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“Your son calls you a simp!” I yelled at him as he skated by.
“Oh, I know!” He laughed before quickly snatching a puck away from a kid, stickhandling with it, then passing it back to him so he could take a shot at the net.
I sat there struggling to focus on the little guys in front of me, because my eyes kept drifting up to Claire in the weight room… and my mind kept drifting to the cement barrier against relationships that I built up in my mind and wondering if maybe I’d been wrong to construct it in the first place…
Then again, maybe it was only because I was back here that I was suddenly second guessing myself…
Becauseshewas the only one I could ever see settling down with anyway…
A loud ding caught my attention, pulling my eyes from the workout room. I turned to see a wobbly looking kid flop to the ice behind the net.
“Yikes,” I breathed out. The kids were all rounding the net for shots, as per usual for the end of warm-ups. The kid must’ve gone behind the net to grab a puck and gotten nicked by one in the helmet.
Grey was standing over him in a second, surely asking him questions to see if he was alright. When the kid staggered to his feet, the rest of the little guys applauded.
Grey pointed his stick to me in the box and yelled, “Another to the injured reserve list!” and all the tweens laughed like it was the funniest shit they’d ever heard.
I shook my head wryly and crutched over to open the box door for the kid.
I taped his helmet as he moved past me to lay flat on his back on the bench behind me. He let out a loud groan.
“Gonna not wanna skate behind the net during shooting drills, bud,” I said with a chuckle.
7.Duke
When about ten minutes remained of the morning session, Grey invited me to eat lunch with him at Benny’s, which was the diner in the lobby of the rink. I begrudgingly declined because I’d forgotten my wallet.
“Kid skates in the pros and can’t even buy himself lunch,” he chirped.
“Yeah, yeah, settle down,” I grumbled.
He searched his pockets for his keys then and handed them over to me. “Get my wallet from the console of my truck and I’ll cover you? It’ll probably take you a minute.” He eyed my crutches warily. “Meet you at the diner?”
“Sure, uh… Thanks, man.”
“You probably won’t be thanking me after crutching up the ramp in the heat out there,” he smirked as he glided backwards toward the kids.
That was probably true. The rink was built up next to a pond, so it had a long ass ramp that went over the water to connect it to the parking lot. It was always awful to walk down it in the winter because the wind harshly whipped at your face and the ramp got pretty icy. Someone always took a spill out there and got teased mercilessly for it in the locker room.
I hoped Grey parked close to the rink because the parking lot was expansive– so much so that the rink rented it to a drive-in movie theater company during summer nights.
As soon as I pushed my way outside, I was thankful for the heat. My limbs could finally de-thaw a bit. I immediately leaned my crutches up against the building and hopped around while trying to rip off my sweatshirt, when something hit me in the gut and exploded, drenching me in ice cold water…
It took me a second to realize it was a water balloon, and I heard muffled giggles coming from around the side of the building.
The next one hit me square in the chest and almost knocked me on my ass.
I reached to grab my crutches and hopped to dodge the next balloon.
“Watch the cast, guys! Jeez!” I yelled.
Another one came flying in then and I was too clumsy to avoid it. The offending balloon hit me in a place no man wants to be hit…
I released a loud grunt and doubled over. “So you aim for my balls instead?! I surrender!” I yelled.
“Sorry Coach!” Canyon’s voice called out. “Just testing out the balloons for the kiddie camp next week!”
“Yeah, sorry!” Troy could barely say the words because of his laughing.
