“I don’t know that I should have been a first-round pick. I’m not as good a player as you.”
“Nashville saw your potential. Give yourself some time at training camp to get comfortable. You’ll get your feet under you. The skill is there. And you have the discipline.”
He’s not wrong about the discipline. I have that. But the skill set? That’s been a struggle. I see it every day when I’m on the ice with my team, Kody especially. So, I go with blatant honesty, because I feel like I have nothing left to lose—except years of my life doing something I’m not sure will make me happy.
“Even if I have the discipline and skill, I don’t know that I can spend my entire career on the ice trying to live up to your legacy, Dad.”
His expression softens, and I see it, how hard this is for himtoo. “I don’t expect that from you. Your career is yours. I’m not asking you to follow in my footsteps like that.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you.” I stare down at my hands, wishing I had something to do with them other than inspect my hangnail.
“Son, look at me.” He waits until I drag my eyes away from the floor. “You could never disappoint me. What’s going on in your head? Does this have to do with the woman you’re seeing?”
“No, it doesn’t have to do with Clover.” I shake my head. “Actually, yes, it does, but not in the way you think.” I drop my hand and meet his imploring gaze. “She’s not trying to sway me one way or the other. If anything, me playing professional hockey would be better for us. Then at least I’d look legit.” I sigh. “She’s been a great sounding board. We’ve talked it all through. She knows you not as Alex Waters the hockey legend, but as my dad. She’s not subjected to the chatter of me following the same path.” I run my hands over my thighs. “I’ve been having a lot of nightmares—tonight was probably the worst yet—and they’ve been ramping up the closer we get to training camp. I can already see what this is going to look like. My stats aren’t like Kody’s. I know you’ve been keeping it positive, but I don’t know if I’m NHL ready, or if I’m ever going to be. If I didn’t have a dad who was a hockey legend, that might be okay, but the reality is, you’ve had an incredible career, and no matter what, I’m always going to feel like I’m in your shadow—not because you’ve done anything to make it that way, but that’s just the way it is. It’s different with Kody. He’s a natural. He’s better than his dad, and that’s saying something. Because Rook was and still is an amazing player.” I hold up my hand to stop Dad from interrupting. “And maybe I could be as good as you. Maybe I could even be better, but I don’t think Iwantto be.”
I run a hand through my damp hair and shake my head. “You know, I’ve spent so much time avoiding relationships because I was terrified to ever feel the way you do about Mom. And I sure as hell never wanted to feel about someone the way Kody feels about Lavender. That guy stewed in his own misery for more than half a decade because he was afraid he would screw her up.” I blow out a breath. “And I really had no intention of falling in love with anyone, let alone my fucking professor, but I just see the world differently. I think I always have. And I see that for all the good this career has done for you and our family, there’s another side to it. Some people can handle it all, and maybe I could, but I don’t want to.”
My dad is silent for a long while before he finally asks, “If not a career in hockey, what do you want?”
I pull a square of toilet paper free, start folding it, and give voice to the thoughts that have been rolling around in my head for a while now. “Just a normal life. I don’t deal well with the excess. I think . . . I just want to be a regular guy. I like my job at the gym, and they’ve been asking me if I want to move into management. I can see maybe wanting to open my own self-defense studio down the line. I can see myself going back to school and getting a degree in sports psychology, because it fits what I love. And I’d love to work with you, teaching kids how to play hockey—get ’em ready for the kind of future you always wanted for me.” I set the crane on the edge of the tub and lift my gaze, afraid I’m going to see his disappointment and crack.
Dad rubs his bottom lip. It’s a habit everyone in our family has, I realize. His expression doesn’t hold the emotion I worried it would. Instead, he looks sad. “I only wanted that future for you because I thought it was somethingyouwanted. I don’t want you to feel like youhaveto follow this path. But I want to make sure, if you’re going to say no, that you’re doing it for the right reasons.”
“Clover and I have talked about this a lot lately. She’s been good for me on a lot of levels, even if you probably think the opposite. For a while, it felt like the only way my relationship with her would feel balanced was after I made the NHL. It’s a lot less scandalous for a professor to be dating a professional hockey player than a student. But at the same time, that would make it even more complicated, and it would put our relationship under a microscope. That’s another thing I don’t want. Not just for us, or her, but for me in general.”
“But is that the right reason to turn down an offer?” My dad shakes his head. “And I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do. I’m just asking questions, so I understand where you’re coming from.”
“I don’t want to say there’s no offer out there I would entertain, but playing professionally isn’t where my heart is. When I look at my future, I don’t see myself on the ice for a decade and then coaching pro, or sportscasting, or any of those things. Maybe I’m a little bit more like Aunt Lily? I know she didn’t go to the Olympics because of financial constraints, but she didn’t let that define her. She’s an amazing teacher, and I think I could be good at that. I’d rather help other people get there. I know myself, and I know how hard that life is on a family. I don’t want to be one of those guys with a semi-decent career who’s also been divorced three times because all of my relationships suffer.”
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?”
“This year has been eye-opening for me in a lot of ways. And I’ve loved playing hockey for Hawking. But it’s not so much because of the sport as it is because it connects me to you and to Kody. Even if by some fluke I got traded and we did wind up together, it’s unlikely we’d play on the same line. He’s on another level.”
“I keep wanting to say things like,you can get there too, but I don’t think that’s what you want to hear.”
I’ve only ever seen my dad look this helpless once before, and it shreds me in ways I don’t expect. But backtracking isn’t going to change how I feel about this.
“I might be able to get there,” I agree. “But I won’t have a life, and I won’t be happy trying to make it happen.”
Dad is silent for a few very long, very terrifying seconds. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me this sooner.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I realized it until recently. I feel like I’ve let you down a lot, and I didn’t want to do that again, especially with this.”
“You’ve never let me down.”
I drop my head, fighting with the words, but needing to get them out all the same. I need to make peace not just with myself, but with him as well. I see it all now, the way it links together, how the past keeps coming up because I haven’t ever dealt with it the way I need to. “I feel like I did—not so much with hockey, but with Lavender.”
He moves from the edge of the tub and drops down, crouching in front of me. “Look at me, Maverick.”
I lift my gaze and find him on the edge of emotion. I feel his anguish like fresh wounds.
“Are you talking about the carnival?”
“That’s one instance, yeah.” I swallow bile, uncertain if there’s anything left to purge apart from words and what remains of the guilt I’m trying to let go of.
“And the time she got locked in the closet?” His voice is soft and unsteady.
I nod once, not trusting my voice.
