“It means I have to come to these things.”
“And you hate these things.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to. You've been holding that whiskey like it's the only thing keeping you from walking out the door.”
I look down at my glass. She's right. I set it on the bar. “It's that obvious?”
“To me it is.” Her eyes meet mine. Something in them that screams,of course, I noticed.I know you.
The words sit between us. She doesn't explain them. She doesn't need to.
“How's your mom?” I ask.
Her face softens. “She's great. She owns a boutique in Long Island now.”
“Lorraine owns a boutique?”
“She does, and she loves it. It’s doing well.”
“That's really great, Jasmine. She deserves that.” Lorraine Bennett was the warmest person I'd ever met. Their house was small. Two bedrooms, a living room with a couch that sagged in the middle, and a kitchen that smelled like whatever Lorraine had been cooking that morning.
There were no trophies on the shelves or newspaper clippings on the walls. No hockey sticks propped against the garage door. Nobody in that house gave a damn about my gap control or my footwork or whether I was going to make the NHL. Lorraine asked me about school and whether I was sleeping enough.
I loved going to that house. I loved sitting at their kitchen table while Lorraine hummed along to the radio and Jasmine did her homework across from me. After the noise of my own house, Jasmine's home felt like coming up for air.
“She does.”
“Does she still make that sweet potato pie at Thanksgiving?”
Jasmine stares at me. “You remember my mother's sweet potato pie?”
“I remember everything about your mother's cooking.”
She shakes her head, but she's smiling. “She still makes it every year.”
“Best pie I've ever had. Don't tell my mom,” I say with a laugh.
“Your mother's pie is good too.”
“My mother's pie is fine. Lorraine's pie is art.”
She laughs again, then looks away. When she turns back, her armor is up again, but it's not as thick as it was a minute ago.
“How about you?” she asks. “How are your brothers?”
“Nolan is playing for the Runners,” I say with pride in my voice. When Jasmine and I were together, Nolan was fifteen and spending every spare minute on the backyard rink trying to perfect his wrist shot.
Dom was thirteen and was always reading or disappearing into his room while the rest of us talked hockey. Now he's twenty-three, finishing his masters, and in a serious relationship.
I've won a Stanley Cup and played nine seasons for the team I grew up dreaming about. A whole decade has gone by in the blink of an eye. So much has happened. And all of it without her.
“I was at the game,” Jasmine says. “I saw him.”
I straightened off the bar. “You were there?” She was in the stands last night, watching me play, and I had no idea. If I'd known, I would have looked for her. I would have scanned the crowd between shifts, searching for her face in the bleachers, because playing always felt different when she was there.
I shut that down, and shut it down fast.
