Page 2

Chapter 2

Nat

“That last goal was pretty sick, right?” Sydney Taylor leans over her plate to catch my gaze, but I don’t miss the way her eyes slide sideways—towards the teenaged boy seated to her left.

Makes my stomach clench in a way I still haven’t gotten used to. I’ve known Avery Bennett for most of his life—hard not to when his stepmother works at the beauty salon mine owns—but I liked him better before he was my daughter’s boyfriend.

I play it off like it doesn’t bother me.

“Ah, so you were at the game.” I lift a brow as I pop in a bit of meatloaf—which is a mistake because it takes a significant amount of effort to hold a stern facade whilst enjoying Brenda’s cooking. “Couldn’t have stopped to say hi?”

“I was busy.” Syd rolls her eyes with a proficiency she mastered long before she turned seventeen. “I’m saying hi now.”

I bite down further questions I don’t want the answers to. Like what the hell she was busy doing at a hockey game. With Avery—Christ. Stop.

“Both Holland’s goals were sick.” Avery looks up from his own meatloaf. Doesn’t bother to swallow before talking, giving me a front-row seat to his half-chewed food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Avery.” Brenda Taylor slides her knife between the prongs of her fork to slice through baked potato. “How old are you? ”

Avery ignores her, naturally, because he’s eighteen and far too cool to listen to his girlfriend’s step-grandmother, even if he has eaten at this table at least a hundred times before. “Can’t believe that dude scored against the Cheetahs.”

“And we still lost,” Syd adds, which just makes my gut clench all over again. No Jesse—no Taylor—no wins.

“At this rate,” Avery sighs, “the team won’t even be around anymore by the time I’m done with fuckin’ high school.”

I force myself not to revisit my boss’s words from earlier.

“Swearing too?” Brenda shakes her head. “You’re really not winning any bonus points today. How was practice?”

I’m sure Avery doesn’t catch the slight upward flick of her gaze—but I do. Shit. I know that appraising look.

“You didn’t skip again, did you?” I study him now, too, seeking out signs of a tell. He’s too busy looking at Syd to notice me giving him the stink-eye.

Doesn’t even glance at me when he answers in a garbled, “Hm?”

I sigh. The worst part of all this is I can’t hate the kid—he’s me, when I was his age. A little shit full of sharp corners and hard edges and hope.

I just don’t like him for Syd —because more than anything else, I want to see her get out of this town. It’s the only thing I’ve wanted, truly wanted, since she was born.

“Hockey practice, numb-nuts.” Syd elbows Avery in the side before reaching up to swipe the hat off his head.

A shock of white-blond hair tumbles over Avery’s forehead, and his lips turn upwards in a smirk. “Practice was good. We were at the Dingoes’ rink today, and the coach was there. Maybe he’ll recruit me.”

I roll my eyes. Coach Ethan spends almost as much time at the arena as me. “He’s not recruiting high school kids, Av.”

“But he still watched.” Syd levels her green eyes at me. “And Avery skated great.”

Everybody says she looks just like me—same dark complexion, glossy almost-black hair, same bright green eyes. Same angled cheekbones, though her jaw’s softer, more feminine, her cheekbones more prominent.

But I see her mother in there too, looking out from behind my eyes.

“Yeah, Syd did too.” Avery winks, and a wash of pink floods Syd’s cheek. “We’re the Dynamic Duo, right Syd?”

“You know it!”

Jesus Christ, she’s blushing. Why does that make me slightly ill?

“You didn’t skip class, did you?” Brenda has no biological children—but she handles Avery like a seasoned pro. One would never guess she got thrust into the stepmom role far too early in life.

“I never skip.” Avery turns to me, his blue eyes sparking. “C’mon, Nat. Back me up here.”

“Nope.” I shake my head, swallow down my food. “I’m not getting on Brenda’s bad side.”

“Like you haven’t spent plenty of time there,” Brenda mumbles. “I’m pretty sure your seat is on my permanent bad side.”

Avery and Syd both laugh at that.

“Oh, Bren.” I flutter my eyelashes at her. “Bad side or not, mine is your favorite seat.”

“Favorite seat, my ass,” Brenda snorts, but her voice is soft, like the soft spot she’s always had for me. Helping your rough-edged teenage stepson raise his daughter will bring you pretty close—but she stepped in to fill a critical role long before Syd came along. “You were a pain, and Avery is too.”

“This isn’t very nice.” Avery crosses his arms atop the table. “I am feeling disrespected.”

“Does an eighteen-year-old shit deserve respect?” I ask, arching a brow. “I don’t think so. Right, Syd?”

“Hey, leave me out of this.” Syd holds up her hands. “I’m the one who’s actually on Brenda’s good side.”

“Well, screw you guys.” Avery shoves his chair back and heads for the bathroom. Which leaves me staring Sydney down.

Syd glares before I can open my mouth. “Don’t say anything, Dad. ”

“I just want you to be concentrating on school—”

“Nope.” She lifts a finger to ward off my protests. “I don’t think you’re one to give dating advice.”

“She’s got you there,” Brenda agrees, which is both entirely fair and wildly unfair. Maybe I haven’t held down a serious girlfriend in seventeen years, but still.

“Avery was right about the respect thing—”

“Jeez, Dad.” Syd rolls her eyes again. “You need a life. And no, watching Dingoes games and betting on the Ice Out don’t count.”

“I do not bet on the Ice Out,” I grumble, which is accurate. However, the truth is far worse—but I’d never tell Syd I play in the illegal Ice Out.

“Speaking of needing a life . . . ” Sydney’s voice assumes a carefully neutral tone—and her face an expression to match—as she turns back to her dinner. “Is it true the captain of the Dingoes is transferring?”

“Yes, it’s true,” I sigh, recalling my earlier conversation with Jerry about the Dingoes moving money around, trying to keep players on the roster. “Another one bites the dust.”

“Takes a Day River native to find the charm here,” Brenda says, her voice firm. “Outsiders just see cold and ice.”

“Most of us insiders do too,” I mutter under my breath.

Syd turns a pair of innocent green eyes on me. “You know the coach . . . Wasn’t he your high school coach?”

“Yep. Kicked me off the team eighteen years ago.” Put up with a lot of shit first, but I don't mention that. I know where she's headed with this train of thought, even before she speaks.

“You can’t tell me you don’t want to at least talk to him.” Those eyes go angelically large and round, and her words crack against my soul, like ceramic through clumsy wet fingers shattering on tile—crack, crack, crack. "Ask him if he'd take you back . . .”

Is she right?

Sure, there’s a part of me that still dreams about it. That wants to be on that ice, flanked by a team once again. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about talking to Coach once or twice before .

But even as a starry-eyed kid, I knew I wasn’t like my brother and father—naturally gifted, born to dominate. Maybe that’s why I started skipping class, drinking and doing drugs. Developed a fighting habit. Sometimes, it’s easier to think you’re not good enough than to have it proven beyond a doubt.

Now . . . I’m almost two decades out of the game. Gave up the drugs but not my fists. The Ice Out is decidedly where I belong.

“I’m thirty-five, Syd.” And before she can open her mouth to protest, I add, “I haven’t played competitively in eighteen years, and I was never that great to begin with.”

“You never believed in yourself,” Brenda murmurs, her words so soft I’m not sure I heard them. But she’s right, isn’t she? Even when I chased the dream with everything, did I ever truly believe?

How else could I have cost myself my alleged dream in a long chain of stupid mistakes? Then woken up one day to realize I’d been living a lie.

Brenda’s next words leave no room for misinterpretation. “Maybe it’s time to concentrate on other things.”

I groan. “Please don’t mention the repo biz, Bren.”

“Oh, no. Because it’s much better to be sharpening skates, driving a Zamboni, and working for a title company . . .” She shakes her head. “Instead of making real money at one job.”

“All right, I’m done with this conversation.” I lift my plate and make for the sink, trying to ignore the way the world seems to have faded behind a buzz of white noise. Like I’m watching my own life from high in the stands.

That way, I don’t have to take part. Don’t have to process it or affect its outcome. Don’t have to relive Jerry’s words—and how Brenda clearly agrees with them.

I turn on the water, play more white noise.

They don’t mean it, don’t realize their words fly too fast, hit too hard. Lodge in places that still hurt. Tension coils inside me like a compressed metal spring—tight, ready to burst, sharp enough to cut to the bone .

“Well.” I sidle away from the sink to dry my hands on a towel. “I think I’m gonna get going.”

“To sit on the couch with your guitar,” Syd grumbles. “Yay.”

“No,” I say, which is true. “I’m meeting Charlie for pool.”

“Charlie Holland?” Avery beelines into the kitchen. “Like, Dingoes Charlie Holland?”

“Yep.” I slide my phone out to see if Charlie’s texted. I wouldn’t call my best friend a flake, but he does have a new boyfriend, as well as something of a pot habit.

“Dude, you gotta let us go with you!” Avery bounds up beside me as I head for the coat rack. “Introduce me to him!”

Back at the table, Syd turns around to face us, her green eyes wide and hopeful. “C’mon, Dad.”

“Nope.” I tug my jacket over my shoulders. “We’re going to a bar . And you guys are . . . What was it again? Seventeen and eighteen?”

Which isn’t legal for a few reasons , I don’t mention. Because honestly, my daughter’s sex life . . . Shit. I guess it is technically my business—

“Aw, let us come!” Syd leans out of her chair. “Please.”

“Nope. Put the puppy-dog eyes away.” I aim a pointed finger in her direction. “You’re home at curfew tonight. And Avery will not be with you.”

“Da-ad—”

“Nope.” I set my hand on the doorknob. “Eleven o’clock, Syd.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes for the third time in as many hours, and I can’t help but soften.

“Eleven.” I leave her with that one last parting command before I head out into the dark and frigid cold of yet another Day River winter night. I slide behind the wheel of my ancient Lexus and crank the stereo.

Music has always held a special place in my heart. With the notes in my ears, or my hands on the strings, dancing through a song, feathering soothing melody against my soul like nurturing fingers, I feel whole.

In a way I maybe never did with hockey .

And yet, sometimes I still see that old, broken dream when I close my eyes. Still taste it and smell it and feel it, like the afterimage of a nightmare that leaves the world off-kilter for hours after waking.

When I lost hockey, I lost everything; my word burned.

I couldn’t fathom how I’d go on—keep breathing, keep living—after my dream had been revoked. But somehow I continued, even when I’d lost my purpose, when all I had left was the song on my lips, pressed beneath my fingers.

Life goes on. When one door closes, another opens.

Syd’s arrival seventeen years ago shocked everything out of place, rewrote my dreams and my destiny. My world changed the day she was born—good, bad, ugly, best. My whole life was rewritten in fresh ink, in a language I couldn’t read, across the pages of a book I’d never wanted.

But I’d learned how to read it. Learned to cherish that fucking book like a pastor with his Bible. I learned to make it the center of my existence, the only thing I needed to want. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Nothing I would change about her in my life either.

What Sydney doesn’t realize, what I’ve never found the words to explain, is that she saved me. I wanted to be her parent more than I wanted to be a hockey player. She saved me, and now she’s everything I live for.

As much as I’d love to keep playing Zamboni guy and equipment manager in the world of hockey, I owe it to Syd to be the father she needs—to ensure she has food and clothes, healthcare, hockey, and a way out of this town.