Coach doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. The look he gives me between drills says everything—that was garbage, and we both know it.
I tighten up in the second half, stopping the next twelve shots and making a pad save on a two-on-one that gets a glove tap from Zayden. But the damage is done, and everyone saw it. When practice ends, I sit in my stall, pull off my pads, and wait for it.
Ollie sits down beside me. He’s got a protein bar in one hand and a look on his face that tells me he’s been waiting for this moment since we hit the ice.
“So what’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. Bad practice. It happens.”
“Three goals in twenty minutes doesn’t just happen to you, Arch. You were somewhere else out there.” He takes a bite of his protein bar and chews thoughtfully. “Where were you?”
I pull off my chest protector and hang it in the stall. I could lie. I could say I’m tired, I slept badly, my hip is bothering me. All of those things are true on any given day.
“Luke drew a picture at preschool,” I say instead.
Ollie waits.
“There were five people in the family. Me, the twins, Mommy, and Auntie Syd.” I unlace my skates without looking at him. “Bree is off to one side. Sydney is next to me. Their arms are almost touching.”
Ollie is quiet for a beat too long, which is unusual for him. “He drew what he sees,” he says finally.
“Yeah,” I concede. Maybe.
“And what does he see?”
“He sees Sydney making his breakfast and reading him books and putting him to bed three nights a week while I’m at the arena. He sees her in the kitchen every morning and on the couch every night. She’s become part of the family.”
“And he sees her next to you.”
I scrub one hand through my hair. “Ollie.”
“I’m just repeating what you said.”
I shove my skates into the bag harder than necessary. “She went on a date last week.”
Ollie’s eyebrows go up. “A date?”
“Some guy from a coffee shop. She got her nails done, got her hair blown out, wore this—” I stop. “She looked, uh, she looked really good.”
“And how did that go?”
“I don’t know. She came home late and told me to go to bed.”
His eyebrows lift. “She told you to go to bed.”
“I was on the couch. I just wanted to make sure she got home okay. She walked in and said, ‘I’m home, you can go to bed now,’ and went upstairs.”
“That’s cold.”
“It wasn’t cold. It was—” I don’t have a word for what it was. Distant. Controlled. Like she was angry about something I couldn’t see, and I’ve been replaying it every night since, and I still don’t know what I did wrong.
“What are you going to do?” Ollie asks.
“Nothing. She’s my best friend. Nothing has changed.”
He gives me a hard look. “If you say ‘best friend’ one more time, I’m going to check you into the boards so hard your grandchildren will feel it.”
“That’s aggressive.”
