Page 25

Chapter 25

Olli

The next Dingoes game is packed to the very gills. Everybody wants to make guesses, study players, take bets. Speculate about whether this alleged open tryout that's been all over the Dingoes’ socials is real . . .

Syd’s a wizard, I tell you. Suddenly the town’s hockey team is all anybody can talk about.

We win that game. And the next one. And the next.

We dominate with such resounding finesse, Coach actually offers to take us all out to dinner on his dime. Correction—the team, the staff, and our families .

Which is how we wind up packed into a tiny family restaurant, crushed into a collection of too-small tables that clearly wasn’t designed with professional athletes in mind—our height, our shoulder breadth, our general rowdiness.

Probably doesn’t help that we’re drunk on the nectar of this latest win.

The poor waitstaff looks like it’s torn between throttling us or kissing us—or Coach’s wallet, anyway.

I’m backed into a corner of the room, near the window, so the cool press of winter brushes my neck as it leaks through the cracks. What’s really wild, though, is that Nat and Syd are here too. They’re both in button-downs and ties—and let me tell you, does that man know how to fill out a dress shirt. Goddamn —

Stop it, Olli.

Syd’s sort of adorable in her tomboy garb, though she keeps tugging her tie like she can’t get comfortable. She must have wanted to come, but maybe she didn’t realize the, uh, gravity of being surrounded by a pro hockey team.

So I get up and plop down in the empty seat beside her. “Hey, Syd.”

“Olli!” She grins, and her fingers sweep away from her tie. I swear her shoulders drop a solid three inches. “Good game today.”

“Thanks. I caught the beginning of your game too.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks turn a shade darker. “Really?”

“You got your dad’s hockey talent, eh?”

“Oh, my God.” She claps her hands over her cheeks. “You have to stop. You’re embarrassing me. Am I blushing?”

“Nah, not too bad.” I laugh. “So, did your dad drag you along, or are you here of your own volition?”

“Eh, little of both.” She shrugs, sending her glossy ponytail cascading over her shoulder. “It’s sort of . . . homework?”

“Your homework is having dinner with a bunch of oversized men?” My brow furrows as I try to puzzle through that logic.

“Um.” Syd bites her lip. Her gaze skates sideways towards Nat—engaged in conversation with Charlie. So I lean in closer, and Syd mimics the motion. “I had this idea for my senior project . . . that maybe I could use the Dingoes’ social media stuff—but it’s stupid.”

My brows shoot up like I’ve lost control of my facial muscles. “I don’t think it’s stupid at all.”

“Really?”

“I mean, look what you’ve managed to do already.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Her eyes slip down towards her plate. “I’m worried my teachers won’t like it because of the Ice Out.”

I nod. I get it, girl. More than she’ll ever realize. Which is why I know what I’m talking about when I say, “History is written by the victors, right?”

Her brows furrow. “Right? ”

“So, if you’re the one in charge of the publicity, you write the story. Spin it as a charity fundraiser. A town-unifying event. A marriage of two broken things to make a beautiful new whole.”

“Oh, I like that.” Syd twirls her fingers through the end of her ponytail. “Very fancy.”

“I write a lot of really emo poetry.” I toss her a cheesy wink. “So if you need help with verbiage . . .”

“Really?” A smile blooms across her face, wide and full of hope. And so very much like her father’s rare smiles, it makes something inside me feel like it’s burning.

“Of course,” I say, and then I take it one step further. “And heck. I could talk to Coach if you want. You get his approval, I don’t think your teachers can say crap.”

“Well, they could still try,” she says, but the smile nearly tears her face in two. “But maybe we could spin it in a way they wouldn’t mind as much?”

“Hell yeah.” I grin back. “You’re the spin doctor here, Syd. You get to decide what you are. I’ll help you with the words.”

“That would be . . .” Without warning, Syd leans in to give me a hug. “That’s amazing. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say, but am I blushing? Flustered? I’m definitely something, especially when Nat looks over, his brow furrowed deep in question.

“We’re having girl talk,” I explain as Syd pulls away, still smiling. “You know, boys and hair and stuff.”

“Sure.” His mouth relaxes into an almost-smile, and my stomach does all these weird swoopy-doopy things.

“Fancy nails,” Syd adds, holding out her hand to display unpainted fingernails, bitten short. “With sparkles, and . . . um. French tips? Or something. What else do girls like?” She turns to me, brows furrowed again.

“Do I look like a girl?” I ask, laughing. Syd’s laughing. Even Nat looks dangerously close to cracking a smile .

Right on cue, Everton leans in, locs tumbling onto the table. “Yo, James, you’re partying with us, right?”

I turn my smile his way. “Already planning the next shindig?”

“Hell yeah.” He’s beaming with excitement. “We’re renting out the Holiday Inn. They’re giving us discounts on rooms and everything.”

“Oh, damn. You’re serious about this party.”

“Dude. We have won six games in a row. I’m gonna get shitfaced.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “Tell you what. I’ll go. I’ll even rent a room. But Mr. Taylor’s coming too.”

“Course he is,” says Everton.

“Don’t think so.” Nat sobers, tucks an arm around Sydney. “Some of us have better things to do with our night.”

“Dad.” Syd rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t swipe his arm off immediately—and why is that so cute? She really loves him. “I’m seventeen. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Yeah, being seventeen is exactly my concern,” he mutters.

“Dad. Go .” Syd puts a hand over her heart, holds up the other. “I will go to Brenda’s. She keeps wanting me to do some kind of spa-night thing.”

Aw, she really really loves him, ’cause “spa-night thing” does not seem like a Syd Taylor fav.

“Hell yeah!” Everton chirps, and beside him, Skyler fist-pumps the ceiling.

Charlie punches Nat on the arm. “No excuses now.”

Damn, they all love him. Everybody’s chiming in, “C’mon, Taylor! Say yes! C’mon!”

So finally, smiling, he holds his hands up. “Fine. I’ll come for a drink.”

“Shots!” Everton yells, and even Syd’s laughing.

“You have to make him do it!” She leans in towards me. “I want a full report in the morning. Dad does shots, or he has to go out again.”

“Sydney, I will make it my personal mission to ensure your dad has a fun night,” I say, and I try not to read too much into those words. Obviously I’m not gonna like, blow the guy or anything. “Shots, drinks, good music, maybe some dancing.”

“Avery was right,” Syd says. “You’re a good influence on him.”

Nat glares, and Syd and I laugh. Like conspirators in some nefarious plot. Why do I love it so much?

A small army of waitstaff arrives with massive bowls of pasta, and none of us says anything for a long time.

Dessert follows dinner, and we stuff unthinkable quantities of food into the hollow cavities of our bodies whilst reminiscing on the highs and pitfalls of the game.

Then, of course, talk turns to the upcoming open tryout.

“You think they’ll actually be able to keep up?”

“I think we’re gonna get our ass kicked . . .”

“No way some townie old dudes will be able to hack it . . .”

“Imagine if we actually found somebody . . .”

I don’t miss the way Syd nudges her father in the ribs with her elbow. She knows, I realize. She knows who he is.

To my surprise, though, it’s me she leans in towards. “After you get him good and drunk, talk him into tryouts too?”

“You got it, ma’am.” I press two fingers against my forehead in a salute. “As his personal assistant, I’ll ensure his schedule’s set to your liking.”

All things considered, it’s not a bad night, coming off a win, surrounded by friends and teammates who kind of almost seem to like me.

And then, of course, there’s Nat. Who, for all his being convinced he doesn’t belong on this team, is practically the center of the party, bathed in the team’s attention.

They call to him across the table. Crack jokes his way. Slap his shoulders, lift their drinks, tease him . . .

And he draws Syd in right along with him—so her shy smiles turn into bold smirks and brilliant one-liners.

You can tell that girl spends a lot of time around dudes .

Ironic, right, that I was the one brought in to lead this team, to be its captain, its center, its guiding light—and yet the one person who’s not actually part of this team is the one person, I think, who belongs here most.

This team is so much more than a job or a dream to him—it’s his family, and he cares about it in a way no one else ever will.

He’s like . . . the embodiment of Day River.

My being here, it’s just one step on a long staircase of steps leading to a selfish dream. This was never my end goal, my final destination. I always planned to stop here for only a short layover on my way to the pros.

One day, this dinner, those green eyes, that white smile, those tattooed fingers—now wrapped around Syd’s shoulders to draw her in close—will be but a memory.

Why does that thought cut to the marrow?

He turns, and his green eyes catch mine. His smile turns soft, almost hesitant. So different from the one he shares with everyone else.

My heart thumps into overdrive.

This team was always supposed to be temporary, because always, always my dream will come first. I knew I’d have to give him up—

But it’s not something I’m thinking about tonight. I have, after all, been charged with a vitally important mission. To get this man drunk and ensure he has a good time.