Chapter 20
TWENTY
I’m fried by the end of school on Wednesday. I have extensive notes for the teacher subbing for my classes the next two days, but I’m still anxious about leaving. I give my classroom one last look, then head out and lock the door behind me.
Is it weird I’m going to miss this place? I’ve never felt such a strong purpose as waking up every day to come here to teach and coach.
Grady’s heading toward the ice as I get to the rink.
“There are a couple of big boxes for you in the office. They were delivered today.” He wears a quizzical look. “Did we order something and I already forgot?”
“No. I don’t think so. Are you sure they’re addressed to me?”
“Positive.”
I think back, racking my brain for what it could be. “Maybe the custodial staff has started sending the disinfectant and air freshener directly to the rink.”
Grady chuckles softly. “It’s a big box but maybe still not quite enough to do the job.”
I head to the office to find out for myself. I come up short in the doorway. Grady said the boxes were big, but these are comically large. For one, they’re as tall as I am and two . . . I can barely budge them.
Through the wall I can hear a few of the boys in the locker room still getting ready for practice. I yell out to whoever is there, “Can I get a hand in the office?”
It takes all my strength to pull one of the boxes out into the hallway.
“Whoa.” Landon comes up short when he sees the giant box.
“Can you help me lay this flat so I can open it?”
“Yeah.” He jumps to action, moving to the other side. Together, we drop it onto its side. The box is now blocking my path to the office.
“I forgot to grab scissors,” I say.
Landon gives me a half grin, then climbs over the box.
“Middle drawer,” I say to him as I scan the label. The return address says it’s from Moonshot Hockey. I’m more confused than ever. Did Conrad send me a giant bouquet of sunflowers? I smile at the prospect. I wouldn’t put it past him.
“Here you go.” Landon holds out the scissors to me.
“Thanks.” Anticipation and excitement bubble to the surface as I cut the shipping tape on both sides, then move the blade down the center of the long box.
I glance once more at Landon before I open it.
I can’t picture Conrad sending me something inappropriate to the school, but I suddenly wish I didn’t have an audience.
I pull open one side, but still don’t know what I’m looking at. There are just too many of them and the items are packaged in foam and bubble wrap. Landon, however, knows immediately what’s inside.
“No freaking way,” he says, voice filled with awe. “Are these for us?”
He pulls out a carefully wrapped hockey stick.
“I think they are,” I say, grinning wider.
There must be two dozen brand-new sticks. Between two boxes that’s enough for all the kids on JV and varsity.
My heart flutters in my chest.
“This is just like D-Low’s.” He pulls the foam off the blade of the stick, still smiling with complete reverence.
It does something to me hearing him call Danny by the nickname that Conrad and his other teammates use. The sticks were sent to me, but this is a gift for my team. Which is somehow even better.
“Why don’t you grab a few and take them down to the ice when you go,” I say.
“Okay.” Eagerly, Landon fills his arms with as many as he can carry.
I maneuver the box back into the office and then pull out my phone. Conrad answers on the second ring.
“Hey.” He sounds pleasantly surprised that I’m calling. We usually text. In the background, people are talking, and music is playing.
“You just made at least one young man very happy,” I say.
“The sticks arrived?” he guesses.
“Yeah. Landon was with me when I opened the first box, and he practically floated out of the office. That was really nice. The rest of the boys are going to be thrilled too.”
“I can’t take all the credit. D-Low and I were talking about how much the kid liked using his stick, so we thought they could use some new ones. I hope it’s okay.”
“More than okay. Thank you and thank Danny for me.”
“I will.”
“When I saw the size of the boxes all I could think about were giant sunflowers.”
He chuckles into the phone. “Wish I’d thought of that. There is something yellow in there for you though.”
“There is?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I dig back through the box, looking for something besides hockey sticks, when a yellow one catches my eye.
I burst into laughter as I pull it out of the box. It’s a pale yellow hue, nearly identical to the shade of tape I use to wrap my stick. And it has the same curve and flex. I have no idea how he knew my preferences, but he matched it perfectly. “Flowers are nice, but hockey sticks last longer.”
He chuckles softly. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Are you at the rink?”
“Yep. I stayed after our team meeting to lift weights with Galaxy and Trav, but we’re mostly just shooting the shit. Ruby’s out of town and Hannah’s at the gym so they aren’t in any hurry to leave. Shouldn’t practice be starting there?”
I love that he knows my schedule. “Grady is getting the teams warmed up. We’re doing corner battles today.”
“Still pushing hard, huh?”
I murmur my agreement. I’m not sure it’s doing any good, but then again maybe it’s too soon to tell. “I should get out there. I wish I could thank you in person later.”
“What time is your flight in the morning?” he asks.
“Six.”
“Ouch.”
“The team plays at home tomorrow and then in Florida on Friday?” I’m stalling to stay on the phone with him. I’m only going to be gone five days, but I’m going to miss seeing him. And talking to him will be hard with Victor around.
“That’s right. Then we’re off Saturday and Sunday.”
“It figures that your only two days off this month coincide with me being gone.”
“I’ll make time to see you when you get back.”
“K.” I linger, wishing we could keep talking. “I better go. I’ll text you later.”
“Alright.” He sounds as reluctant as I feel.
When we hang up, I change into my skates and head to the ice. The boys are already set up for two-on-two corner drills. In every corner of the rink, our goalies are in place. Grady is at center ice, rotating his attention between all the groups.
He tips his head up when he spots me. “Heard we got some new gear courtesy of our pro hockey friends.”
“Yeah.” I skate out to join him. “New sticks for all the boys.”
He eyes the stick in my hand and lifts both brows. I smile, completely ignoring the silent question. “How are they looking today?”
“Not bad,” he says as he folds his arms over his chest. “Not great either.”
He raises his voice to call out to the boys. “Don’t forget on change of possession you have to tag up at the goal line before you can attack the net.”
Grady and I split up to watch the groups more closely.
The two teams are combined so they’re playing in pairings that aren’t as familiar to them.
In some cases, it’s exciting to see JV players who can hold their own with the older boys, but for others, it only showcases how big the gap is in their talent.
I feel for those boys. Almost always, their second and third turns are worse than the first. And each screwup only makes their confidence drop more.
“I don’t know if some of your boys are ever going to be ready,” Grady says to me as we’re nearing the end of practice. “Maybe we should cut some of them loose.”
My stomach drops. “You’d cut them halfway through the season?”
“I don’t know.” He looks pained at the prospect. “It’s the last thing I want to do, but I can’t help but think I’m doing these boys a disservice somehow. Nothing we do is making a difference. Some kids have it and some don’t.”
I feel a flush of embarrassment on their behalf. I know exactly what it’s like to have coaches give up on you or think you aren’t worth their time.
“Can I try something when this drill is over?” I ask him.
He rotates his arm to check his watch. “We only have ten minutes left.”
“It won’t take long,” I promise.
I blow the whistle and call for the boys to move the goals back in place. It takes a couple minutes for them to do that and remove the two extras, then I have them stay on their respective ends of the ice but line up single file facing the goal line.
“I’m going to be gone the rest of the week so how about before I leave, you show me how many goals you can make in ten minutes?” I yell out at them.
There’s a murmur of agreement and excitement.
“A shoot-out?” someone asks.
“That’s right. From center ice. The team that scores the most in the next three minutes wins, but every single player gets a turn.”
They visibly grow more excited as they line up. Grady divvies up pucks on either side, and our goalies stay near the nets to help send them back to their teams.
“Everyone ready?” I ask, bringing my whistle to my lips.
They nod.
“Oh, and one more thing. It has to hit the crossbar and drop in to count.” I blow the whistle.
“That was fun,” Grady says as the boys are filing off the ice. They’re slower to leave, talking to each other about the shoot-out, bragging about how many they made or how close they got.
“Yeah. It was.”
“But I’m not sure how it’s going to help them get the necessary skills to be competitive.”
“Me either,” I confess. “But I’d rather them leave here happy and still enjoying the game than dreading the next practice.”
“It doesn’t matter how they feel. It matters that they’re willing to put in the work.”
“I don’t agree.”
“You’re new to this,” he says like it’s my inexperience that’s making me idealize this situation. Maybe it is.
“Even so, I’d like to keep doing things like this with them in practice.”
He winces.
“A few minutes each day. That’s all I’m asking for. And if it doesn’t make a difference by the playoffs, then I’ll drop it.”
He nods his agreement, but still looks unconvinced. “Fine, but regular practice comes first and you get whatever time is left after we’ve gone through our planned routine.”
It isn’t much, but I’ll take it.
Speaking of dreading things . . .
My flight to Houston arrives early. We made great time according to the pilot, who sounded very happy with himself about this. But since I’m already a ball of anxiety about seeing my dad, I would have been perfectly content taxiing to the gate a little longer.
It’s just after noon, local time. I roll my carry-on to baggage claim and look for the driver Victor sent, but it’s my brother who’s waiting for me.
“I thought you’d be at practice,” I say, stepping to him and lifting my arms to circle his neck.
“I have a break until three.” He hugs me loosely, then takes my suitcase from me.
In his car, I roll down the window and let the sun hit my face. Victor shoots me an amused smirk.
“I missed this. It’s already freezing in Montana.”
“It was eighty here last week.”
I stick my tongue out at him. There’s something about being in my brother’s presence that always turns me into a petulant child. And I love to see him lighten up a bit, which he does by rolling his eyes at me and then returning the gesture.
When we get to his house, I’m hit with a sense of nostalgia. I never lived here, but I spent so much time here, I feel a sense of ownership to it anyway. Victor goes around to the back of his car to get my suitcase, but I rush inside to see Bella.
She greets me with a wag of her tail that makes her entire body wiggle and a whimper of excitement. I drop to the floor in front of her. She crowds my face and licks my cheek while I scratch behind her floppy, gray ears. She has a stripe of white between her eyes that goes down her nuzzle.
“Oh, I missed you,” I say to her. “And you smell so nice. Did you have a bath this morning?”
She looks up from me only to watch as her owner rolls my bag to the bottom of the stairs, then returns to giving me all her attention.
It’s cold in the house. Victor prefers it that way. Sixty-four degrees, year-round.
“The fridge is stocked, and the guest room is ready for you,” he says.
“You have a guest room?” I ask.
“Yes,” he replies with no other explanation.
Besides the master, an office, and a bedroom he converted into a home gym, the remaining two rooms were only ever used for storage. It seems things have changed since I left.
“I’m going to go for a bike ride before I head back to the rink,” Victor says, resting a hand on the banister.
“Oh.” I fight a flicker of disappointment. “Already? I thought we’d have a little time today before dinner with Dad.”
“About that . . .” Victor trails off. A look of regret crosses his face, but he smooths it out quickly.
“He canceled?” I guess as I pull Bella onto my lap and continue petting her.
“Something came up, but he rescheduled the reservation for Saturday night.”
I don’t bother noting that I came a day early specifically because my father said it worked better for him. It isn’t Victor’s fault, and he’s bailing on him too.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Maybe we can order dinner in,” Victor says.
“Sure.”
Without another word he heads up the stairs.
I look at Bella. “Looks like it’s just me and you.”