21. Scottie Reed
Scottie Reed
It’s been exactly a week since the jazz club.
Seven days since we lied about being engaged for a plate of free cheese, and seven days since Cash put his hand on the back of my neck and rewired my brain with one lingering, heat-soaked kiss.
I’m not panicking about it. Not exactly. I’m just… managing the fallout.
If I actually stop to acknowledge the agent-player boundary we just blew up, my head might explode. So instead, I’m just moving forward.
We finished the last three practices with Yuri the Metaphor Guru, and the craziest part is that it worked. The protective hitch in Cash’s right shoulder—the one that’s been threatening to derail his season—is gone.
Right now, we’re at an older, loud rink just outside Charlotte, getting in a quick skate before we hit the road for Atlanta. The second Cash pushes the front doors open, the woman behind the registration desk leaps out of her chair.
“Oh my god! Look who it is!” she yells. “Sal! Get out here right now! The big guy is back!”
A side door flies open and an older guy in a faded, grease-stained jacket steps out. “Cash! I told you he’d come by, Brenda!”
Cash drops his massive goalie bag onto the floor with a satisfying thud and laughs, wrapping them both into a hug. “Brenda! Sal! Look at this place—you haven’t changed a thing.”
“We don’t touch a thing,” Sal says, slapping Cash’s shoulder with a grin. “We got the north sheet cleared for you. Two hours, totally empty. It’s all yours, buddy.”
“You guys are saving my life,” Cash says, his voice genuinely warm. “Seriously.”
Brenda turns her sharp eyes to me, putting her hands on her hips. “An agent? You’re letting this little red-headed thing run your life now, Cash?”
I laugh and step forward, holding out my hand. “I’m the one who keeps the scouts from ambushing him, Brenda. I’m firmly on his team.”
Brenda stares at my hand for a second before letting out a loud laugh, shaking it until my elbow pops. “Alright! You got some fire in you. I like it.”
As Sal starts loading up a cardboard tray with sports drinks and homemade cookies for Cash, I lean against the counter, curious. “How do you guys all know each other? Is this where you used to train?”
“Train?” Sal cracks a chuckle, shaking his head.
“Nah, Scottie. Cash’s dad, Matthew—he grew up right down the street from me.
Played linesman in the old local league.
When Cash was just a little sprout, Matthew would bring him in here at five in the morning, letting him tear up the ice before the sun was even up. ”
“Oh,” I say, shifting my gaze to Cash. I didn’t realize we were on his home turf. “I didn’t know your dad was from around here.”
“Yeah,” Cash says, his smile dimming just a fraction.
Brenda smiles warmly, leaning over the counter. “He’s a good man, Matthew. The absolute best. How is he doing, Cash?”
Cash’s posture stiffens for a split second. He forces a quick, tight smile—the kind of practiced, polite expression he uses for post-game press conferences.
“Yeah,” Cash says. “Yeah, he’s all good. Still keeping busy around the house. You know how he is.”
“A saint, that man,” Brenda says fondly.
“Alright, get out of here, big guy,” Sal says, waving him toward the locker room. “Go get your pads on.”
Cash hoists the massive bag onto his shoulder with ease. He looks back at me, his eyes momentarily drifting from the mask of politeness. “Don’t eat my cookies while I’m gone.”
“Go skate, O’Connell,” I say.
The heavy doors swing shut behind him, leaving me alone in the lobby with Sal and Brenda. I turn around to open my laptop at one of the plastic tables, but Sal immediately leans his elbows on the counter, pinning me with a determined glare.
“So,” Sal says. “You’re from Boston, right? You see what they’re doing with the zoning laws down by the harbor?”
“The harbor development?”
“The harbor development! It’s a total disgrace, Scottie.
You give the developers three inches of tax abatement, and before you know it, the public parking is gone, the local fishermen are priced out, and you’re paying twelve bucks for a cup of chowder that’s eighty percent cornstarch!
It’s the exact same crap we’re dealing with here with the county commission! ”
I blink. “Well, city development is always a pretty complicated balancing act—”
“Balancing act? It’s a racket! Let me tell you about the local developers…”
For the next twenty-five minutes, I am trapped in the most agonizing, droning lecture on local municipal corruption in human history.
Every time I try to politely excuse myself, Sal just raises his voice and transitions from the concrete lobby to the school district pension funds, then to the water purification plants.
My brain is actively dying.
Out on the ice, Cash is fully dressed in his gear. He takes a few warm-up laps, his skates carving deep, beautiful grooves into the clean sheet. He glides past the viewing window, looks into the lobby, and stops dead.
He sees my desperate, wide-eyed stare. He sees Sal, who is currently gesturing wildly with a stapler.
Cash lets out a visible laugh behind his goalie mask. He skates over to the bench, pulls his mask off, and rests it on top of the boards. He watches us for another ten seconds, clearly enjoying my suffering, before he finally shakes his head.
The rink door jingles open, and Cash steps through, his skates clacking on the black rubber flooring of the hallway. He walks right up to the lobby counter, towering over both of us in his full pads.
He reaches out, wraps one giant, heavily padded goalie glove right over the top of my head, and physically pushes me three inches to the left, stepping directly between me and Sal.
“Alright, Sal, cut her some slack,” Cash says. “If you talk to her about sewage management for another five minutes, she’s going to sue both of us for emotional distress.”
Sal blinks, looking at the giant, sweaty glove resting over my hair. “I’m just educating the youth, Cash.”
“She’s entirely ineducable,” Cash says smoothly. “Come on, Sharky. You’re on the clock. I need you to hold the radar gun or you don’t get a cookie.”
“Oh, thank god,” I mutter. “Goodbye, Sal. I’ll look into the gravel contracts, I swear.”
Sal just waves us off with his stapler as Cash guides me down the hallway, his giant hand still loosely hovering near my shoulder, the cold air from the ice sheet hitting my face like a blessing.
The door clicks shut behind us, locking out the lobby.
I lean my back against the yellow plastic boards, letting out a massive, dramatic sigh of relief. Cash stands on the ice, leaning on his goalie stick, looking smug as he stares down at me.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
“You let me suffer for so long,” I say, smoothing down my hair where his glove had messed it up. “I was about to bite my own arm off just to have a reason to leave.”
“I had to see how long you’d last,” he laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You had the exact same look you give me when I start talking about advanced goalie analytics. The ‘please-kill-me’ look.”
“Your analytics are boring, O’Connell. Sal was a threat to my very sanity.”
He steps closer to the boards, his chest nearly level with my chin. He looks down at my face, his voice dropping. “You survived. That’s what matters.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. “Go back out there and show me you can actually move. I need to see some real hockey, please.”
He spins on his skates, his blades spraying a sharp, rhythmic shower of white ice against the boards, and glides back toward the net. I lean my elbows on the top of the boards, resting my chin in my hands, and just watch him work.
He tracks edge to edge for an hour. No whistling, no talk of rivers, just the raw, rhythmic sound of steel carving up frozen water.
Later, he skates over to the bench, his jersey steaming in the chill of the building. He yanks his mask off and sets it on the glass, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his blocker.
“Tell me the data looks beautiful,” he pants, leaning his forearms on the dasher.
“The data says you’re less of a river and more of a pain in my ass,” I say, turning the screen so he can see the lateral speed metrics. “You’re hitting your targets. The front office is going to stop breathing down my neck about your medical clearance.”
He looks at the screen, then his eyes flick up to mine. “You worried about the front office, or were you actually worried about me?”
“I am legally obligated to worry about your contract.”
“Right. The contract.” He reaches out, his wet leather glove tapping the edge of my tablet. “You’re a robot, Scottie-girl.”
“A robot who keeps you employed. Go get changed. We have four hours of highway before Atlanta, and I want to hit that diner down the road before we leave.”
He gives me a lazy, lopsided salute with his stick and glides back toward the gate.
***
The diner is twenty minutes away, tucked between a tractor supply store and an empty gravel lot.
We sit in the back corner away from the jukebox. Cash has his massive legs crowded under the small laminate table, his knees practically knocking into mine every time he moves.
“You grew up around here?” I ask, keeping my voice low. “Sal said your dad played here.”
“Yeah,” Cash says, his thumb tracing the rim of his mug. “He did. Before he started working the yards. He used to take me to the early public skate sessions before the rink officially opened. He’d buy me a chocolate milk from the vending machine if I didn’t cry when I hit the ice.”
“Sounds like a good dad.”
“He is.” Cash looks out the window at the gravel lot. It’s the same expression he had when Brenda asked about him. “He just… he doesn’t really leave the house much these days. My mom keeps things running.”
There’s a beat, a sudden shift in his posture that feels entirely too guarded. It feels like there’s a whole sentence hanging in the air that he’s actively choosing not to say.
“Everything okay with him?” I ask, keeping my eyes on my coffee mug so it doesn’t feel like an interrogation.
Cash looks back at me and lets out a quick chuckle, shaking his head as he picks up his fork. “Yeah, of course. He’s just getting older, you know? Refuses to admit he can’t clear the gutters by himself anymore. Standard stubborn old-man stuff.”
He doesn’t give me room to push. Before I can even think about how to phrase a follow-up, he points his fork at me.
“What about your crew? You never really talk about your parents. Are they from Boston?”
The question catches me off guard, hitting the wall I’ve spent years building.
“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t really have a relationship with my parents. It’s just me.”
Cash pauses, his fork halfway to his mouth.
He studies my face for a second, his eyes softening as he registers the sharp, defensive edge in my voice.
He nods slowly, letting the topic go as easily as he’d dropped his own.
***
10:27 PM
Jenna: Be honest. Is he growing on you?
Me: Like mold.