Page 35 of Falling Offsides

“Feel it,” I grunt, rolling my shoulders back to ease the tension mounting between my shoulder blades.

“You guys already killing each other over there?”

“Coach had me on extra drills this morning.”

There’s a beat of silence before he bursts out cackling. “Still pissed about what happened with his daughter?”

“Man can hold a fucking grudge, bro.”

Étty whistles low. “Dude. If you’d put a puck to my kid’s skull, you wouldn’t be breathing. So there’s that.”

“If you saw it happen, you’d know it wasn’t like that.”

“Don’t care. You make my kid bleed, I’m going to rip your insides out.”

Fuck me, he’s always so damn melodramatic. His wife is a saint for putting up with his over the top bullshit.

“Don’t take it personally, it’s a father thing.” Étty waits a beat before he asks, “Feeling homesick yet?”

I think about it. Really think. After Paps brought it up yesterday, I’ve been thinking about it, and in spite of what I told him… “Not really.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been too busy gearing up for the season.”

“Too busy getting back into Bobby Nilsson’s good books, you mean.”

“Shut up.”

Étty laughs, full and fondly. “You miss the twins?”

The mention of his boys actually pulls a smile out of me. “Obviously.”

Étty and I spent our summer trying to teach them to stand in their skates. With Paps running the rink and peewee hockey back in Rimousky, we always spend a lot of our time there.

“They’ve started standing steady in their skates now. We were at the rink yesterday, and they didn’t fall once. Marley was nearly in tears.”

“You get a video?”

“Duh! They looked like tiny drunks, but hey—upright is upright.”

The ache in my chest loosens a little at the picture he paints. “Still better form than your slapshot.”

“Bite me, asshole. At least I don’t swing like a moose on ice.”

“At least moose don’t lose to Columbus.”

“Touché.”

He chuckles again, quieter this time. “Marley says hi, by the way.”

“Tell her I miss her cooking… not in front of Mom, though.”

Another chuckle. “She misses having someone appreciate it. All I get are those damn banana pancakes and ‘you better eat this before the kids do.’”

“That’s what you get for breeding your own hockey team.”

He groans. “Don’t. Bro, she wants a girl so bad. Says she’s not stopping ‘til there’s one pink pair of skates in the house.”