2. Hudson
HUDSON
Sticky’s is loud in an easy way—goal horns on the TV, fry grease that smells like a hug, wood tables carved up with initials from a decade of regulars.
It sits two blocks from the arena like a little brother with a scar and a big mouth.
Win or lose, the place makes room for us.
Lately it’s been lose more than win. Baltimore loves us anyway. It’s not pity either. It’s pride.
Every time we drop a game, there’s somebody on the sidewalk afterward with a kid on their shoulders yelling, “Next time!” like it’s a prayer.
The city knows we show up, even if we don’t win every game.
We do charity skates, youth clinics, food drives, build days, reading to second graders who only sit still when we do the voices—there’s always something.
The losing streak bites. The support doesn’t.
I’m at a high-top with a water and a basket of fries I keep stealing from myself.
I could drink. I don’t. I like the edge clean when I need it.
The team is scattered around—coats over chair backs, beanies and ball caps, the same jokes we’ve told for years coming out fresh because a rookie hasn’t heard them yet.
On the makeshift dance floor by the jukebox, Fitz and Rocco are doing that polite shuffle with a pair of puck bunnies.
The women are laughing, hair shiny under neon, hands on forearms. Fitz smiles with his mouth, not his eyes.
Rocco moves like a man who knows the beat but doesn’t want to be on it.
I know my guys. From diapers to daycare and beyond—our families kept ending up in the same places like magnets.
We were the trio who hogged the monkey bars, then the ice, then the back bench of the team bus.
When billeting wasn’t required, we still lived together because we wanted to, not because we had to.
We still choose the same orbit on purpose. A big apartment, one shared calendar on the fridge, a rotation for dishes we ignore, and a standing rule that whoever has first wake-up gets the first shower. Living together isn’t arrested development; it’s a form of survival.
Around them, the bad part of my temper has nowhere to land. I remember I’m more than a player who skates angry—I’m a person who laughs loud, cooks when my hands won’t stop, and sleeps hard because the people I love are a room away.
“Hey, Hud,” someone says behind me. I don’t have to turn to know it’s one of ours. “You going to tell your boy Fitz to stop breaking hearts? That girl’s gonna think he’s in love.”
“Fitz is allergic. She’ll be fine.”
The jukebox flips to an old hit everybody pretends not to like, and Fitz throws his head back and laughs like someone just told him a secret he already knew. Rocco says something to his partner that makes her cover her mouth to hide a snort. He’ll play polite until he can find his exit.
My phone buzzes but I don’t check it. I’m trying to make a habit of being where my feet are.
Besides, tonight is for the same ritual we do after every home game—we show up at Sticky’s, we let the city see that we’re not disappearing into our cars with our heads down.
We tip too much, we put our hands on a hundred shoulders on our way through the door.
One of the servers splits the check and pretends to mess it up so we all have to throw in extra. It’s a game inside a game.
The puck bunnies switch partners and end up with Fitz dipping one of them like we’re at prom.
He’s strong as a roof beam and gentle as a lab with a baby, so it looks like a romance cover.
He’s not into it. He’ll smile as long as it’s kind.
He won’t take a number. He says “thank you” like he means it when they peel off to the bathroom in pairs.
A couple of the guys at our table start in with the usual: Why are you leaving early?
It’s Thursday. Nobody has morning skate.
Get wrecked with us. I have less patience for it when we’re losing, not because I’m mad at them, but because I don’t want to pretend I can outrun how much I hate not winning by drinking with people who love me whether I do or not.
“Got deliveries at dawn,” I say. “Old folks get mean when I’m late.”
“They get mean when you’re early too,” Rocco says, easing up beside me. He’s got his smile on the way you put a jacket back on when you step into wind.
“You done playing nice?”
“She liked my voice,” he says, like it’s a punch line to a joke only we tell. He taps his throat. “Said it sounded like whiskey in a church.”
“Gross,” I say, and grin. “Fitz?”
Fitz slides in on my other side, breathless like he’s been running. “She was pretty,” he says, honest as always. “Just not the right pretty.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is for me.” He swipes a fry and makes a face at how cold it is, then eats it anyway because he won’t waste food ever.
The guys know the schedule. I say it anyway because saying it makes me feel like I’m tucking something in for the night. “I’m out by eleven,” I tell them. “Deliveries. Roc has the early shift at the rescue. Fitz has a foundation pour at sunrise.”
“ Ceremony ,” Fitz says, making it sound fancier. “We do the first shovelful with the family and the donors. Then I make the actual crew mad by asking to help.”
“You do help,” Rocco says. “You bring doughnuts.”
“Bringing doughnuts is transformational leadership,” Fitz says, and deadpans so hard I choke.
We start the exit. A couple of guys groan like we’re old.
It’s friendly. Half the room volunteers somewhere in the morning too.
One of the rookies calls after us, “Don’t get too wholesome, grandma!
” and I throw him a look that says I’ll put him into the stanchion at practice if he keeps using his outside voice inside. He laughs and toasts me with his beer.
We settle the tab, overtip on purpose, make the round of handshakes and hugs. Sticky’s door breathes us out into the cold. Wet concrete scent fills the air, and the arena lights are still on in that maintenance way that makes the building look like it’s waiting for us to finally get it right.
We walk to my car because I volunteered to drive. I like being the one with the keys, the one who sets the speed and the music. Control is a good fence for me.
Fitz sets the radio to low and talks over it like he always does when he doesn’t want to think too much. “I should have told her I had to rescue a ravine at dawn,” he says. “That’s not a lie. The trench for the footer’s a ravine if you squint.”
“She didn’t ask,” Rocco says. “She wanted the idea of you.”
“She wanted a ride on the beard,” I say, checking the mirror.
“I’ll shave it,” he threatens.
“I’ll pay you to.” Rocco leans his head back and closes his eyes like he’s powering down. He’ll fall asleep if we don’t keep him talking.
We peel away from the curb and the city slides past. There’s the mural with the giant violin we always make jokes about when we’re late to sound check for the charity concert.
There’s the corner where the buskers fight over the good Saturday afternoon slot like it pays more than pride.
There’s the stretch of road where the potholes know our names.
Baltimore is a series of rooms I know by heart.
“You danced longer than you had to,” I say, because I’m not letting it go. “Both of you.”
Rocco cracks one eye and yawns. “She liked my voice.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s an answer to why I didn’t feel like being the reason someone cried in a bathroom,” he says. “I got trapped once by a bridesmaid at my cousin’s wedding. I learned my lesson. You put a time cap on the nice, and then you send signals.”
“What signals?” Fitz asks, too innocent.
“The ones where you become boring on purpose so they take pity on you,” Rocco says. “I told her about the shelter intake process in alphabetical order until she started nodding like her neck hurt.”
Fitz barks a laugh and then bites it back. “Mine was pretty,” he says again, like he’s testing the word. “Just not the right one.”
“What’s the right one?” I ask.
“I’ll know when it’s in front of me,” he says.
We roll through a green that’s going to turn the second we clear the intersection. I let the car do its thing and keep my hands loose at ten-and-two. I’m trying to be better about white-knuckling. There’s no reason to bring the game home when the game didn’t ask to be a passenger.
“Tomorrow’s deliveries,” Fitz says, the way you ask a kid to talk about something they love, to help them settle before bedtime. He knows my tricks too.
I shrug. “Same seven as last week unless the list rotates. Ms. Delaney will say I’m late even if I’m early.
Mr. Pitts will try to give me ten dollars for bringing the paper up with the bag even though it’s free.
The twins will ask how many fights I got into and then argue over whether practice counts. ”
“Practice doesn’t count,” Rocco says.
“Don’t start,” I warn, but I’m smiling. The argument is older than the rookies. It feels good in my mouth.
Traffic thins as we get into our neighborhood. It’s fancy. Fitz picked it because the landlord doesn’t care how loud we are at two in the morning and the parking lot is big enough for Fitz’s truck and my ridiculous quad of storage bins.
We get out and the cold slaps my cheeks awake.
I like the feeling. It’s clean. The hallway inside is warm in that radiators-have-opinions way.
The carpet is ugly and new. They really should replace it, and I’m sure Fitz could convince them, but it’s a battle I don’t have the energy for, so I keep my mouth shut.
We walk the hall without talking, the way you do when you’ve done the same walk with the same people so many times your feet take over.
My key is already in my hand. I’m thinking about the meals to make before I leave in the morning, the delivery process, how much I like helping the old people, especially the cranky ones.
So when I turn the corner, I’m not thinking about houseguests.
But Meg is there.
It hits like a puck to the neck. She’s sitting in front of our apartment with two suitcases and a face that says don’t ask me the wrong question . Her eyes are rimmed red. The makeup that never smudges has smudged. Her mouth is set like she’s holding the rest of herself together with it.
For a half second, I think I’m dreaming. Then she looks up and it’s the same look she had when we were twelve and her bike chain snapped in the middle of the street. Angry because it hurts. Relief because we’re here.
“Meg,” I say as she gets to her feet, and then I’m moving before the thought finishes. “What?—”
“I hate men,” she says, voice shredded and fierce at the same time. “Can I stay?”
The question is unnecessary. The answer is automatic.
“Yes.” I reach for one suitcase handle and Fitz reaches for the other and Rocco goes for the keys in my hand like I suddenly forgot how to door.
He doesn’t say anything out loud. He doesn’t have to.
We go wide and soft around her like a river around a rock.
“Inside,” Fitz says, gentle.
We get her over the threshold. She’s standing, but she looks like if someone exhaled on her too hard, she’d sit down on the floor and not get up.
I want to put my hand on her hair and feel the curl in my palm.
I don’t. I grip the suitcase handle and try to remember how to turn anger into something that won’t make this worse.
“What did he do?” I ask, and my voice is low enough that you could mistake it for calm. My blood knows the difference. The back of my tongue tastes like metal. “Tell me what Luke did. I’ll go now.”
Rocco shoots me a look that says not helpful . Fitz touches my shoulder in a way that tells my body to take a lap.
Meg huffs a laugh that’s almost a sob. “Hudson,” she says, and my name in her mouth does the thing it always does. My spine unkinks. My muscles loosen. She shakes her head. “I just need my friends. The ass-kicking can wait. For now.”