Page 3

Chapter 3

Olli

Day River is a city on fire.

Okay, maybe that’s me waxing poetic—sometimes I do that, when I spend too much time alone in my head—but the way the slanting afternoon sun hits the steel of the high rises as I round the last curve in the road throws tongues of orange flame against the surrounding snow. Making it sparkle, sing, with vibrant light. Like a beacon of hope.

It’ll be different here, I tell myself, because that’s what I always tell myself, every move, every new team.

Different.

This will be the one.

Such fierce hope beats through my chest, like a war drum, the only pulse keeping me alive some days. Hope, hope, hope.

I know I’m lying to myself, even as I admire the way the jutting skyline of high rises and factory chimneys cuts across the ragged backdrop of mountains in a juxtaposition of man and nature. It’s such a fitting image of my life.

That’s me—the boy who’s both, or tries to be.

Waxing poetic again, ’cause I’ve been driving solo for a solid ten hours now, with only a mini pee-break halfway through. My head’s an interesting spot on a good day, a dark and desolate one on a bad. On the average day, it’s just filled with a whole lot of random crap, like the junk drawer nobody’s ever bothered to organize .

Today, I’m lost in the wonder of possibility, of another new place. This one’s especially pretty.

Pine trees clamber up over the winding, two-lane highway, giving me a stilted view of the city as it emerges in fits and starts: little clusters of houses through the trunks, windows peeking through the needles, a farm tucked back on a field of snow.

God, this town is beautiful. I bet they’ve got some phenomenal hiking around here—those mountains are begging to be climbed. Sure didn’t need to bring my surfboard up from Florida, but honestly, surfing was never my preferred off-ice activity anyway. There’s just no other way to be outside in mid-summer Miami.

Different.

This will be the one.

I almost believe it this time, the way the city climbs up from the road in a cluster of houses and then some apartments, a grocery market and an outdoor-goods supply store. Pine trees scatter along the roads, an aspen lingering alongside the first traffic light, like the city’s been unable to claim the land from the hands of nature.

It’s a small city, and freezing; snow lines the sidewalks and the narrow spaces between homes, climbs in tiny mountains throughout the parking lots. Industrial, too, if the chimneys rising behind the modern skyscrapers are any indication.

I’ve always liked winter. Not just because of hockey either. My soul is winter—bright and biting and cold, filled with dark nights and sun-drenched mornings made all the more blinding by the endless stretch of snow.

My phone vibrates against the crap in my cupholder in a jarring, violent jangle, cutting my poetic leanings to an abrupt halt. When I snag the thing out from the chaos of pens, loose change, and randomly collected stones, my mother’s face stares back at me, eyes huge and round between a curtain of greying locs.

I swipe to answer, and not only because I desperately need to speak to another human being. “Mom! ”

Angel James is, of course, my favorite person on the planet.

“Aspen!” Her voice crackles through the speakers of my truck, warm and familiar. I roll my eyes at the nickname, though I secretly love it. “Did you make it to Day River?”

“Just got in.”

I can almost see the pout turning down the corners of her mouth. “You’re so far away now.”

“I know.” Yeah, that was one downside to taking this job. No more bopping over to dinner at Mom’s after practice whenever I feel like it. “But I bet there’s good hiking here! Maybe snowshoeing. And skiing.”

I do love a solid downhill ski. And cross country. Not that I’ll have time for any of this—not when my whole life, the entire foundation of my existence, is based on hockey.

“Well, that’s good.” Mom’s voice blurs beneath the monotone of my GPS robot reeling off directions. “But you’re still too far away.”

I spin the wheel to turn down another wide commercial street. More buildings, more snow piled around. The narrow alleys between them glisten with ice.

I force my eyes back to the road. “It’s a great career opportunity.”

I wince. I sound like my damn agent.

“I know,” Mom’s voice goes soft and gushy. “My little baby, captain of a hockey team!”

“Right. Your boy’s a leader!” I don’t bother to mention that I’m following a long line of captains who, to be blunt, failed to fill the oversized shoes of the team’s ex-superstar—the legendary Jesse Taylor. Inarguably one of the greatest players to ever waltz through the minor leagues.

“I thought the Dingoes weren’t very good?” Mom asks, just like she did the first time we had this conversion.

I hold back my half-exasperated, half-fond sigh. This is why I don’t have serious conversations when she’s painting. Which, last time we talked, she was .

“They’re bringing me in because they think I can help make them win,” I say, softly, so she won’t notice the tremor in my voice.

At least she can’t see how my fingers whiten on the wheel as I turn the truck down a side street. No way for her to know how my stomach churns.

I’m a last-ditch effort to fix something broken. Something the former captain failed to fix. The team’s been on a downward slope since Jesse left—losing games, losing skaters, losing fans. “I’m bonkers, aren’t I?”

I haven’t even been good enough— consistent enough—to keep for more than a few seasons at a time. And yet, here I am, aiming to play leader, to play winner , to a failing team.

“If anybody can do it, it’s you,” Mom says, and that almost makes me smile. I have to believe her—because that’s how dreams get made: believing in yourself. It’s why I stay off social media; the haters’ll make you question everything.

If you want to live a dream, there's no room for doubt. You gotta believe in yourself, wholly and truly.

You have to bet everything on yourself.

I blow out a long breath.

“Right.” I will not let the weight of my latest crazy decision fall too heavily on my shoulders.

The Dingoes have been a rotating door of hopeful talent—young guys, mostly, hoping to break into the league. They come in, skate a few months, maybe a season, move on to something better. Doesn’t make for great team synergy.

Not surprising they’ve barely won a game, let alone made the playoffs, in fifteen years.

“But it’s worth the risk, right?” Mom’s next words prove she listened to at least some of our previous conversation. “NHL scouts would be very impressed if you got this team winning.”

“Yeah.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. She’s right, of course. If I pull this off . . . it’d be such a big step towards my dream of playing major league. Something to make every late night, every early morning, every missed party or sacrificed hobby or postponed family visit or vacation worth it.

Dreams require so much sacrifice. Every single day, every hour, every minute, a choice.

Shoot pucks at the back of the garage or hike through a copper-crowned aspen forest? Practice stick handling while a frozen dinner microwaves, or make the hour drive to Mom’s to cook her a meal plucked fresh from the garden? Go to bed early to prepare for tomorrow’s skate, or head out with the team to drink the night away? Broccoli or cookies?

Chase the dream or live?

Every day, a choice. A sacrifice.

And now, I have another. Or, well, I will as soon as the robotic voice on my GPS guides me to my new house. Home. Right? That’s the word I should use. It’s not like I’ve got any other.

“I’m almost at the house, Ma.” I turn down a narrow street lined in towering pines and elegant aspen. “I gotta unpack and get some dinner.”

“All right, baby. I love you.”

As I hang up, I catch sight of the tiny cottage at the very end—stones and brick beneath a neat shingle roof, ivy crawling over the soft grey rock—my heart ups its rhythm inside my ribcage.

This.

This place really could be different. It looks like home, like if I were to go digging around in the junk drawer of my brain, plucking out pieces of “home,” this is what it would be. Small and cozy. Stones and ivy. A tiny yard overgrown with flowers and weeds. Maybe it’s been waiting for the right set of hands to descend on its secret garden.

I pull the truck into the short gravel driveway and sit. Stare. Let my eyeballs consume the Charlotte Brontean wonder in front of me. This is my new home. This. Here.

I pop the door open and climb out of the truck. Study the plants peeking through the inches of snow—lilies and iris, moss and weeds. Oh, I could get this place thriving in summer, and it’d be so pretty. My cactuses will look so lovely lined up in that big bay window, and my baby magnolia could go in the back yard . . . Or on the corner there . . .

I snag my suitcase out of the bed and head for the lock pad on the doorknob.

“Crap.” I should have some kind of code for this . . . I fumble with my bag, trying to find my phone, which I’m now thinking I left in my backpack. Or maybe it was the side door, or the—no, I was using it for the GPS so it’s in the cupholder.

I will never not be a mess.

Ah well. At least I’m a mess in a beautiful place, outside the cutest cottage I've ever seen, my suitcase soaking up snow on the front stoop whilst I suss out my new landlord’s entry instructions.

Life could be worse.

And inside, the house is dark and a little musty, but warm, the heat purring away in the vents. Light spills in through the bay window, tumbling late afternoon glow against worn wooden floorboards and a tile-topped kitchen table and matching counters.

It’s small—the kitchen lining the left side, that table mushed in beside it, and the living room occupying the right. Two doors at the back mark the bedroom and bathroom.

It’s perfect.

Why would I need more space than this? More space just means more empty corners I’ll never be able to fill. More hollow echoes to bounce off the walls.

At least my last decision of the day’s made for me—visit the grocery store to prepare a meal here or head out to find food. I’ve been alone far too long. It’s time to see where the locals go.