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“I’m not that guy anymore,” he growled.
“I’m not either,” I replied while standing my ground. “I’m trying to make amends.” I glanced over at Tyler, and Felix frowned at me.
“With Tyler?”
“Yeah, with Tyler.”
I thought he was going to say something else, but then we were cut off.
“Sinclair! You plan on joining the rest of the team at center ice, or are you too busy lining up your glamour shots?” Coach Sennett yelled at the top of his lungs.
Felix and I glared at each other. He skated off in a huff. My sight flew to the team kneeling at center ice around their coach. Tyler’s bright green gaze was resting on me, his lips thin. Feeling like I’d been gut-punched, I shook it off. All of it. The shit with Felix, the wariness in Tyler’s eyes, and the odd stares from the team.
“Glamour shot sign-ups are next week. Look for the form online,” I called out, knowing a wisecrack would break the tension. It did. Some guys chuckled. Coach gave me a look that I took to mean stop being a putz, so I shut up, left the ice, and sat on the away bench by myself to sort through my shots. Most were pretty good, some were crap, but a few were amazing.
I studied one image of Tyler for a long time. I’d captured him after his goal, the tension he always seemed to carry on his face gone. His arms were up, his eyes shiny with joy. I wish he would even force a genuine smile at me but had no idea how to bring it out of him. Glancing up, I used my camera as a shield and took a few dozen more shots of the team interacting with Coach Sennett. My phone buzzed in my back pocket with an incoming text. My father was outside.
I stood, turned, gathered my bags from the locker room, and left the rink without saying goodbye. There was no one on the ice who cared if I was there or not. My pace picked up as I dashed over the frosty grounds to the waiting car. It was nearly dark now at five in the afternoon, the short fall days gripping the state tightly.
“You being chased or what?” Dad asked when I dove into the passenger seat, my backpack crushed between me and the seat. “I didn’t know that ghosts of Chesterfield Academy roamed around the ice hockey rink.”
Me either, but a few spirits of deeds past had run me out of the place with my tail tucked. Guess exorcising my past wouldn’t be as easy as I had hoped.
Over the next few days,I pretended to be the spectral photographer to keep with the whole spooky spirit theme even though Halloween was over. Ghosting in and out of practices, being silent and unseen as much as possible to avoid any confrontations.
I was still grounded, but I did get a pardon for the school paper hockey project. Couldn’t let my grades fall or my scholarship could be affected. So as long as I was trudging after the team taking snapshots, I was golden. The fact most of the Coyotes ignored me didn’t bother me. Okay, yeah, it hurt badly, but I had no idea how to turn the page to my new story. Tyler kept his distance, while Felix hovered around him like some kind of freaky mother hen, feathers ruffled, barring me from trying to talk to the guy. The others did their best to play up and goof off for team morale, but even I could see that the guys were edgy. The issues with me, Felix, and Tyler had to be screwing things up in terms of morale.
On the Thursday before the first game of the season against Hershey, I was in the cafeteria eyeballing the mound of goulash on my plate as I moved through the line to pay. The place was packed with grades nine through twelve—as the lower grades had already eaten—but I faced eating a meal alone. Unless I wanted to sit with Miles, which was a big nope. I shuffled along, stopping to check out the desserts—fruit cup, brownie, pudding, or sugar cookie the size of a basketball—when someone slid into line behind me. The girl following me huffed, then giggled. I glanced to the left to see Soren Rowe at my side.
“Skip the pudding. It’s got them little alien beads in it,” he said to me as the blonde chick behind us batted her lashes. Which was a waste because Soren only had eyes for Felix. Period.
Why the hell was Soren Rowe talking to me outside the rink? As far as I knew, he disliked me. Was this some sort of set-up? When nothing happened, I cleared my throat.
“You mean tapioca,” I corrected while getting a sour look from the lunch lady in the hairnet who was in charge of desserts. Only one per student, please, unless you wished to pay extra was the rule. Since my lunch voucher covered the main meal, plus one dessert, extra anything was not happening.
“Right, that stuff. Nasty. Alien eggs. So, hey, if you’re not already sitting with friends we have an empty seat at the Coyotes table.” His smile was so big it nearly blinded me. It also rang my suspicion bell big time. I threw a glance at the table the hockey team was sitting at. They all looked back, ugly fake smiles on their faces. Tyler lifted his gaze from his dish of noodles and tiny meatballs, mistrust ripe on his face. “You’re one of us now, right? Team photographer and all that.” I nodded. “Then, I can say this without you coming unhinged. I’m not sure about you yet. I’m not sure about the way you treated other kids. No, I know, you’re different now. I get it. Felix has made that same pledge and is working to right his wrongs. Totally cool with that. I just need you to tell me that you’re serious about this change. I like Tyler, a lot, and I’m not really down with people hurting him. Not you, not my boyfriend, no one. So, this is just a little team chat from a concerned player to the team photographer. We cool about things?”
“Yeah, we’re cool.”
“Nice. You can move down the line now.”
I scanned the table. No Felix. Huh. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Oh, he had some oral surgery done today, so he’s coming down from laughing gas as we speak. You should have seen his last text. He was telling me that he was some sort of cosmic paladin of love. Funny as hell.”
I nodded, simply because I had no other response.
He stepped closer, his elbow now bumping mine, and I flung a look at him. His gaze met mine. “I’m sure he’ll love you sharing that around,” I commented, moved down the line, and handed over my lunch pass to be scanned. I was one of only a few on the school’s dime. There was a younger kid, a Timmy something, who was in fifth grade, who was here through a different program for inner city kids because he had some sort of Sheldon Cooper brain when it came to math.
“Meh, he needs to loosen up a little,” Soren said, giving the lunch lady a smile as he led me towards the Coyotes table with not-so-subtle nudges of his elbow to steer me from heading to a small table in the corner. “So yeah, totally digging the stuff that you’re doing so far. Sit down next to me. Hey, guys, Jonah is here. Lucky I caught him before he went to sit with the art students.”
Soren was really laying it on thick. The other players nodded and said hey or hi before returning to shoveling in their food.
“Hi, Tyler,” I said as I unrolled my silverware.
“Hey,” he replied softly, his green eyes flicking to me, then back to his food.
“So, tomorrow night, we’ll be travelling to Hershey for a game in their barn,” Soren opened with.
