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“Yeah, we can start with you against me,” I said to Trevor. “What do you think?”
He lowered his brows. “I meant another kid, Mr. Boone. You can’t fight me.”
“I could.” I rubbed my chin like I was considering it. “I need to practice breaking noses, and yours is so perfect.”
Trevor was a bruiser; he was one of my favorite kids here. We didn’t let the kids fight, ever, but he still asked.
“That’s child abuse,” he said. “You’d go to jail.”
I ruffled his hair. “I’m not gonna fight you, kid, relax. You’re here to learn hockey fundamentals and that’s it.”
He groaned with annoyance. “That’s boring.”
“Hey, Coach!” I called out to Gizzard, who was setting up orange cones for a drill.
He looked over at me.
“We’ve got a kid here who thinks practice is boring.”
Coach furrowed his brow, looking concerned. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? What might be fun for him?”
“He wants to fight,” I said.
Coach nodded. “Well, show him what I have you guys do when you want to fight.”
Trevor looked up at me, his eyes bright and hopeful. “We get to fight?”
“No, something way more fun,” I assured him. “It’s called a bag skate. You’re going to love it.”
It only took thirty minutes of nonstop skating with me blowing a whistle behind him for Trevor to decide that practicing with the other kids didn’t sound so bad after all.
Jolie was working with a group of kids on shooting when Joey and I skated over to join them.
“He’ll sleep well tonight,” she said.
“Yeah, he did pretty well, though. For an eight-year-old.” We exchanged a look as we stood back and watched the line of kids take shots. “Did your dad ever coach you?”
She laughed. “Oh yeah. He volunteered”—she air-quoted the word—“to help coach my peewee team, but he didn’t even wait to see if the head coach wanted his help.”
“The old bulldozer routine?” I quipped.
“Yep. You would’ve thought we were training for the Olympics.”
Tonight, she wore a purple knitted ear warmer and a Mavericks team fleece. Again, she looked right at home on the ice, and again, I felt a pull toward her.
“Did you like it?” I asked her. “Having your dad help coach?”
She shrugged. “When I was younger, I loved it. But as I got older, we worked out an agreement where he could watch my practices and come to my games, but he couldn’t come coach me during games.”
I nodded, easily able to picture Coach steamrolling an inexperienced coach. “Yeah, I imagine that was for the best.”
Coach called everyone together and announced we were going to play a game, and the kids cheered with glee. Games were always a disaster at youth practices, but this was a beginner-level group, and Coach Gizzard wanted the kids to have some fun with it and hopefully, get enthusiastic about playing more seriously for a competitive youth hockey team.
Volunteers played on the teams to help guide the kids, and I found myself on offense against Jolie. She was good, smoothly passing the puck to the kids and telling them when to pass and when to shoot.
I’d always thought she was beautiful. Getting to know her a little had changed the way I saw her, though. She was easygoing and secure in who she was. Her smile drew me in and made it hard to look away.
She was more off-limits than ever, but I was more interested than ever. That was a dangerous combination. Nash wasn’t here tonight to remind me not to stare, and that’s exactly what I was doing when Jolie helped a kid shoot a puck right past me and into the net.
When she grinned at me, obviously thinking I’d let him score on purpose, I smiled back.
“Boone!” Coach yelled, snapping me out of my trance. “We need you on the bench.”
Shit. He’d busted me staring at Jolie. That was the last thing I needed.
I went to the bench, where two kids needed help lacing their skates and another needed help going to the bathroom.
“I don’t know how to wipe,” the kid said once he was in the stall.
Taking kids to the bathroom was enough; I drew the line at wiping asses.
“Want me to go get your mom?” I asked.
“It’s the boys’ room. She can’t come in here.”
“We’ll make an exception,” I said. “I’ll be right back. What’s your name?”
“Camden.”
I went to the stands and asked for Camden’s mom until I found her, and once she was in the bathroom with him, I checked my phone and saw a missed call from Carrie. There was also a text.
Carrie: I’m free for the next 40 minutes if you want to call.
I checked my watch and saw that I still had fifteen minutes left, so I pushed the call back button immediately. Since Andy’s diagnosis, I’d checked in with her like this several times to find out how things were really going.
