Fake Skating(83)

Two days away, holy shitballs.

Every hockey team in the state that was facing their section finals was losing their shit right about now.

One more win until the X.

I was sick with want, I swear to God.

Elite play, elite hair, elite cellies—everything about the tournament was elite and everybody wanted to make it there. Add to that the lore of fucking Southview and I was this close to puking my guts out at any given moment.

“You okay, kid?” my dad asked, taking a break from his game talk to wolf down his dinner. “You’ve been quiet all week.”

“I was quiet all week,” Ashton said, mostly because she’d entered a phase where she just stole other people’s conversations, all the time. If you said you took a walk, Ashton took a walk. If you said you were tired, Ashton was tired.

Yesterday my dad said Ed had been busting his balls about selling one of his duck blinds, and she looked directly at me and said, “Ed has been busting my balls.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

“Is it possible you’re taking this tooseriously?” my mom asked. “I love how competitive you are, Al, but you need to relax. You don’t want to psych yourself out.”

“I know,” I said, not wanting to take another bite of food.

“And the bottom line is it’s just a game, right?” My mom gave me the smile she’d always given me when she was trying to make me feel better about something, the same one she’d given me when she used to put Band-Aids on the scrapes I’d gotten from being klutzy as fuck.

“Just a game”?

I had to stop myself from laughing.

We all knew it wasn’t just a game.

Hockey was the game.

Especially in Minnesota, and especially in this household, where we were relying on hockey as a lifeline (though we’d never say it out loud).

Hell, I wished it were just a game.

But it wasn’t. That was the truth.

She said, “Of course you want to make it to the tournament, and you guys are good enough this year so you probably will, but the thing is—if you don’t, your road isn’t ending, right?”

Right.

“Your high school career will end, sure, but this is only the beginning for you,” she reassured me. “So go hard, but remember that this game isn’t the end either way.”

I needed a lightning bolt to just come down through the roof and strike me down.

“You’ll be starting a whole new chapter,” she said.

My dad grinned and said, “God, what if one day you were in an Original Six jersey…?”

“What?”

What the fuck is that, Dad?

That was an insane thing to say, especially out loud.

Expecting me to one day wear the sweater of one of the most legendary hockey franchises in, well, like, the history of hockey??

“I mean,” he said with a grin, grabbing the casserole and scooping out some more before setting the pan down, “I don’t want to jinx anything, but a man can dream, right?”

Where the hell is that lightning bolt?

I didn’t get a lightning bolt, but the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” I said, nearly leaping out of my chair. “It’s probably Kyle.”

I had no reason whatsoever to think it was Kyle, but I needed to get out of there before I had a heart attack. Please be Kyle please be Kyle.

But when I opened the door, it was Dani, all bundled up in a scarf, hat and boots.

Every thought in my head immediately cleared.

“Hi,” she said with a shy smile.

“Hi, yourself,” I said, shocked as fuck to see her. “Can I help you?”

“Who is it—oh hey, Danigirl,” my dad said from behind me. “Come in before you freeze.”

“Actually,” she said, grinning like she always did at my dad, like she was genuinely happy to see him, “I was wondering if your son would want to go on a walk with me.”

Wait, what?

“You walked over?” my dad asked. “Is your blood finally thickening?”

“No, I’ve got three pairs of socks under these boots and pants under my pants.”

My dad started laughing, and she gave me an eyebrow raise. “So? Do you want to take a walk or not?”

I was pretty sure I’d never wanted to do anything as much as I wanted to go for a walk with her at that moment. Not only was she rescuing me from that dinner conversation, but she looked cute as hell all bundled up.

And it’d been a long-ass time since I’d gone for a walk with Dani Collins.

Fuck, this is a terrible idea.

Because as much as I’d been denying it, things with Dani were starting to feel way too fucking real.

They had been for a while now.

Whether I liked it or not.

That didn’t mean I had any clue what I wanted or what the hell to do with the realization, but it was suddenly my reality.

“Count me in,” I said, slipping on my shoes and grabbing my coat.

As soon as I stepped out on the porch and shut the door behind me, I asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“Maybe the old route…?”

When she used to stay with us in the summer, we walked the “old route” so many times, just wandering around away from our parents, talking about nothing and everything. We always walked to the end of the block, took a left into the loop by the elementary school, then went the long way by the big park before coming back.