Chapter 7 #2
"Still no."
Five minutes later, Toby reappears with another jersey.
Adult size.
Again, with Colby's number.
I stare at it.
"No."
Toby looks wounded. "I went to considerable effort."
"You walked to a closet."
"A heroic closet."
Liam leans against the boards. "It would be rude to reject team hospitality."
Jamie says nothing, which somehow again feels like betrayal.
Colby is trying not to smile. Failing. Badly.
"You too?" I ask him.
He lifts both hands. "I know better than to interfere with team hospitality."
Jillie presses the jersey into my hands.
"Please, Mom."
There are many reasons to refuse.
Good reasons.
Practical reasons.
Emotionally responsible reasons.
I put it on anyway.
The jersey is too big. Warm. Navy.
His number is across my arms and back.
Colby looks at me. Just looks.
The teasing fades from his expression so quickly my breath catches.
For one second, the whole arena seems to go quiet.
Then Toby whispers loudly, "Oh, that's excellent."
Colby does not look away from me.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "It is."
I do not know what to do with that.
So, I look down at Jillie, who is bouncing in her matching jersey with the stuffed moose tucked under one arm.
"Happy?"
"Very."
"Good."
My voice sounds almost normal.
Almost.
The longer we are there, the more I start seeing Colby differently.
Not the way fans see him.
Not the way reporters write about him.
Not even the way Briar Cove has started looking at him, like a local boy accidentally starring in the town's favorite romance rumor.
Here, inside the Blizzards facility, Colby is something else.
Respected.
Known.
Needed.
A young player stops him near the hallway and asks about a play from practice.
Colby listens carefully, then explains without impatience.
An equipment manager teases him about finally bringing decent snacks into the building.
A trainer reminds him about shoulder stretches.
A receptionist waves at him like he is a nephew she has known forever.
He belongs here too.
That's what unsettles me.
Not because I thought he didn't.
Because I had started, selfishly, privately, dangerously, to think maybe he belonged mostly with us.
But this place has pieces of him I don't know.
Loyalty.
History.
Pressure.
People who care about him.
People who expect things from him.
And somehow, instead of making him feel farther away, it makes him feel more real.
The public version of Colby Reid is too famous to trust.
The bakery version is too kind to survive.
This version, the man moving through his own world with quiet patience and the easy confidence of someone who has earned respect, is harder to dismiss.
Much harder.
I’m standing near the glass watching him talk with a younger player when cold slips through my sweater.
I rub my hands together. Not dramatically. Barely at all.
Two minutes later, Colby's team jacket settles over my shoulders.
I look up.
He doesn't pause. Doesn't make an announcement. Doesn't ask if I'm cold. He just drapes it around me and keeps listening to the player in front of him.
As if taking care of me is automatic.
As if he has stopped thinking about whether he should.
The jacket smells faintly like cedar, soap, and cold air.
I should take it off.
I do not take it off.
Jamie appears beside me a few minutes later, hands in his pockets, gaze on the ice.
"You know," he says quietly, "we haven't seen him this happy in a long time."
I turn toward him.
He keeps watching Colby.
"I'm not sure what to say to that."
"You don't have to say anything."
Across the ice, Colby crouches beside Jillie, adjusting the strap on the oversized helmet again while she gestures wildly with both hands, probably explaining a rule she invented three seconds ago.
He listens like it matters.
Like she matters.
Jamie glances at me.
"He's good at looking fine when he isn't."
The words land softly.
He does not say them dramatically.
That makes them harder to ignore.
"I know that look," Jamie continues. "I've seen it after bad games. Bad headlines. Bad stretches where he acts like if he keeps moving fast enough, nobody will notice how tired he is."
My throat tightens.
I think of Colby in my bakery kitchen, carrying boxes like he has nowhere else to be.
Colby in Peterson's Market, standing beside me and Jillie like ordinary things matter.
Colby at the charity skate, reaching for my daughter before anyone else even moved.
"And now?" I ask before I can stop myself.
Jamie's expression softens.
"Now he looks like he's breathing again."
I look away.
Because that’s too much.
Too close to something tender.
Too close to something I am not ready to name.
On the ice, Jillie laughs.
Colby looks over at the sound and smiles. Not for cameras. Not for the team.
For her.
Then his eyes find mine through the glass. For me.
My heart forgets how to behave.
Jamie watches the exchange. Then, still in that quiet captain’s voice, he asks, "How serious is this?"
I freeze.
The answer should be simple.
It isn't real.
It is temporary.
It started because of a photograph.
It started because the internet decided a sad little girl on a hockey player's shoulders looked like a secret family.
It started because my daughter cried in front of cameras.
It started for all the wrong reasons.
Before I can decide which lie sounds safest, Jamie looks back toward the ice.
Colby is helping Jillie balance in the oversized helmet while Toby pretends to announce her debut like she is entering a championship game. Liam is filming on someone's phone. Jillie is laughing so hard she can barely stand.
Colby laughs too.
Openly.
Easily.
Like a man who forgot anyone might be watching.
Jamie nods once, as if answering his own question.
"Because he looks pretty serious to me."
Then he walks away.
Just like that.
No pressure.
No explanation.
No rescue from what he has left behind.
I stand there in Colby's jacket, wearing Colby's number, watching my daughter laugh with Colby's teammates.
Watching Colby glance over again, softer this time, like he is checking whether I am still there.
I am.
That's the problem.
I am there.
In his world.
In his jacket.
In a version of his life that should have nothing to do with me.
And for the first time, I wonder whether Colby forgot some of the rules long before I did.
Then he smiles at me through the glass, warm and unguarded and entirely too real.
And a much scarier thought follows.
Maybe he didn't forget them.
Maybe he stopped caring.