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CHAPTER 1

Naomi

From the back seat of my little Honda, my dear, sweet, wonderful son pipes up with yet another hockey fact. “Hockey players weren’t required to wear helmets until 1979. Did you know that?”

I’m pretty sure the question is rhetorical, as the only hockey things I know are the ones Liam has been telling me. I answer anyway, trying to make it sound like the words aren’t coming through clenched teeth. “I did not.”

Nor do I particularly care, but that seems irrelevant.

“But players who signed contracts before that year could choose whether or not to wear one. The last player who skated without a helmet was Craig MacTavish, who retired in 1997.”

“Playing hockey without a helmet sounds dangerous. Like riding your bike without a helmet,” I say pointedly.

Liam ignores my comment and goes on to tell me what year visors on helmets were mandated (2013) and to list the only four players who don’t wear a visor now.

“Jamie Benn is known for his visorless death stare.”

“Good for Jamie Benn,” I mutter. Whoever that is .

On the seven-and-a-half-hour drive from Oakley Island, Georgia to Harvest Hollow, North Carolina, I’ve been forced to listen to my son share no less than one thousand three hundred fifty-seven hockey facts with me. Approximately. Which, according to my best mathing, is an average of one fact every two minutes.

Somehow, it feels like more.

Liam’s stupid hockey kick, which started months ago but is currently at a fever pitch, is all my fault for (briefly) dating a hockey player last summer. Except I’m choosing to blame the aforementioned hockey player for Liam’s obsession. Because it’s far more mature to shrug off your own responsibility and dump it on someone else’s shoulders.

Someone else’s broad, sculpted shoulders.

No! Bad Naomi. We are not even thinking about his shoulders. Even if they are ? —

Nope. This train of thought ends now.

I force myself to picture Liam’s first-grade teacher from a few years back. The one who always had a little bit of spittle in the corners of his mouth and who talked to my chest—insignificant though it may be—rather than making eye contact. This mental image always helps exorcise any unwanted romantic thoughts, even if it’s rude and shallow.

Actually no , I think, remembering the way Mr. Gull’s gaze always fixed a few inches below my collarbone. I’m not the shallow one .

“Goalies are also known as netminders,” Liam continues. “Or goaltenders. They have a different kind of stick with a wider paddle to block shots.”

Facts number one thousand three hundred fifty-eight and one thousand three hundred fifty-nine.

“Marc-André Fleury is my favorite goalie, even though he retired.”

“Mm-hm. And why is that?”

Do I sound convincingly like I care? I sure hope so.

This is the part of parenting no one tells you about. It wasn’t included in the well-meaning but unsolicited advice I received from friends and strangers alike or the books or blog posts I devoured as a nineteen-year-old trying to prepare for a surprise baby. I was prepped for late-night feedings and having a sick baby while I was also sick and trying to keep Liam from ingesting common household chemicals. Knowing didn’t make it easy, but it was eas ier since I had some level of expectation.

But I was wholly and woefully unprepared for the emotional weight of feigning an interest in a sport you’d like to see wiped from the face of the earth. The strain of having to talk about hockey has my eye twitching.

“They call him Flower. He’s one of few players who’s loved by everyone. He was known for pranking people.”

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“I won’t.” Liam pauses, and I can hear the smile in his voice when he continues. “Probably. He talked to the goalposts and thanked them in both French and English. And he’s the only goalie in NHL history to record a shutout as a teenager and after the age of forty.”

“He sounds … neat.”

And I sound dorky. Who says neat anymore?

But I’m struggling through this conversation and feel like the little meter showing my emotional regulation is teetering swiftly into the red zone. The one that says Hit the deck! She’s gonna blow!

“He’s a legend,” Liam says, then rattles off stats I don’t follow regarding save percentages, goals against average, and career shutouts.

Give him an iPad for the car ride, my brother’s wife suggested. It will make the trip go a lot easier.

Eloise might have been correct— if Liam were a more typical ten-year-old. I should have known he wouldn’t watch movies or play games with headphones on. Instead, he’s been learning everything he can about his new favorite obsession—hockey—and then mistakenly thinking I’m also interested.

In case it’s not already clear, I’m not.

I’ve never been a big sports girl, generally speaking, and anything I do know is about the more mainstream sports: football, baseball, basketball, soccer—the general American sportsball sports. When it’s either a summer or winter Olympic Games year, I become a temporary expert on figure skating or swimming.

Hockey, however, is what I consider a fringe sport, like MMA or Formula 1 or rugby. There are definitely obsessed fans—just in smaller numbers than the American mainstream sports. I am not one of the obsessed or even mild fans. Before last summer, I knew hockey existed. Liam’s facts notwithstanding, I still only know the very basics: ice, pucks, skates, fights.

After last summer, however, I am not simply dis interested in hockey or hockey neutral. I am actively anti -hockey.

But I am very pro Liam. My kid is brilliant and amazing, and I’d never trade him and his penchant for hyperfixating for a kid who’d watch seven straight hours of Bluey . Even if I personally happen to love Bluey .

Unlike hockey players, Bluey would never ever break my heart. Even if I cry in some—fine, most —of the episodes I watch by myself. (I will accept zero judgement for watching Bluey alone or crying about it.)

The point is: I love Liam. And right now, Liam loves hockey. So, pretending I care about hockey is my current lot in life. I’ll do whatever is needed to make Liam feel loved and valued.

Even if it means gritting my teeth and finding ways to respond as he starts reciting more goalie facts.

“Their pads and gear can weigh up to thirty-five pounds,” Liam says.

“Seems like it would be hard to move carrying that much weight.”

“It takes a lot of athleticism,” he agrees, and I feel a tiny bolt of pride for contributing something he deems useful to the conversation.

Look at me—contributing to the conversation! Then, I remind myself that I do not care about hockey , and Liam continues onward.

“Shots can launch the puck at speeds of almost one hundred miles per hour,” Liam says. “So, goalies need the protection even if it’s bulky. Pucks can break noses or the orbital bone?—”

I tune Liam out with a shudder as he starts listing off gruesome hockey injuries. I am easily nauseated by talk of blood and guts. If I actually witness any of those things? It’s all over for me. I love this turn of conversation even less than I did hearing about goalie pads.

“Hey! It’s our exit! We’re almost … home.”

The word feels strange and wrong in my mouth, and maybe it does to Liam’s ears, too, because he stops talking and turns to the window.

Harvest Hollow is a small city nestled in the hills of North Carolina. Not typically the kind of place you’d think of as teeming with jobs. Had I known the office administrator position at the title company where I’ve worked for six months was here , I wouldn’t have applied. Just about any other geographic location in the continental United States would have been okay with me.

But the listings on the company’s job site were all vaguely arranged by state, not city. North Carolina sounded not too far, but just far enough for the escape I felt I needed from Oakley. I assumed the job would be in a more significant city like Charlotte or Asheville or the Raleigh-Durham area.

Not … here.

The size of Harvest Hollow is not my issue. Heck, I grew up on Oakley Island, which is tiny and an island. It’s not far from Savannah, but when you have to cross a bridge to leave, it creates a kind of dome effect, enhancing the small town-ness.

Harvest Hollow is at least ten times the size of Oakley. It’s also not too far from the larger Asheville to the east and a little further to Knoxville to the west. From what I understand, this area of North Carolina is also dotted with little towns nestled into the hills and hollers, adding to the population.

So, it’s not the size that has me gripping the wheel so tightly as we exit the highway.

It’s also not because I’m trading the ocean for the mountains, though I am a beach girl at my core.

“Mom! There’s the Summit!”

Liam practically has his face pressed to the window, iPad forgotten in his lap. “Can we stop?”

I glance out the window at the stadium building Liam is gesturing at wildly. The Summit, which houses the Appies, Harvest Hollow’s AHL team, is a physical manifestation of the reason why I would have chosen any other place to live.

Because my ex, the one from a short summer relationship that was supposed to stay casual and fun and, above all, temporary, plays hockey for the Appies.

And if Camden finds out I’ve moved here, he’ll probably think it has to do with him. It seems a little too coincidental.

So, I just need to make sure he doesn’t know I’m here. Ever.

This shouldn’t be too hard, considering the fact that the Appies are basically low-key celebrities. When Camden and I first met, I did a little reconnaissance—a.k.a. curious social media stalking—and the man has two hundred thousand followers. Not as many as some of the other players, but way beyond normal-person level. Even beyond typical AHL players. Camden’s comments may be turned off, but every post has thousands of likes and shares. It’s honestly a little unnerving.

But it makes my point: He’s busy. Kinda famous. Our paths are very unlikely to cross.

The challenge would actually be getting in touch with him if I wanted to. Which I don’t. But knowing how geographically close we are to Camden—I mean, he could be in that building over there right this moment —combined with the reminders from Liam’s constant stream of hockey facts, is like massaging salt into very open wounds.

I thought I ended things with Camden before Liam’s heart got tangled up as badly as mine did. I thought I made the right choice. The smart choice.

I mean, Camden as a long-term, serious boyfriend or possibly more was a pipe dream. Which is why we talked about keeping things casual. He’s a hockey player, and any professional athlete comes standard with a whole slew of unpleasant side effects like constant travel, weird schedules, fame … and stuff I don’t know about because I barely know hockey. Plus, his home was off Oakley, and I told myself a long-distance relationship—assuming Camden might even want the same thing—would be impossible.

But it wouldn’t be long distance now …

Shut up, inner voice , I silently tell the voice of un reason.

Because all other reasons aside, there is also the little factor of the boy in the back seat, who, despite how quickly he stopped asking me about Camden after the breakup, was clearly impacted by my short-lived relationship. Hence the hockey facts.

I’m only grateful Cam’s name hasn’t come up. Not in relation to our move or included in the litany of information he’s been fire-hosing at me. I keep waiting for the other shoe—or in this case, skate?—to drop. But between the two of us, Camden has become like the boogeyman or, to use a more current analogy from Encanto , a movie Liam obsessed over and I couldn’t stop humming for months, like Bruno.

We don’t talk about him. Even if he might still be present, living quietly behind our walls.

“I think the Summit is closed right now, bud.”

“The gift shop in the lobby is open,” Liam says. “The hours today are from twelve to five.”

He memorized the Summit’s hours. Just swell.

I draw in a slow breath and remind myself how much I appreciate my child’s unique brain, even if I don’t know where it came from. Certainly not me. My brain is a combo of a pinball machine with half a dozen balls going at once and a sieve, all connected to a mouth that’s at times a little too smart for my own good. And Liam definitely didn’t inherit his smarts from his biological father, an absolute nothing of a man I’d regret if not for the amazing kid I ended up with.

“I want to get to the house before it’s dark,” I tell him. It’s January, and now we’re in the mountains, which means at three thirty in the afternoon, shadows are already stretching long, the sun dipping below the mountains, and leaving a ribbon of gold along their peaks.

This will take some getting used to. I’m lucky there’s no snow or ice at the moment. I am completely ill-prepared for that. We don’t even own coats. It’s on the list. Along with fifty thousand other things. At least the house we’re renting came mostly furnished. One small thing.

“We should settle in,” I continue gently. “Unpack the car and all that.”

“Oh,” he says, and the disappointment in his voice is a backhand to my heart. “That makes sense. Okay.”

As we pull up to a stoplight, I lift a hand and press two fingers right between my eyes where a headache is forming. Too little sleep lately. Too much caffeine today on the drive.

Too many NHL facts.

But what do I hate more than thinking about hockey and especially hockey players?

Disappointing my kid.

“I promise to take you another time, okay?”

“Really?” Liam’s voice rises with unbridled excitement.

“Sure. Yes.” This is the kind of promise that kills me to make, but I’m making it anyway. “We’ll go to the Summit.”

“To a game?”

I swallow around what feels like a handful of sand. “Sure.”

Unless I can somehow switch his interest to some other topic first.

Saving the rainforests, if they still need saving.

Quantum physics, whatever that is.

Even the life cycle of dung beetles would be preferable.

Or maybe I could bribe him with a dog. He’s wanted one forever, and I’ve said no every single time. Would I prefer having a dog to hearing about hockey?

Definite food for thought.

“A hockey team’s home arena is also called their barn,” Liam says, and this fact is recited with a little less excitement than his others.

“So, the Summit is the Appies’ barn?”

“Yep.”

“Do people also call hockey players horses?” I ask, hoping for a laugh.

Instead, I get a derisive snort. It makes me smile anyway. “Mom, no .”

“Just asking.”

I love horrifying my child. I’m really looking forward to his teen years when I can google all the current teen slang and then casually throw those terms into conversation. He’ll hate it, and I’ll love it.

I’m so grateful when the Summit passes out of view without Liam bringing up Camden that I don’t realize how quiet the car has become. A mother knows her kid better than anyone else does, which is why, when Liam’s silence stretches for longer than it has this entire car trip, I know something is up as I turn into what will be our new neighborhood.

“You okay?” No answer. “What’s wrong?” I ask, turning to glance back as we reach a stop sign.

Liam doesn’t look hurt. Or even sad.

He looks … guilty.

Dread rises, clawing its way up my throat until I can taste the panic. Guilty means he’s done something. Something bad enough to stop his parade of hockey facts.

“Liam, talk to me.”

“I’m glad you said you’d take me to the Summit,” he says, his words carefully measured. The gears in his head are turning at a rapid rate.

“Why are you saying it like that? With that tone, and with such specific wording?”

“I did something.” Liam sounds miserable. “I know I shouldn’t have. I know I should have asked you. But I was afraid you’d say no.”

I miss the turn to our new street, and the GPS interrupts, rerouting us. A perfect pause in which to collect myself. I breathe deeply and attempt to settle my nerves.

Don’t freak out. Whatever it is, be cool. You’re a good mom. Mostly good. Just because you’re a very emotional person doesn’t mean you need to unload on your kid when he does something awful. It’s probably no big deal.

“It’s fine. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. But you have to tell me.”

“You promise not to freak out?” he asks. “You promise not to be mad?”

“I promise I’ll try . And even if I’m a little upset, you know nothing you could do could make me love you less. It’s you and me versus the world, right?”

“You and me and Uncle Jake and Aunt Eloise and Grandpa Ned,” he adds stubbornly.

Hearing Liam list off names of the family we’ve left behind, my hands reflexively white-knuckle the wheel.

For years, I’ve gone back and forth between living in Savannah and living on the island with my family surrounding me—those Liam mentioned plus all the more recent additions he didn’t: Merritt and Hunter and Sadie and Benedict. And the one I’m shocked he didn’t mention, Hunter’s daughter, Izzy, who is Liam’s age and a good friend.

It won’t be easy. I knew this going in. But the reality right this exact moment is a sucker punch.

I like to think of myself as an independent woman. Capable. Smart. Brave. And, sure, I am those things. Just the fact that I’ve managed to raise a really decent kid on my own is proof of that. But even while living in Savannah, I was, at most, thirty minutes away. I’ve never lived this far from a support system. I was never truly alone like we will be here.

Like we are now.

I’m struck with a sudden and painful homesickness like I’ve never known. The excitement I’ve felt about change and a fresh start is quickly collapsing into something a whole lot more like panic with a side of Oh, no—what have I done?

I swallow. “Right. You and me and all our people versus the world.”

The GPS informs me that our destination is on the right. I recognize the house from pictures and pull up to the driveway. It’s a cute little craftsman bungalow with a wide porch, emerald-green paint, and fresh white trim. It restores my excitement temporarily. But then I realize Liam is still quiet in the backseat.

Right. I almost forgot that he was about to confess something.

Whatever it is, do not start yelling , I tell myself. You are an iceberg. A veritable city block of chill.

I park in the driveway, then glance in the mirror to see Liam biting his lip. “Spit it out.”

“You promise you won’t yell?”

I drop my head to the steering wheel, wishing I had a paper bag to breathe into. What could he possibly have done?

“I won’t yell.”

“You won’t ground me forever?”

“Definitely not forever . But with the way you’re talking, it sounds like maybe whatever this is might require some kind of consequence. I promise I’ll be reasonable. How’s that?”

“Deal,” Liam says. Then hesitates some more.

I swear, I can feel individual hairs turning gray while I wait and worry. Shifting, I take off my seat belt and twist uncomfortably to face him.

“Liam,” I practically growl. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. It can’t be that bad.”

Please, please don’t let it be that bad , I silently plead with no one in particular.

I try to be thankful. Liam from a few years ago never would have done whatever it is he doesn’t want to tell me. I’m not happy about whatever it is, of course, but it’s a by-product of the good changes that have taken place. He used to be more socially awkward and a whole lot more serious. Now, he smiles more, jokes more, and is slightly less of his uncle Jake in a smaller body.

It also happens to mean he gets into normal kid trouble in a way he didn’t before.

After another few excruciating seconds, Liam says, “I took your credit card and signed up for hockey skating classes at the Summit.”

I totally forget all my promises and I shriek, “You did WHAT?”