Page 14 of Fake Skating

“Come eat, kiddo!”

I set down my pen and stretched, because I’d been working on homework since I got home at three thirty and it was almost seven. Southview’s AP classes were no joke, and I needed to stay on top of the curriculum because I had no room for anything less than an A+.

But I was starving and something smelled really good, so I ran down the stairs.

When I got downstairs, Grandpa Mick was twirling spaghetti around his fork, my mom doing the same beside him.

“Oh, praise God, spaghetti,”I said under my breath, starving. I was famished because I hadn’t eaten lunch at school.

It’d been years since I’d consumed lunch in a cafeteria.

It was another one of those important lessons of starting a new school. Far better to lose yourself in a library book over lunch than navigate a crowded cafeteria. It was peaceful and unthreatening, and a little bit of hunger beat a heaping helping of mortification every time.

Although today the mortification had nearly happened in the library.

Even after discovering he’d become some arrogant jockish version of his former self, I was still surprised that he’d seemed to find it entertaining to mess with me.

I would’ve assumed our family connection would at least make him ignore me, since he’d clearly decided I wasn’t worth his jock-star time, so his plopping down and inserting himself in my life just for funsies had been a total surprise.

I hated that a tiny part of me just wanted to know why. And why he so clearly didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Maybe Zeus was just too cool for me now.

It was also driving me crazy, wondering if he’d laughed to all his friends about the postcards.

“How was school today?” Grandpa Mick asked, pulling me out of my spin.

“Good,” I said, glancing over at him because the way he’d asked didn’t feel like small talk.

Did he know something?

“How do you like Southview?” he asked, picking up his garlic bread and taking a bite.

“As much as I like any school,” I said, grabbing a plate and scooping a pile of pasta from the colander still in the sink. I didn’t recognize the pot or the colander or the smell of the sauce—had he made dinner?

My mom was all jar sauce, all the time.

“It’s Grandma’s recipe,” my mom said, reading my mind as she lifted a forkful of noodles to her mouth. “He nailed it, and the meatballs are to die for.”

“You made this?” I asked my grandpa.

“What, you think I can’t cook?”

I couldn’t tell if I’d offended him or if he was messing with me.

“I think I have no idea,” I said, which was the truth, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they sounded like a jab about his absence from our lives.

Which was deserved, I supposed, but unintended.

“Did you make friends today?” my grandpa asked as I sat down across from him and my mom, but he was looking at his phone.

Why was he asking me questions about school?

“Sure,” I said, even though the only person who’d been friendly to me was Cassie and it was because it was her job.

“Are there any concerns you have that you would like to, um, to talk about?”

Was he serious? Maybe my interaction with Alec— ugh, Zeus —made me suspicious about everything, but why all the questions?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I think he’s just checking in to see if you want to talk about anything,” my mom said, reaching out to grab a piece of bread while giving me a be nice look.

But he was still looking down at his phone and not at me.

“Is… that what you meant?”

He sighed and finally looked up. “Hell if I know.”

So I shrugged and said, “I’m fine,” just as the words “how to talk to your teenager about school” caught my eye before his phone buzzed with a notification and he snatched it up.

Wait. Was he googling how to talk to me?

I watched him looking at his phone, and I was dying to know if that was the case. Can that be it? Something warmed in my chest at the thought of it, because the idea of him actively trying to know me better was… well, nice .

But my body immediately sent a dose of anxiousness to my stomach, because it was foolish to toss hopefulness into this wildly confusing relationship, right?

“Oh shit,” he said as he read whatever message had just come through.

“What is it?” my mom asked, leaning over to see his phone.

“Oh shit, this is not good,” he said, holding it out for my mom to see.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Is that Alec ?” My mom grabbed his phone and squinted as she looked at the screen.

“What has the hockey god Zeus done now?” I asked, stabbing a meatball with my fork. “Walked on water?”

But when I raised my eyes, they were both looking at me like I was a jerk.

“What?”

“I’m going to go call Sarah,” my mom said, and then she jumped out of her chair and ran upstairs.

“What happened?” I asked Grandpa Mick, suddenly worried. “Is everything okay?”

He gave his head a shake. “Someone posted this on social media.”

He held up his phone, and there was a picture of Alec.

A picture of Alec holding what appeared to be the world’s biggest bong, and his eyes were only half open; he looked hammered. And happy.

With a raging fire in the background.

“What was he thinking?” I said under my breath, relieved he wasn’t hurt but also disappointed, because how was it possible that Alec had become that guy?

“He wasn’t,” my grandpa said. “And now he totally fucked over his future.”

“But isn’t weed legal in Minnesota?” I didn’t know anything about it, to be honest, but my grandpa’s response seemed like a bit of an overreaction. “I mean, I know he’s a minor, but I doubt something like this will ruin his future. Like, he’s not going to go to jail for drugs, right?”

“No, I’m talking about his hockey future.”

“Oh. That,” I said, and I must’ve sounded too casual, because he looked at me like I was an uncaring ass.

But I wasn’t.

Even though I didn’t know this stranger Alec had become, I didn’t want bad things to happen to him.

My grandpa said, “He might’ve just screwed up his shot at making the US training team.”

“I don’t know what that is. Like, the Olympics?”

“Mm-hmm,” he said. “There is literally a board of old hockey dudes who decide the roster, and if they think he’s going to crash and burn once he gets to the next level or be a locker-room cancer, they’ll choose someone else.”

No way. The Olympics. He was that good? Like Olympic training good?

Alec may have grown into a complete tool, but this could not be good for him or for Big John and Sarah. I hated this for them. Not for Zeus , but for the old Alec who used to be my best friend.

“Is there anything he can do?” I asked. “He’s a teenager. Can’t he just apologize?”

“I don’t know,” he said as he scooped up a meatball. “If this was the first issue, they might let it go, but my buddies said he got an MIP last year, and he’s been in a few fights, so he might seem like too much of a risk.”

Fights. Like plural? As in multiple fights.“I cannot believe Alec has become someone who fights and parties all the time,” I said, shaking my head. How much had he changed from the last time I saw him?

“He’s not ,” my mom said as she walked into the room, looking absolutely offended by my words.

“He got in a couple of fights back when John was in the hospital and things were super tough for their family. And the MIP was just teenagers being dumb. It looks bad when you put it all together, but he’s still a good kid. ”

Her words punched me right in the gut. I reached for my water and wondered if she was right. Maybe I was being too judgmental.

“Sarah said all of Alec’s coaches are on their way over right now to talk to him and come up with a plan.”

“ All of them? Like, an entire coaching staff is en route to yell at him over a random photo?”

“I’m sure,” Grandpa Mick said. “Because it’s not just his future that’s at stake.”

What is that supposed to mean?

“But we’re talking about hockey here,” I clarified. “Not his entire future.”

“They go hand in hand. It’s hockey with the potential to change the trajectory of his entire life,” my mom said in a scolding tone, her eyes narrowing at me. “Now eat your spaghetti.”