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Then, I saw Felix’s dad was right next to her, and when I glanced at Felix, he’d clearly noticed our parents together, too, because he caught my gaze and quirked a smile. I liked Felix’s dad. James was a good guy, who took me and my mom in one night when Mom had gotten scared after a dropped phone call from my asshole dad. He’d probably been drinking and that was his go-to—freak out his ex-wife and son.
Sure, us being there had led to Felix losing his shit and hitting me, but Felix wasn’tthatperson anymore. He’d said so. He’d said he was sorry, tried to explain about his mom, and all the vulnerable bits of him I kind of understood. Something of the uncertainty I was feeling must have shown in my expression because the cautious smile died in Felix’s eyes. He broke the connection and focused on his stick tape.
Why did he get to look away from me as ifhewere hurt?
How did Jonah get to give me candy and bananas with that hangdog expression as if it was up tometo be nice back to him?
Wasn’t itmewho’d gotten punched? Wasn’t itmewho Jonah hadn’t stood up for? Why couldn’t Jonah have been a good guy from the start? Then, I would have been able to take the damn banana without feeling as if I was leaving myself open to hurt.
And fuck Felix with his self-pity and his rabid need to get between me and anything. Did he thinkIwas broken? Did he thinkIcared about any of it?
By the time I hit the ice, I was mad at myself, at life, at a dad who’d fucked off, at Felix, at Jonah, at everything, and the white heat of temper gave extra fuel to my already fast skates. We didn’t manage a goal this shift, but by the end of the first period, we were two goals up—one from me, one from Soren—and I was fully in the zone.
And it was easy to stay there as long as I didn’t stare at Jonah.
Confusing, apologizing, staring-at-me, Jonah.
ChapterFive
Jonah
It washard to not fill my camera with action shots of Tyler.
And not only because he was cute, which I’d finally admitted to myself about ten minutes ago when I’d snapped a shot of him on the bench talking with the guys on his line and smiling at something Soren had said. Sure, he was sweaty and grimy, and probably stank after a full period of skating full-bore, but there was something about the way his face was made. It was kind of perfect. And cute.
I’d lowered my camera when that realization hit home. Tyler was cute. And I was bi. Twice the bi. Funny how realizations kind of snuck up on you, then waffled you over the head like some cartoon rabbit with a huge rubber mallet. How had I not seen it before? I mean… okay, maybe I had noticed Tyler’s eyes, lips, and smile, but I hadn’t placed it all together in the CUTE file. Why had it taken so long for me to realize things other people knew from birth?
I shifted around behind the bench, my toes frozen, easing closer to the third line. Not to eavesdrop or anything, but to simply…. Okay, I was eavesdropping, but it was all for the project. I took a few shots of the coach, then angled a nice action photo of a crisp shot attempt, then a block by the Coyotes goalie, Rikki Peals. Rikki Roll as the team called him, then Coach would tell him not to lose that number. Which no one got other than Coach. Seemed it was some old song or something, who knows, people over forty are so weird.
Easing up behind Soren, I kept my camera to my eye and my ears open.
“… we can stop at the Salsa Palace on the way home,” Soren was saying as the second period was winding down. “It’s that place in Rutherford, but we have to win in order to get a taco stop.”
“I love tacos,” Tyler replied, his attention on the ice as he spoke. “Mom used to make them a lot. Really spicy ones with tons of sour cream.”
Huh, my mom made tacos a lot, too. She and the girls spent all kinds of time in the kitchen on the weekends, making meals, then freezing them. I liked to help as well. Cooking made me feel good. Mom would smile at me over the heads of my sisters, then say something profound like: “Cooking is love made visible” or “People who give you their food give you their hearts,” which was totally some Pinterest pins she had saved to one of her thousand boards, but it felt true. When you made food for someone, it showed you cared.
“Yes!!” the Coyotes shouted as they jumped to their feet. I jolted out of the food fantasy to see that the Hershey goalie had just let the puck soar past him into the net. The shot from Shaun a bullet no one in goal could have captured. Shaun had some real talent. Like collegiate or pro-level talent. And he was only a sophomore. Supposedly, NHL scouts were already sniffing around, comparing him to Tennant Madsen-Rowe, which was pretty massive praise.
The end of the second period sounded with a buzzer blast. The Coyotes were winning going into the third. We took a fifteen-minute break, the same length as each period of play, and during that break, I moved through the away locker room like the ghostly photographer once again. The idea of being unseen was that you got real life images. When people saw the camera, they tended to pose because who didn’t want to look good in a picture? I slunk around the room silently, taking shots of Felix, who followed me with his gaze, Soren at his side as always, and then, I moved to the shadows to get a few shots of Coach pep-talking the guys. Then, as always, my attention strayed to Tyler, cute Tyler. I faded into the corner of the room even more when his bright green eyes found mine. The tips of his ears went red. My empty stomach flipped over on itself, making a knot in my gut that would make eating tacos tough. If we won. Which we did, with a goal from Tyler the Terror late in the third.
It had been such a pretty goal. A soft rolling pass from Soren that Tyler had picked up at center ice, then carried into the Hershey zone. Moving like the wind, he snuck a shot between the legs of a big Hershey defenseman, picked the puck back up, spun, and tucked it neatly between the pipe and the Hershey goalie’s skate.
The bus ride back to Harrisburg was boisterous. When we pulled into the Salsa Palace in Rutherford Heights, everyone cheered. I lingered in the front seat as the team filed out, pretending to check my images. I’d not tried to move back. That was the team area, and despite the horseshit that Soren had shoveled at the lunch table, I wasnotthe team anything. No one really liked me; they simply tolerated me. It hurt, sure, but it was to be expected. Making amends took time.
Once the bus was empty, I slipped out, bracing for the cold winds ripping through the parking lot. Hands in my coat pocket, shoulders around my ears, I jogged into the taco restaurant.
“You can sit with us,” Coach said when I got in line. I smiled weakly at him and the volunteer coach, Shaun’s dad, then added my order to the massive tab when I got to the register. If I needed proof that I was a troll among princes, I sure got it that night. Nothing says loser quite like having to sit with the adults while all the other teens were across the eatery joking and laughing and totally ignoring your existence. Guess that was what trolls who were trying to win over the villagers after eating a few kids had to go through, though. At least, I wasn’t living under a bridge, so go Jonah’s life.
The followingweek was light in terms of schoolwork, so I had lots of time to be grounded. Yay. Thankfully, there was a game against Ephrata on Wednesday at Chesterford, so I was allowed to go to the campus, as long as I was outside the doors of the rink after the game ended. Which was fine with me. Not that anyone wanted to have me follow the team to Hot Pot Noodle Shop.
Dad dropped me off early because Dad was always early for everything. If a movie started at seven, Dad was in his seat at six-fifteen. And that seat had to be the last row on the left because, this way, no one was behind him kicking his seat.
So yeah, I was at the school an hour before I was needed. The campus was dark and cold, frost already settling on the grass as I hustled to the rink, my backpack bouncing off my back as my camera thudded against my chest. I’d brought my dinner, since Mom had been working a later shift at the burger joint and the game started at seven. I’d made a pot of Dad’s famous chili, but since it was already late when he got home, it was barely done when we had to leave. I’d dished up a Rubbermaid container for myself, and one for Tyler because… food was love. Not that I loved him. That was absurd. I just thought he was cute, and I had to make amends to him. Maybe chili would do that.
The team began to file in about ten minutes after I arrived. I nodded at the guys. They nodded back, each carrying their own gear, their gazes not quite as dark as they had been a few weeks ago. Maybe I was making some progress with them. Of course, they weren’t the ones who I’d stood by and let be bullied, so while it was nice to have less venomous looks, the one who mattered most still eyed me like I was a scorpion he’d found in his sneaker.
The door opened and blew in Tyler, as well as several dead leaves. He yanked it closed, spun, and saw me lingering next to the home locker room holding a container of food.
