Shit.
Absolutely fucking screaming internally.
Where is that damn jersey?
I’m shoulder-deep in a basket of laundry I abandoned last week. We’re in the PLAYOFFS. There are important things happening, and folding clothes isn’t one of them. Where is it? Where IS it?
My fingers brush across silky material and I yank it up through the pile—the arm is tangled around a pair of jeans and I wrench it free at the exact moment my mom knocks and swings open my door.
Which is also the exact moment I realize whose jersey I’m holding.
SHIT.
I clutch it to my chest in full panic mode, arms crossed over the nameplate like I can hide it with my body. Like I can absorb it into my skin through sheer desperation.
“Mackie, seriously, we need to go if we want to make puck drop. We’ve already missed warmups.”
I’m frozen in place. Because she absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, see that the jersey I’m white-knuckling doesn’t say ANDERSON on the back. Doesn’t have my dad’s number.
She raises her eyebrows at me and motions at the blue and green fabric in my hands. “Great, you found it. Let’s go.”
“Yep! Just—” My voice comes out high and squeaky. “Can’t find the tank I want to wear under it. Two minutes.”
She closes her eyes and inhales slowly like she does when I’m testing her last nerve. The exhale goes on forever. “Fine. I’ll be in the car.”
The door clicks shut and my knees buckle.
I’m on the floor next to my bed and there’s a hysterical laugh crawling up my throat because THAT WAS SO CLOSE. That was way too close. I’m an idiot. I’m the world’s biggest idiot for keeping this thing in my actual bedroom where my actual mother could find it at any moment.
I flip the jersey over and run my fingers across the name.
ALMARDON. 35.
The jersey I wear in secret when no one’s home. The jersey I stole from his closet weeks ago that no one can ever know exists because if anyone finds out I’m dating my father’s backup goalie I will literally have to fake my own death and move to Antarctica.
I shove it under my pillow and dig through the laundry pile again to find what I’m looking for. Zach’s plain gray shirt that still smells like his laundry detergent. I pull it on under a Puckaneers hoodie and hope that counts as having him close.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I’m not at all living a double life that’s going to implode spectacularly at some point.
The family suite is packed.
Game Five. Up three-one in the series. One win from advancing. Everyone’s vibrating with that specific playoff energy that makes you feel like you might throw up or scream or both.
I scan the room for the safest seat, which means: somewhere I can stare at the bench without anyone asking why I’m staring at the bench. Somewhere I can watch number 35 mess with his pads for the nine hundredth time without my mom going “Mackie, why are you looking at Almardon?”
BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM, MOM. BECAUSE I SNEAK INTO HIS APARTMENT THREE TIMES A WEEK. BECAUSE I’M WEARING HIS SHIRT UNDER THIS HOODIE RIGHT NOW AND IT STILL SMELLS LIKE HIS LAUNDRY DETERGENT AND I’M COMPLETELY UNHINGED ABOUT IT.
Obviously I can’t say any of that. So I need a buffer.
Goldie Malone is on the far right. She’s sitting with her daughter Blythe, who’s nine years old and dressed like a disco ball threw up on a hockey fan with her custom ‘Malone’ jersey, glitter in her hair, sparkly pink boots, hot pink leopard print leggings. If I sit next to Blythe she’ll talk my ear off about whatever nine-year-olds talk about and no one will notice that I’m not actually watching the game.
I sit down and Blythe immediately turns to me with the intensity of the tiniest hockey superfan. “These are my lucky socks,” she informs me, lifting one sparkly boot to show me the sock underneath. “I wore them for Games 1, 2 AND 3 and we won all of those games so I have to wear them tonight or we’ll lose and it’ll be my fault.”
“That’s pretty solid logic.”
“I know. My mom says socks aren’t lucky but I think she’s wrong.”
“I think you might be right.”
