Nick
Iarrive at the rink before the dawn cracks over the horizon, when the world still feels half-asleep and the parking lot is a frozen wasteland of tire tracks and old snow. The building hums quietly, like it’s stretching awake.
I nod back at her and walk up to the ice, where I find Hank already suited up and skating in a corner.
“I got here early,” he says, reading my concerned mind. “I only have an hour. A customer called with a clogged toilet, and they’re hosting a Christmas party tonight, so...”
“Duty calls.” I start walking to the locker room then stop. “Wait. I should rephrase that.”
A few minutes later, I step out onto the ice in full goalie gear.
Every inch of me is covered in thick pads.
A gaggle of kids are being led in a figure skating class on one side of the rink.
I skate to the far end where Hank’s set up a net in the corner of the ice.
Through his helmet and mask guard, I can see his beaming grin, which instantly puts me at ease.
“The class is letting us have this space. It’s a good thing we’re goalies. We’re not moving much on the ice, you know?”
“Thanks for meeting up with me and helping. I know this is inconvenient for you.”
He waves off my concern. “Nah, we’re good, pal.”
“Do you call everyone your pal?”
“Only those who are worthy of the title.”
I feel a flutter in my chest, honored that I’ve made the cut in his opinion.
“It’s something my dad did. He loved people. Ready to become a wall?”
“A slightly less leaky wall would be ideal.”
He laughs. “We’ll get you there.”
On the ice, he starts simple. Very simple.
“First drill,” Hank says, skating backward. “Edge work. No puck yet. Just movement.”
He has me shuffle side to side in my crease, pushing off one skate, then the other.
“Short pushes,” he coaches. “Don’t hop. Glide. Imagine you’re a crab. A crab who stops goals.”
My skates wobble, but I focus on the edges, pushing cleanly instead of panicking. It feels better. Controlled.
“There you go!” Hank beams. “That’s it. Feel the ice.”
We repeat it again and again. Left. Right. Left. Right. My thighs burn, but I start to notice the rhythm. He tosses in commands.
“Post! Center! Post!”
I scramble to follow, bumping the post once with my pad.
“Ow.”
“Pads are your friends,” he says. “Trust ’em. Okay, next we’re going to do butterfly drops. I saw you do them at practice the other day, and…”
“They stunk?”
“There’s a lot of room for improvement.”
I studied up on Baltimore, but I should’ve been practicing my hockey.
“The key components to a butterfly drop: drop to the ice on your knees, spread your legs to block a shot, and seal your five-hole. Sounds sexier than it is.”
I snort a laugh.
“Okay”—Hank knocks on my helmet—“drop fast, seal the ice, then pop back up.”
He demonstrates—smooth, athletic, like gravity personally cooperates with him. Even though Hank is a bigger guy, he has the stealth agility of a gymnast. His legs must be all muscle. He must be dynamite in bed. The positions we could do…
I tamp down that thought so hard.
“Your turn,” he says.
When I attempt a butterfly flop, I collapse like a folding chair. And yet in the back of my mind are remnants of memories from my boarding school hockey practice. My coach had said something similar.
“Don’t throw yourself down. Control it.”
I reset, breathe, then drop again—cleaner this time. I manage to get back up without flailing.
“Yes!” Hank pumps a fist. “Fill out a withdrawal slip at your local bank because that was money. Do it again.”
I drop to my knees, legs out, this time with more control over my body.
“Yes!” he yells. “Someone call another Nick—Nicholas Cage—because that was a national treasure. Another one!”
This time, I get down a second faster than the last time and push myself up with greater leg strength. I bob my head up to Hank who throws his arms in the air.
“Did I get lost and wind up in an art museum? Because all I’m seeing are absolute masterpieces!”
Without his prompting, I do three more butterfly drops in quick succession. I work leg muscles I didn’t know existed. My confidence skyrockets.
“Am I looking at my son’s report card? Because all I’m seeing are A-pluses!”
“Son?” I’m snapped out of our practice. “You have a son?”
“Yeah. He’s going off to college next year.” He pulls a wallet-sized picture from inside one of his arm pads. “I keep this with me for good luck when I play.”
“He’s a handsome guy.” I spot parts of Hank in him, and his inherent kindness radiates.
“He’s insanely smart. Smarter than I ever was. He has a bright future ahead of him.”
“I’ll bet.” I feel a tug at my heart, both thinking of how caring and attentive Hank must be as a dad, but also a feeling of regret. For the first time, it hits me that I may not get to experience this. I hand back the photo.
“He’s got my hair and his mom’s eyes.”
“His…mom?” Hank is straight. That was the likely outcome. But straight and married? Man, did I pick the wrong guy to fall for.
“That’s nice,” I say. My spirits do their own butterfly drop. “You can see your wife whenever you look at him.”
“That’s kind of the problem,” he laughs nervously. “Ex-wife.”
I nod as it all clicks.
“Not the reminder I want. But it’s been so many years, I don’t even notice anymore.”
“How long has it been?” The question tumbles out of me. I have an unquenchable thirst for facts about Hank.
He does the math in his head. He’s astounded by the answer. “Nine years.”
“I’m sorry. Or not?” I bite my lip. “What is the proper thing to say about someone’s divorce?”
“Don’t be sorry. It was definitely a good thing.
She is…she’s not a fun gal to be around.
You know the kind of person who can always find the silver lining in something?
What’s the opposite of that person?” For the first time, I hear a laugh with a hard edge from Hank.
I kick myself for nudging us into this topic.
“I’m sorry. That sounds really rough.”
“My folks told me marriage has its ups and downs. They were together over thirty years and had their share of rough times. But me and Cathy, at some point, we only seemed to have downs.”
The joy stamped on his face fades from view for a moment. Nine years and yet some pain lingers. That’s the downside of muscle memory. Pieces of our past will remain inside us.
“Getting divorced is like getting a root canal. It’s necessary and painful, but it’s even more painful if you don’t get one and let your teeth rot. And once it’s over, you feel so much better. Now, when I look at Brody, I don’t see her or me. I just see him.”
Talking about his son immediately boosts his mood. Pride radiates off him. Could this guy be any sweeter?
“She’s getting remarried. I’m happy that she found someone,” he says.
“You don’t have to do that.” I don’t know this woman or what transpired, but fuck her. Anger flares inside my chest. “You don’t have to be happy for her, even if she is the mother of your son.”
“Cathy has a lot of anger. Anytime she gets something she wants, it only seems to make her unhappier. She’s getting married to this rich guy. A CFO. But she still seems angry.” He shrugs, unable to comprehend.
“Some people only focus on the negative. I know people who are extremely wealthy, who’ve never had to work a day in their life, who have access to all the privileges in the world, and they still find ways to be miserable.”
“You know people like that? What kind of circles do you run in?”
“Uh…family friends.”
I realize exactly why I never could be friends with other royals or socialites. It’s astounding how many of them are unhappy and completely blind to their blessings. My parents, especially my mother, worked to imbue me with gratitude for our station in life.
Hank skates around the goal. “What about you? You ever been married?”
“Me? No.”
“Smart guy. I’d have to think long and hard before getting married again.”
Hank is a total catch, and it breaks my heart that he would live out his life alone because of one awful woman. Who would want to be mean to this guy? Cathy probably kicks puppies in her spare time.
“Let’s move onto rebound control.” Hank motions for me to get back in goal. He flips soft shots at my pads.
“Direct it to the corners,” he says. “Angle your pads. You don’t want juicy rebounds.”
“Juicy is bad?”
“Extremely bad.”
I deflect a puck cleanly to the side.
“Did you book a mani-pedi for today? Because you nailed it!” Hank shouts.
My chest warms in a way that has nothing to do with exertion.
“What about you? Tell me about your life in Baltimore,” he says. We go back and forth with the pucks. Him sending them to the net, and me trying to block them.
“My life in Baltimore.” I let a puck through as I recount my research with Millie.
“I’m an accountant. I love Matthew’s Pizza.
I live walking distance to the Inner Harbor.
I grew up in Owings Mills, a suburb. I’m in a book club with some coworkers, and we spend more time drinking wine than we do discussing the book. You know, pretty low-key life.”
My heart sinks with each lie that comes out of my mouth. Hank shared with me personal information about his son and his divorce, and here I am abusing his trust. Maybe now I get why a royal Rumspringa isn’t more of a thing.
“Sounds nice. I should check out Baltimore one of these days. Do you do personal taxes then?”
“Uh, yeah.” Adding machines are as foreign to me as spaceships.
“Nice. Do you work for a firm?”
“No. I…” I didn’t think through my lie thoroughly enough. I err on the side of quasi-truth. “It’s a family business. I work with my dad.”
“Oh, that’s awesome.”
“It’s not that awesome. He’s very exacting. He wants things done a certain way. The way they’ve always been done. And even when you do things his way, it’s never good enough.” My hands tense on my stick.
“You can always leave. Start your own firm,” Hank says.
“It’s not that easy.”
“My old man was kinda the same way. Not as severe as yours.” Hank rubs my shoulder to cheer me up, and his touch lightens me.
“Something I realized after he passed was that he wanted things done his way because that’s all he knew.
I think he was scared of trying new things.
It’d amaze you how many people are. Maybe your old man is the same. ”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. The king has generations of traditions he’s trying to uphold in Ardenia. He takes the crown very seriously, and there will be no deviations from tradition.
“Or maybe he just likes the control. He’s very image conscious. I got in trouble when I was in univers–when I was in college.”
“What’d you do?”
“I’d rather not say.” I still see the glare of disappointment and disgust in my father’s eye. “But my dad bailed me out and was mad at me. Really mad. I’d brought embarrassment upon our house.”
“Maybe he was scared for you, scared about what could’ve happened.
” Hank takes off his helmet and scratches his head.
Sweat soaks the tips of his hair. “When my son was four, he wandered outside and across the street to play in a neighbor’s sprinkler.
I ran over as fast as I could. I’ve never yelled so much at him.
He burst into tears, these big heaping sobs.
I felt awful. I still feel awful. I wasn’t mad at him, but I panicked.
I’ve never been so terrified. He ran into the street. He could’ve…well, it could’ve been bad.
“Your dad just panicked. It sounds like whatever happened was pretty serious.” Hank shrugs. “Then again, I don’t know the guy, so I could be totally off base.”
Have I got the king pegged all wrong? I file the thought away for later. It’s scary how easy it is to open up to Hank, and how desperately I’d been missing having someone to confide in.
Hank skates around the goal. “I have a question. I always take the standard deduction, but this year, I’m wondering if I should itemize.
I bought some new equipment, and I want to make sure I account for the right depreciation value.
What are your thoughts on itemization? Some accountants worry that it’ll make me more susceptible to an audit. ”
And it’s now that I remember Jolly Hank is a small business owner. The sad fact about royalty is that even though we have loads of money, we don’t know much about how it works. That’s what we pay people to remember for us.
“Itemization is…a different way to go.”
“Do you recommend it for your clients?”
I open my mouth and hope something smart will come out. “Well, there’s itemization, and it sounds like you have items. So that’s something to consider. But then there’s…the standard deduction.”
Still waiting for something smart to come out. Come on, fancy education. Don’t fail me now.
“And it’s standard, so, you know, standard means it’s something people generally do. The point is you have options, Hank. The freedom to choose. It’s an American right. Americans love freedom. We love freedom. Freedom is important, so you need to exercise your freedom.”
Is there any chance I can crash through the ice now? I give Hank a firm nod to underline my point, whatever it was.
“Man, I forget how confusing taxes are. It’s way too early for me to think about numbers.” Hank rubs a hand through his hair. He points for me to get back in goal. “Let’s do some glove work.”
Hank fires pucks gently at first.
“Watch it into the glove,” he says. “Don’t swipe. Let it fall in.”
One puck bounces off my palm and hits me in the mask.
“Okay, not that,” I say.
“You’ll get it,” he promises. “Again.”
The next one lands in my glove. I stare at the puck, shocked at my amazing reflexes. Maybe I don’t suck at this.
“YES,” Hank yells. “Are we in San Francisco in 1849 because that’s gold!”
We finish with a reaction drill. Hank stands ten feet away with three pucks.
“Don’t overthink,” he warns. “Just react.”
He shoots them rapid-fire. I stop one with my blocker, one with my pad, and miss the third entirely.
“Two outta three,” he says. “That’s progress.”
I’m gasping now, sweat dripping into my eyes, but I feel alive. Accomplished. Like my body is remembering something important. Hank gleams with sweat, too, his light eyes sparkling under the lights of the rink.
We lean on our sticks to catch our breath.
“Thanks for this,” I say quietly. “For believing I can actually do this.”
Hank looks at me, serious for once. “Because you can do this.”
I follow him off the ice. We sit on the bench, take off our helmets. The figure skating kids twirl in front of us.
“Maybe we can squeeze in another practice on Friday,” he says.
Something settles in my chest. A strange, hopeful weight. “I’d like that.”