Page 80 of Heartbreak Hockey

“Family meeting at The Wicklow, then Merc insists he’s going home to bed. That’ll never happen. This is Cody by the way. Cody, my love, meet Merc’s new fuck toy, Jack, who he won’t let us play with.”

Merc reaches in to smack his brother upside the head. “This one is not a fuck toy.” Not true. Sometimes I live to be his fuck toy, but I’ll leave that one. “Some of us were up with an army of young athletes at the crack of dawn,” Mercy says.

I pishaw. “He’s just old. Those same athletes are currently six sheets to the wind.”

I expect another scolding for my “old” comment, but I get a neck nuzzle instead. Wow, a cuddly Merc. This is a new one. “Tomorrow night?” he confirms.

Our date. My heart squeezes. “Yeah.”

“I’ll pick you up and take you to dinner.”

“In the soccer-mom van?” I say, trying to get another tease in on him, but it’s like he can’t be teased tonight. Everything I say makes him want to cuddle me some more.

“Something like that. Night, baby.”

He kisses my cheek and then gets into the truck. Not long after that, a horn honks. That one’s for me. It’s not Nicholas though. It’s Dad. Captain Dad.

His tall form exits the truck. He’s in a sharp green sweater to match his eyes. It juuuuust stretches over his barrel chest. His hair is longer on top and buzzed on all sides. He still looks like a stereotypical navy captain even though he’s been retired for a bit now. I’m sporting the standard hockey hair—wings of sandy blond curl from under my cap—but in every other way, we’re the same. There are pictures of him at my age and if not for the kind of photos they printed in that era being different from the ones now, you’d never be able to tell us apart.

“Dad.” It’s so good to see him. We embrace in a warm hug. He might be a strict sort of man, but he’s never been short on hugs or “you got this pal” type words of encouragement. I believe in myself because of him, or well, I did. He took it as a personal failure when I lost my stride, but it’s not his fault.

“Good to see you, Jacky. You looked good tonight. Had your spark back.”

They stream as many games as they can. “Thank you, sir. I got lippy with the refs though. Coach gave me what for about it.” Part of our post-game chat had included a mild public hanging about chirping at refs and keeping it to a minimum. Sure, I went off this time, but it was a frustrating game.

Dad kisses my head. “I was yelling at them too. Someone paid someone off that’s for sure.”

“That’s what I said!”

We drive to our home on Vancouver’s westside. It’s green for a city. Some of the largest and oldest cherry trees in the world line the neighborhoods on both sides of the streets with roots so large they crack through the asphalt. They’re gorgeous until they shed their blossoms and then you’ve got pink petals sticking to the bottoms of your shoe soles, following you everywhere.

Vancouver is a rainforest, which means it rains so much you often feel the itch to build an arc and collect a pair of every animal. The weather’s usually mild though, the mildest in all of Canada. Our house is a seven-minute drive to Kit’s Beach, so we usually pack up and walk there because in Vancouver you try to be environmentally friendly.

Like, our city banned plastic straws.Straws.I guess that’s good for the environment and all, but it’s a funny thing to have outlawed. Apparently, they rate with moonshine and petty theft.

Inside Dad’s waiting for us. He’s a tall and thin man with shaggy brown hair. He’s often accused of being a hippy slash hipster mutant because he wears Birkenstocks, even in the winter, loves to fill the house with incense, and drinks a lot of kombucha. A sharp burst of sandalwood hits my nostrils when I walk in the door.

“Hey, my boy. I missed you so much.” Dad’s wearing a short-sleeved linen shirt and baggy black cotton yoga pants. His feet are bare. They often are. The man has a vendetta against socks, I swear.

He’s strong though—from all the wild yoga he does—and his hug is every bit as firm as the captain’s.

“Hey, Dad. Missed you too.”

My parents couldn’t be any more opposite. I wonder about them a lot because of that. One dad is eccentric, quirky, and soft. The other is stringent, strait-laced, and intense. I’ve concluded it’s an opposites attract thing with them. Maybe that’s why none of my relationships pan out. I date people who are too similar. I can’t help my attraction to all things hockey though.

“Let me take your bag. Your brothers are in the living room.”

Before he can do anything, Dad grabs Dad and kisses him like he’s just returned from war. He couldn’t have been gone for more than forty minutes. I roll my eyes at them and narrowly escape their gross love stuff.

My brothers live together in their own condo downtown. I’ve considered asking if I could move in with them, but they’ve got their twin thing going on and I’ve always felt like an outsider to that. They don’t do it on purpose, it’s just the way it is when you’ve shared a womb. In fact, sometimes they try too hard to make me feel included and it ends up doing the opposite.

“Hey there, hoser,” Damien says.

“Hey, dickhead.” I have to walk over to him to get my hug.

Nicholas stands up to hug me. He considers himself the eldest because he was born thirty whole minutes before Damien, which is a story everyone loves to tell and indicative of Damien for the rest of his life. He’s incapable of showing up on time to anything unless the captain makes him.

“Hey, baby brother. Good to see yah,” Nicholas says.