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Chapter Five
Then
Call me asap, but my favorite Sunday of the month was the Sunday we played at home and had a post-skate session with the kids who called themselves Beloit Enforcers fans. Once a month, the team hosted a post-game skating session, and it was always a good time.
Between the kids and the players, I really couldn’t tell you who had more fun.
The kids...damn, the joy on their faces was absolutely priceless. It reminded me of growing up in northern Wisconsin, putting on my skates, and heading out to the frozen lake, my dad’s hand in mine. Some of these kids were impressive, with their speed and agility on skates—again, reminding me of years way long gone.
Then there were the kids who needed their hands held; the kids who didn’t have skates, but loved stepping on the very ice their idols played on.
It was a time to forget whatever the hell happened on the ice—such as a loss, like today’s game had been—and relive the excitement of being young again.
“Noah!” I turned my attention from Kolak, who I was talking to at center ice, as our booster club president’s daughter shuffled toward us, bright pink skates laced up on her feet. “Can I skate with you?”
While it sounded like a question, I knew five-year-old Juliet well, and therefore knew what she was really asking.
Grinning wide, I leaned down to lift the girl up to sit on my shoulders, keeping her hands in my own.
The Beloit Enforcers’ booster club was like an extended family. They put on pre-game lunches, post-game dinners, and, already this season, hosted two events, with another two on the schedule. The kids were everywhere their parents were, and as such, they were like honorary nieces and nephews to all us guys.
“Watch your blades,” I told her, the usual warning I gave before looking toward her mother. I spotted Maryan, then nodded up in her direction once for the okay, which I received. She’d been watching Juliet, her youngest, while carrying on a conversation with Coach’s wife and few other booster club members, but now turned her full attention to the group of them.
“You ready?” I asked, turning my head a notch.
Juliet giggled and grasped my hands as tight as she could.
“One… Two…”
“Three!” she shrieked, just as I took off in a speed skate toward the other goal line, coasting across the back before heading in the opposite direction. The entire time, her sweet giggles had me grinning wide.
I had a niece and two nephews, but I didn’t get to see them as often as I’d like. These post-skates, these moments with kids like Juliet, made me nostalgic for my family. Juliet’s giggles reminded me of my niece, Kendall; my sister Natalie’s oldest.
Just as I was slowing to a stop, ready to drop Juliet off by her mother, she squeezed my hands. “One more time, please? Please, Noah?”
I chuckled, and couldn’t help but concede. “One more, Jules. You can’t hog all my attention,” I joked, before heading around the rink one more time. Once we came to a slow stop, I lifted her back over my head and put her down to the ice gently, making sure she was steady on her blades before letting go.
“Don’t tease your brother,” I told her. The girl liked to hold these things over her eight-year-old brother’s head...which, honestly? Cracked me up.
She laughed, but whatever she said was lost on me as I moved my gaze toward the players’ tunnel, where my eyes landed on one Ryleigh Scott.
Like every time I’ve noticed her—and I caught myself noticing her more since that non-note her friend passed along—she was in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt; nothing fancy, nothing jaw dropping, but it made no difference.
Once I saw her, that was that.
During the game, I became focused on little things that I’d see during my glances back and over toward her seat, glances that I wasn’t aware I was doing. But then I’d catch her smile, her small claps, her shouts, her laughs. And now? Now, I watched how she smiled down at a little girl, whose hand was wrapped tight in hers.
Who was the girl?
“Noah!” Juliet called, still standing by my feet.
“Sorry, Jules, what’s up?”
“Justin’s sick,” she informed me, referring to her eight-year-old brother. “Can you sign something for him to make him feel better? He was sad, but don’t tell him that.”
“Sure thing. I can do that.”
We skated back toward her mom and, even after insistence from Maryan that I really didn’t have to sign anything, that Justin had plenty of memorabilia, I grabbed a game puck and signed it in the silver marker I kept in the pocket of my sweats during these skates, adding on it that I wished him to get well soon. I handed it to Maryan, who smiled graciously, before heading back toward the middle of the ice.
