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He let out a bark of laughter. “I don’t, but my ordering skills are top-notch.”
Two boxes of takeout pizza sat on his desk, and the smell made my stomach growl.
“Is this the dinner of champions?”
“You’re young and fit, it doesn’t matter what you eat, only that you do,” he replied with a grin.
I sat across from him, and he put on the TV that was mounted on his wall and brought up the latest footage we had of our opponents.
“Come on, let’s study the competition one more time while we eat,” he suggested.
I grabbed the pizzas.
We ate, and I watched the game. It was nice. I wondered if this was what normal kids did with their fathers. I’d never had anything even close to it.
Coach checked his phone now and then and finally smiled at a message he got.
“They’re at the airport and checking in,” he reported.
I nodded, my belly clenching at the update from Lily. She hadn’t messaged me. I had a long way to go to get back into her good graces, it seemed, and it was all I could think about.
“Aren’t you worried she’ll want to really go there? It’s so far away,” I remarked after a moment.
Eric sighed, and I knew it was something he’d wrestled with a lot.
“If she wants to go, I can’t stop her. I won’t stop her. I love her, and I just want her to be happy.”
“Even if that means only seeing her during the holidays?” I hoped my desperation didn’t sound too obvious. It certainly felt fucking obvious.
“Even then. When you love something, let it go, or whatever the adage is.”
My instincts rebelled against the very thought of that. I loved Lily, or was as close to love as someone like me could be, and I was more and more against the idea of letting her go. If you loved someone, surely you held on to them through thick and thin. That made a lot more sense to me.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” Coach asked me.
I shrugged, the game less on my mind than Lily was. “It’ll be fine. I might not end up going to HHU, who knows?”
“What the hell? Of course you’re going to HHU,” Coach said dismissively.
“Maybe I was thinking of somewhere with a warmer climate,” I muttered and took a long drink from my water bottle.
“A warmer climate for hockey? HHU is perfect for you, Cade, and we both know it.”
“It’s not so crazy to want to see the country, is it?” I offered after a moment, smiling at him to break the rising tension. I could hardly say to him that since his daughter was moving across the country, and I had to be with her, and making her stay was apparently unloving, that it looked like I was just going to need to go after her, wherever she went.
“That’s what vacation is for,” Coach deadpanned. “Here, at HHU, I’ve got you, Cayden. Together, we can get you into the NHL. You move schools, you’ll work with coaches who have different favorites, who aren’t your fan, for whatever reason, and you risk getting sidelined.”
“I know,” I muttered, shoving another piece of pizza in my mouth so I didn’t have to speak.
“You should stay here, work hard, work smart, and get drafted. Then you can do whatever you want with your career. But get there first.”
“I know,” I repeated, unable to say anything else.
The whole truth was that going to HHU, going pro and all the riches and celebrity that came with it, had lost its shine now that Lily wouldn’t be there. It felt like she was leaving me behind, and suddenly, nothing else seemed to matter.
* * *
The game tonight was all anyone had been talking about for a week. Everyone knew there would be scouts there, and every single player on the team wanted a shot at catching their eye. For all the locals, it was a dream to play for the Hellions. Getting to stay in their beautiful small town of Hade Harbor and go to an internationally recognized university was a dream come true for most students. Just not Lily, apparently.
