17. Riley #2
For a moment, Riley remembered Nicolle draped in a sweater she had never earned, smiling beneath a storm of camera flashes while Riley stood on the wrong side of the glass.
That image belonged to another life.
Nicolle’s retirement announcement lived on a screen. Toby’s unfinished skates sat on Riley’s bench, waiting for steel.
“Endorsement checks were the only reason she ever stepped on the ice anyway.” Riley reached for the second holder. “Pull the specs for Toby’s skates, Maisie. We need to get these blades mounted.”
“Toby’s specs are pulled,” Maisie said from behind Riley.
Riley wiped the last of the adhesive from her fingers. “Leave them open. Wade can mount the runners when he finishes the first pair.”
The shop had settled back into its morning rhythm, tools shifting against trays and voices carrying from the front counter. Riley crossed toward the plexiglass window that joined Delaney Bespoke Skates to the rink next door.
The chill pressed through the pane as she rested one palm against it.
A youth practice was underway on the other side.
Graham stood near the blue line with a whistle to his lips while a row of kids worked through tight turns around a set of cones. Skates carved pale scratches into the ice, the noise softened by the glass until it became a steady scrape beneath the shop sounds.
One boy entered the turn too upright.
His outside skate slipped away, sending him onto one knee.
Graham lifted the whistle and waved the rest of the line past him. The boy started to get up, but Graham skated over and dropped beside him instead, pointing at the angle of his blade.
“Don’t fight the turn,” Graham said. His voice reached Riley as a muted rumble through the glass. “Trust the outside edge.”
“I keep sliding.”
“Because you’re standing too tall. Bend through it and try again.”
The kid pushed himself upright.
Graham moved beside him and demonstrated the pivot at half speed, exaggerating the bend in his knees so the boy could study the position. No grand speech followed. No applause. Graham pointed back toward the cone and sent him around it again.
This time, the blade held.
A grin broke across the kid’s face.
Graham tapped his stick against the ice and directed him back to the line.
Riley kept her hand against the glass.
Three years ago, rink glass had meant separation. She had stood behind scratched plexiglass while cameras crowded the ice and Graham lived inside a world that kept finding new reasons to push her farther away.
Here, the parents in the bleachers held paper coffee cups instead of phones. One father flipped through a folded newspaper while his daughter waited for her turn. A woman near the aisle waved when Graham sent one of the kids toward the bench.
Nobody screamed his name.
Nobody asked him to pose.
Around here, he was Coach Gray.
You didn’t lose your legacy, Graham. You built a real one.
Maisie came to stand beside her.
“Watching a former MVP run basic edge drills for local kids is still wild.” She folded her arms against the chill coming off the pane. “He’s a natural out there.”
Riley watched Graham reset the cones after one of the boys clipped them with a skate.
“The corporate machine just buried this version of him,” she said. “He always had this rhythm. We just had to get him out of the noise.”
Maisie tipped her head toward the bleachers. “Half those parents probably have no idea what he used to make in endorsements.”
“Good.”
“You really mean that.”
Riley glanced at her. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Maisie looked back toward the ice. “Most people spend their lives trying to become famous. He actually got there and walked away.”
That was the part strangers never understood.
Graham hadn’t walked away from hockey.
He had walked away from being sold.
The whistle cut through the rink again. Graham signaled the boy who had struggled with the pivot to take another turn.
The kid bent lower this time, trusted the edge, and carved cleanly around the cone.
On the other side of the glass, Graham sent the kid back into the drill and blew his whistle to call the team to the bench.
Moments later, the connecting rink door swung inward, and a sweep of chilled air crossed the floor.
“Speak of the coach,” Maisie said.
Graham stepped into the shop with a clipboard tucked under one arm. The words HEAD COACH were stitched across the chest of his jacket, and damp hair curled at his temples.
Three years ago, he would have come off the ice vibrating with schedules, cameras, and somebody waiting to drag him toward the next obligation. Now he kicked the door shut behind him, ran a hand through his hair, and looked toward the workbenches.
“Tell me nobody touched Toby’s second pair yet.”
Riley left the glass and headed toward him. “Depends. Are you bringing useful data or complaints?”
“Useful data. Mostly.”
“Mostly means complaints.”
“It means I have notes.”
Graham crossed to Wade’s station and dropped the clipboard onto the bench. Wade had one of Toby’s skates positioned beneath the task light, the runner still waiting beside it.
Riley stopped opposite them. “Outside edge or inside?”
“Outside held.” Graham pointed toward the runner. “His problem was posture, not steel. He kept standing up through the pivot and blaming the blade every time he washed out.”
“Of course he did.”
Wade glanced up from the holder. “Then my mounting job survives another morning.”
“Barely,” Riley said.
“That hurts.”
Graham grinned and turned the skate enough to inspect the heel. “Once I got Toby lower through the turn, the setup did exactly what it was supposed to do. He started trusting it after the third pass.”