20. Jeremiah #2
I pull it over my head and hand it to her. She wipes her nose but then looks like she doesn’t know what to do with it now.
“You can keep it.” I fold her back in, chin on top of her head. “Listen, I’ve got a mandatory nap before the game.”
She sniffs into my bare chest. “They make you take naps? Like in preschool?”
I laugh. “Trust me, some of the guys act like preschoolers if they don’t get some zees.”
“I get a little cranky, too,” she admits.
“You can come with me. We’ll take a nap together. Or you can just watch me sleep. Or I’ll stand on this sidewalk, shirtless, as long as you need. I just don’t want to leave you or make you feel like I’m abandoning you.”
“I’m okay.” She pulls back, swipes under her nose with the shirt again. “I spent the last hour convinced you’d read that text and decided to bolt. I’m not upset about my dad. Much. I mean not more than usual.”
“You thought I ghosted you.” Because I didn’t answer her text right away. “Erica, I didn’t see your text until eleven. Coach made us put our phones away. And then when I did see it, all I could think about was getting to you. In hindsight, I should have called from the Uber.”
She laughs, short and wet, right in the middle of crying. “You should have called from the Uber.”
“I panicked.”
“Me too. And probably overreacted. But I want to tell you the rest of it. Just… not right now…standing on a stoop with my mascara halfway down my face.”
I tip her chin up so she’s looking at me. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me now?”
“I’m sure. One of my friends is having an existential crisis. So I’m not the only drama queen in town.”
I chuckle. “Will you be at the game tonight?”
“Yes, I’ll be at the game tonight.” She thinks for a second, then, “Can I bring Zoe?”
I glance past her shoulder at the door, half expecting a pair of eyes to still be watching through the gap.
“Of course. I’ll leave two tickets at will call.”
“Thanks.” There’s a ghost of a real smile now. “She’ll behave. Mostly.”
I kiss her softly, one hand on her jaw. She comes up onto her toes to meet me halfway. For about four seconds, the whole morning goes quiet. The text. Her truths. All of it.
Then I have a nap to get to.
I wait for her to go back inside, then walk back to the Four Seasons with no shirt on. It’s a hot day anyway.
When game time rolls around, I’m more determined than ever to make her happy, and decide I will win this for her. She’s had so few good things in her life. And although she’s probably indifferent to hockey, she deserves a small win.
After a rousing pep talk from Coach Badaszek, we go out on the ice for stretches, and that’s when I see her. Front row center, and wearing that ridiculous GILL POWER hat. I skate up to the glass and blow her a kiss and mouth the words, “This one’s for you.”
Her friend is with her. Zoe, I think her name is. But she’s looking the other way, taking video of the players doing stretches.
When it’s time for the national anthem, I’m surprised to see Izzy stepping out under the spotlight. Now, I don’t know if she’s Jake’s fake girlfriend or if it’s real between them. I can’t keep up. But, dang, that girl can sing.
I tell him so right before puck drop.
“Dude, your fake, slash, not-fake girlfriend killed it.”
He doesn’t even try to play it cool, the way he usually does. Just watches her walk off toward the tunnel, grinning in a way he usually reins in when the cameras are close.
“She really is amazing, isn’t she?”
I mean, not as amazing as my girl, but I’m not about to say that to a guy with that derpy look on his face.
Then the ref drops the puck, and the rest of the world goes away except skates on the ice, blue sweaters, and the black disk.
East ties it early, a tip that finds iron then mesh. I register it and move on. There’s a scrum in front of our net not long after, all of us shoving, nobody actually swinging. Looks worse from the stands than it feels from inside it, probably. No whistle. We skate away from it laughing.
East finds a gear we haven’t in the second.
Three unanswered, and for a few minutes the building sounds like one long groan from our side of it.
I don’t spiral. There’s no room for it, not with the next three seconds always sitting right there in front of me.
Somewhere in that stretch Dash buries the biscuit. We’re tied.
I fist-bump Dash, glove to glove, and keep moving.
East gets ahead again, twice more and they’re up six to four early in the third. But we’re not sitting on our hands, and Ted brings us up another point.
Then, about six minutes in, Stagmeier gets me with a cross-check, drawing a penalty for the Stripes, and a power play for us.
I find Stone in the right circle and set him up for a wrist shot. It’s in before the goalie’s weight finishes shifting. Six-six, we’re tied again.
With seconds left in the game, Houlihan moves in for the kill, and time stills for one split second. He’s going in for the winning shot. If he makes it, East takes home the cup. My heart skips a beat. The whole arena seems to hold one collective breath.
But Josh makes a savage blind glove save like he’s swatting a fly from the air. The final buzzer sounds.
The whole crowd stands up at once.
I can hardly believe it. We’re forced into sudden-death overtime.
Before getting off the ice to regroup in the locker room, I spare a glance at Erica. Her friend is chatting it up with a guy sitting next to them. But Erica has her nose to the glass, both palms pressed against it, and her jaw unhinged down to her chest.