I'll be at the game tonight. WAG section. Come sit with us?
I type back:I'm there for work, but I'll find you.
Harper sends back three heart emojis and a hockey stick. I put my phone down and go back to the contract.
The Long Islandarena is loud. It's smaller than MSG, but the fans are packed in tight, and they're aggressive in a way that New York fans aren't. New York fans are entitled. Long Island fans are hungry.
I'm in the lower bowl, close enough to see the ice but far enough from the family section that I won't run into anyone I don't want to. Harper is two sections over with Avery, Natalie, and a few other WAGs. She waved when she saw me come in. I waved back and pointed to my seat with an apologetic shrug.
I'm here for the account. I need to watch the game the way a professional watches it. Attendance numbers, sponsor visibility, and broadcast angles.
The Renegades take the ice for warm-ups, and I find him immediately as if it were muscle memory.
Logan Shaw. Number twenty-four. He skates in slow circles at center ice, stick across his knees, head down. He's bigger thanI remember. Broader through the shoulders and thicker through the arms.
He moves differently now. He was always intense, but this is something else. This is a man who has spent a decade turning his body into a weapon.
He doesn't look up into the stands the way some players do. He stays focused on the ice, on his skates, or on whatever is running through his head. I used to know what ran through his head. I don't anymore or even care.
The game starts, and I watch him play. I should be watching the sponsor signage, the dasher boards, and taking notes on visibility metrics for the sportswear negotiation.
Logan drops his shoulder into a Long Island forward and drives him into the boards so hard the glass shakes. The crowd boos. He doesn't react, just picks up the puck and moves it up ice as if nothing happened.
The commentator says his name, and my whole chest tightens.
The second period gets rough. Logan is caught out of position on a goal, and his shoulders tighten as he skates back to the bench without looking at anyone. He's angry at himself.
The Long Island forward scores the third goal. The arena explodes. Then I realize that it’s Nolan, Logan’s brother.
The last time I saw him, he was a fifteen-year-old with braces. He used to sit at the kitchen table doing homework while Logan and I studied on the couch, pretending he wasn't eavesdropping.
Dom was worse. He was thirteen, skinny, and always hovering in doorways with a glass of juice and a terrible poker face. I'd catch him staring, and he'd bolt.
I liked his brothers, and I liked being in that house, surrounded by noise and the smell of whatever Cat was cooking. For years, the Shaw house felt like mine.
Growing up, it was just Mom and me. Our house was quiet and organized. I never knew what I was missing until I sat at the Shaw kitchen table with three boys arguing over who got the last piece of garlic bread and a mother who cooked enough food to feed the entire block.
The chaos of that house filled a space in me. Brothers who teased each other and shoved each other and then sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch as if nothing had happened. I wanted that. I wanted to belong to a family that took up that much room in the world.
A whistle pulls me from my thoughts. So much has changed. The boys have all grown up.
Nolan must be about twenty-five now, and he's wearing an NHL jersey. Cat and George must be so proud of their sons.
The final buzzer sounds. Renegades lose 3-2. The teams line up for handshakes, and I find myself looking past the ice, up into the stands, toward the family section.
George Shaw is on his feet, clapping. His hair is gray now, and his face is thinner. Next to him, a young man in a leather jacket. Dom. I'd recognize those Shaw features anywhere. And beside Dom, a woman I don't know. Pretty, petite, holding Dom's arm.
And then there's Cat.
She’s standing next to George. She's clapping politely, her coat folded over her arm, her hair blown out. She looks exactly the same. That is the woman who sat across from me at her kitchen table and told me that hockey families aren't easy and that it takes a certain kind of woman.
My stomach turns at the memory.
I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a senior associate at Caldwell, Price & Associates. I have a mother who owns her own business because I helped her build it. I have a law degree and a partnership track.
But somehow, all of that doesn’t stop the sting in my eyes.
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