
I smile into my drink. “He came over looking like he’d rather be doing literally anything else. Said the guys wanted someone to say something and apparently they picked him.” And then he said - you made us way better. Don’t tell anyone I said that. And walked away before I could respond.”
He laughs, then shakes his head slowly, still smiling. “Huh. Good for him.”
“I was surprised.”
“He’s not a bad guy. He just needed-”
“Longer than most.”
“Yeah.” He picks up his drink. “Don’t we all.”
“Calloway mentioned the scout news. At my goodbye dinner. You’ve been trying to tell me.”
“You had a lot going on.”
“That’s not an excuse and you know it.”
“What did you want me to say, Elida? You were with someone else and then you were leaving and I was trying to-”
“To what?”
“To be good about it. The way you deserve.”
I think about the text he sent me - you deserve good things.
“Thank you. For that. All of it.” I take a sip of my drink. “I ended it with Jake properly. Today.”
Something barely perceptible flits behind his eyes.
“This place has been good,” I continue. “Really good. Better than I expected when I stepped off that plane in January not knowing anything about Minnesota or college hockey. But I want my old life back. Or a version of it. A better version. A clean slate.”
His eyes are unreadable. He takes a slow sip of his drink and looks at the table.
“What about you?” I ask. “What are you going to do?”
He looks up.
“Most likely Belfast Giants. EIHL. It’s solid. Calloway recommended it and it’s a good stepping stone.”
“Belfast,” I say.
“Belfast,” he confirms.
I turn my glass slowly. “You know the SHL has better teams.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Significantly better than anything in Belfast.” I keep my voice light. “Objectively.”
“Apparently Belfast has good connections,” he says, carefully.
“Sounds safe.”
“What are you saying? Why are you saying this?” He looks at me steadily. “You’re headed back to your competition career. You have a qualifier, a coach, a plan. What are you-”
“I don’t know.”
He blinks.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what’s possible and what’s-” I stop.
I’m aware of my eyes filling up before I can stop it. Because apparently this booth is where my composure finally decides enough is enough.
I press my lips together.
He’s watching me, half frustrated, half tender.
“Elida.”
“I’m fine.”
He exhales. “You can’t do this. You can’t sit there and say you want a clean slate and then tell me that Sweden has better teams in the same conversation.” He shakes his head. “What do you actually want? Forget what’s sensible or professional. What do you actually want?”
I don’t have an answer. Or I have too many answers, and none of them are ones I can say out loud with his eyes on me and my flight in a few days and everything still so raw and unresolved.
“I’m sorry.”
I slide out of the booth.
“Elida-”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I can’t.”
I go.
And he doesn’t follow.
MATEO
I let myself into my apartment with my head reeling.
What was that?
She’s leaving in a few days and she sits across from me and looks at me like that while telling me she wants a clean slate. And telling me Sweden has better teams.
I drop onto the sofa.
She’s leaving.
And she shouldn’t be making it harder than it already is. I’d made my peace with it - or I was making my peace with it, slowly. It’s not ok but it has to be. And that’s that.
A knock at the door.
I open it.
Elida is standing on the doorstep, slightly out of breath, cheeks pink from the cold. Her expression is terrified and certain at the same time.
“Come to Stockholm.”
I stare at her.
“There’s a showcase. Three weeks from now.
International scouts, SHL teams - Djurg?rdens will be there, Frolunda, all of them.
” She’s talking fast, like she’s been rehearsing this on the walk over and is saying it before she loses her nerve.
“It’s not Belfast. It’s not certain and I know it’s not what Calloway recommended. It’s bigger than that-”
“Elida. I’m not good enough for the SHL "
“You’re good enough,” she says. “You’ve always been good enough.
The skating work, the way you play - I’ve watched you all season and you belong on that ice.
The only thing standing between you and the SHL is your own certainty that you don’t.
And you’re wrong about that. You’ve been wrong about that. ”
I can’t tear my eyes from her.
“Come to Stockholm,” she says again, quieter now. “Not for me. For you. Because you’ve earned it and because maybe Belfast is the safe choice but you’ve never once in your life taken the safe choice on the ice so don’t start now.” She swallows. “But also-” She stops.
“Also?”
“Also, for me,” she says. “A little.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She gives me a look.
“Ok, I’ve thought about it,” I say, smiling.
Then I reach out, take the lapel of her coat and pull her gently through the door.