Chapter 16
JESS
The Blaze season had started in October, right around the time we arrived in St. Louis, which Justin had decided was not a coincidence.
"We brought them good luck," he told me, with complete confidence, after watching his third game from the couch in the temporary apartment.
"We've been here three weeks," I said.
"That's enough time," he said, and went back to his juice box.
He wasn't wrong, as it turned out.
The Blaze were playing well — third in the division. Liam was sharp and commanding on the blue line. Carter was doing the thing he did when everything was clicking, which was make it look effortless.
We'd watched every home game and most of the away ones. Justin took his spot on the couch in his Blaze jersey, Carter Junior propped beside him, and analyzed every play with the authority of someone who'd been following hockey his entire life rather than his entire month.
I loved it. I loved watching him love it. I loved that this city had given him something to be passionate about that was entirely his own.
But we hadn't been to a game in person yet. The timing hadn't been right — school nights, early morning shifts, the general busyness of two people building new lives from scratch. I kept telling myself we'd get there.
And then one evening Carter brought it up.
He was in the kitchen of the temporary apartment, Justin already in bed, leaning against the counter with his coffee. He mentioned a game coming up that Saturday and asked if we'd be interested in coming — he could get good seats right behind the bench.
"Mark and Barbara are driving down from Ames for it too," he added. "They're staying overnight — it's too long a drive to do in one day. I thought it might be a good time to finally introduce you."
I looked at him. He was doing the thing where he made something significant sound casual — holding his coffee cup with both hands, not quite meeting my eyes.
"Of course we'll come," I said.
Something in his expression shifted — relief, maybe, or something quieter than that. "Good," he said. "That's — good."
Saturday arrived cold and bright, the kind of mid-October afternoon that made St. Louis look like a postcard.
I dressed Justin in layers — Blaze jersey over a long-sleeved shirt, his warmest jacket on top — and he stood still for approximately four seconds before announcing he was ready and had been ready for some time.
"Carter said the crowd is really loud," he told me, on the drive to the arena.
"Very loud," I confirmed.
His eyes went wide with anticipatory delight.
We met Mark and Barbara Ewing at the family entrance, exactly where Carter had told us to look.
I recognized them immediately — not because I'd seen photos, but because they looked exactly like what they were: a couple who had spent decades choosing each other and being kind to everyone around them.
Mark was tall and broad-shouldered, still carrying the build of the athlete he must have been, with the calm steady presence of a man who didn't need to fill a room to own it. Barbara was warm-faced and bright-eyed, and she had Justin sized up in approximately three seconds.
"You must be Justin," she said, crouching down to his level.
"I'm Justin Calloway," he said, with great formality. "Carter talks about you."
"He talks about you too." She smiled. "He says you've been practicing the Flip."
Justin's eyes lit up. "Carter Junior knows it. I've been teaching him."
"I'd love to see that sometime."
Justin nodded seriously, as if they had just entered into a binding agreement.
Mark shook my hand — firm, unhurried, the handshake of a man who paid attention. "Jess. It's good to finally meet you. Carter's told us a lot about you both. We've been looking forward to this."
"We have too," I said. "He talks about you both constantly."
Mark laughed — quiet and genuine. "That's good to hear."
Barbara had already taken Justin's hand and was walking him toward the entrance, asking him about his favorite Blaze players with the focused interest of someone who genuinely wanted to know.
Justin was telling her about #9 with the reverence usually reserved for historical figures, then pivoted to an equally passionate endorsement of Liam O'Connell.
"Carter says Liam is the best leader in the league," Justin told her seriously.
"Carter's right," Barbara said, equally seriously.
Mark smiled at me. "She coached with me for twenty years. She knows her hockey."
"She sounds like Justin," I said.
He laughed again. "Come on. Let's go watch them play."
The Enterprise Center was one of the largest arenas in the NHL — eighteen thousand seats, all of them filling fast as we made our way through the tunnel.
Justin had been to plenty of loud places before — festivals, parades, the Fourth of July on the Chicago lakefront — but nothing had prepared him for this.
The cold air hit us first, rolling off the ice.
Then the noise — thousands of voices building toward something, the sound system thumping, the warmup skate already underway below us.
Justin stopped walking. His mouth fell open and his grip tightened on my hand, and when he looked up at me his eyes were huge.
"Mom." It came out hushed, almost reverent, like he'd walked into a church. "Mom, look how big."
It was enormous. Even I could feel it — the size and the energy and the electricity of a crowd that had come to see something happen.
"It's one of the biggest arenas in the NHL," I told him. "Eighteen thousand seats, and they sell out."
He stared at the ice. "Carter plays here?"
"Every home game."
He absorbed this with the expression of someone recalibrating their entire understanding of the world.
Our seats were exactly where Carter had promised — right behind the bench, close enough to see the players' faces when they came off the ice. Justin pressed himself against the glass during warmup, eyes scanning the jersey numbers with fierce concentration.
"There's Liam," he said, spotting #17 first. Then, a second later, triumphant: "THERE'S CARTER."
Carter must have felt the energy, because he looked up from his warmup drill at almost exactly that moment and found us — found Justin specifically, practically vibrating against the glass — and broke into a grin and pointed at him with his stick.
Justin turned to me with an expression I knew I was going to remember for the rest of my life. Pure, uncomplicated joy.
"He saw me," he breathed.
"He sure did, baby." I had to blink hard against the sting in my own eyes.
The game itself was everything I'd hoped and more.
Watching hockey on television had given me the rules, the rhythms, the language of it. Watching it live gave me something television couldn't — the speed, the violence of contact, the sound of blades cutting ice and bodies hitting boards that you felt in your sternum.
Justin tracked Carter and Liam in equal measure, asking Barbara questions in a running whisper that she answered with patient expertise. Mark could break down a play with the clarity of someone who had spent thirty years coaching the game.
By the second period Justin had strong opinions.
"He should pass it," he said, watching Carter cycle behind the net.
"He's about to," Mark said.
Carter passed it. Justin looked at Mark with something approaching reverence.
"How did you know?"
"Watch his shoulders," Mark said. "They tell you where he's going before his feet do."
Justin watched Carter's shoulders for the rest of the period with the focused intensity of a scientist conducting a very important experiment.
The goal came in the third period, the Blaze down one with eight minutes left. Carter had the puck at the left wing, the defense collapsing, and I saw it before it happened — the slight shift in weight, the adjustment of his shoulders — and then he moved.
The Flip.
Not the backyard version with a plastic stick and a tennis ball — the real one, game speed, executed with the precision of someone who had done it ten thousand times. The puck went high and found the top corner of the net and the red light came on and the arena came to its feet.
Justin came to his feet with it — both arms in the air, screaming Carter's name at the absolute top of his lungs.
I was standing too, I realized. I hadn't decided to. It had just happened.
Barbara had both hands over her mouth. Mark was clapping — slow and steady, the applause of a man watching something he'd believed in for a very long time finally pay off.
The Blaze won it in overtime, Liam finishing a beautiful three-on-two with the clinical precision that made him the heart of this team, and by the time it was over Justin was hoarse and flushed and buzzing with the energy of a child who has just had one of the best nights of his life.
Carter found us in the family area after — still in his gear, hair damp. He came to me first, kissed me, then turned to Justin who was already launching himself forward.
"THE FLIP," Justin announced, into Carter's shoulder. "I SAW THE FLIP IN REAL LIFE."
"You saw it," Carter confirmed, catching him and setting him on his feet after a moment.
"Mark said to watch your shoulders. I watched your shoulders the whole second period."
Carter looked at Mark over Justin's head. Something passed between them — the shorthand of two people who had known each other for fifteen years and didn't need sentences.
"Good advice," Carter said.
"Always was," Mark said. He put his hand on Carter's shoulder and squeezed it once. "We're proud of you, son. You know that."
Carter nodded, and I could see from where I stood that he didn't quite trust himself to say anything back.
Barbara hugged Carter then — properly, both arms, the hug of a woman who had been hugging him since he was fifteen. Carter held on for a moment longer than he needed to.
When they stepped apart Carter looked at all of us — me, Justin, Mark and Barbara — and smiled. Just that. Easy and warm and unguarded, the smile of a man who was simply glad to be exactly where he was.