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33

Liam

I t was too cold for me to be outside, but I’d woken up restless and I didn’t want to wake up Lenny, so here I was, running.

Or at least, I was running. I had managed two kilometres before I gave up and turned around. I was now walking back home via the bakery.

As I joined the queue of Westchester Bakes, my phone rang. A picture of the second greatest person I knew, spread-eagled on the ice after a particularly brutal practice, lit up my screen.

“Hey Teddy,” I answered.

“If it isn’t my favourite right-hand man,” Teddy replied.

“Ah, you miss me?” I teased.

“On the ice, not anymore. In general, shockingly yes. I feel like it’s been ages since we talked to each other.”

“It’s barely been a week. But how are you? You’re in Boston, right?”

“Yes, we are in Boston. And I’m feeling pretty good about it. The whole family came to Boston for Christmas, and it’s been nice to have them around. How’s home?”

“Home is…nice,” I replied. Home was starting to feel less like a place and more like a person. A person whom I had left in bed.

“Nice?”

“Just say what you want to say, Teds,” I sighed. I knew this hadn’t just been a friendly call. We did talk more often since I retired, but we mostly sustained our friendship on random memes and miscellaneous text updates in between physically seeing each other.

“My mom has both of us on Google alert and she got one a couple of days ago, for you. It was a bunch of pictures and a whole article about how you had found yourself a mysterious woman. You have a new girlfriend?” he said bluntly, also sounding a little hurt.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Why am I finding this out via Google and not from you? I wasn’t even aware you were dating, and I know you’re not on the apps, so how the hell have you found yourself a girlfriend?”

I took a breath. “It’s Alana.”

Teddy was quiet but I knew he knew who I meant.

“As in Fitzpatrick? Coach’s daughter?” he finally said.

“He’s not been our Coach for years; I think you can call him Rob now. But yes, as in Fitzpatrick.”

“How did that happen? When would you even have crossed paths with her? You’ve been very skilled at avoiding anywhere she may be the entire time you’ve been in Detroit.”

I thought about lying to him, but there didn’t seem to be any point now that it was official. Also, he knew I didn’t go to that birthday party because he had and told me it was a great time. So, I told the truth.

“I bumped into her at the airport and, with the fact that our parents are still neighbours, we couldn’t avoid each other anymore, and now here we are.”

“But again, I ask, why is this how I am finding out that two of my closest friends have finally figured their shit out and started dating?”

“Because part of me is still worried. You know her, she operates like a fox and is prone to running if startled. She could still wake up one day and disappear again. I didn’t want to jinx it by telling people outside of the ones we were spending the holidays with.”

“She hasn’t run yet. You definitely should have told me,” Teddy said.

“There is still a ‘yet’ in your sentence though, Teddy.”

“Liam, you don’t hang out with someone in the vicinity of Macy’s that close to Christmas unless you’re down for life. In fact, I think the fact that you got Alana out into the city that close to the twenty-fifth is the biggest indicator that she isn’t going to run. Not this time.”

“You sound very sure about that, man,” I laughed softly as I reached the front of the queue.

“I know I don’t need to remind you, but she never stopped being my friend. I know who she was as a person in her late twenties, and now into her thirties, and she’s not like she was back then. And I know it’s not the best example, but she didn’t get engaged to a man she had been with for years. Do you know how hard it must be to stick to that conviction? You don’t say no to a proposal, but she did, and she stuck to that answer even though everyone kept getting on her case about it. So, if she’s hanging around Macy’s and getting on ice rinks with you, I feel pretty confident when I say she won’t run now. She knows what she wants, and it looks like it might be you she wants now. She won’t run again.”

“You’re probably right. Hang on,” I said to Teddy just before I ordered a pistachio croissant and a hazelnut pain au chocolat.

“You get over your aversion to pistachio since I last saw you, dude? Wow, Alana has really changed you as a person,” Teddy asked as my pastries were boxed up.

“No, they’re for Lenny. Or at least, one of them is. I’m hoping she will leave me with the pain au chocolat, but no stress if she wakes up and decides she wants Nutella in pastry form,” I replied, paying for my order and taking the box before slipping out the door.

“You’ll just eat the pistachio one? Liam, you hate pistachios.”

“I wouldn’t eat it, there is other food in the house and one of her parents or Aaron will eat it. Does part of me hope that she will go pistachio over hazelnut? Yes, but I’m not fussed if she doesn’t. I have other options, and I want her to have options.”

“Jeez, I forgot how bad you used to have it for her. Did you wake up especially for this pastry run? For options?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“No, I woke up and thought maybe I should go for a run because I was feeling restless. I got 2k in and gave up. Now I’m talking to you and turning the walk back into a pastry run.”

“I need a boyfriend like you. Or a girlfriend. Or just someone who treats me as well as you are treating her. If she does run, can you please come back to me? I swear I would treat you so right.”

“Thought you said she wasn’t gonna do that?”

“Yeah, and she’s not. But in an alternate universe, she does, and then we become the new power couple, and everything is great.”

“Alright, I’m going to leave you to your daydream,” I laughed.

“You gonna watch the game?”

“I can’t promise that I will, but I can be there if you need me afterwards,” I answered.

“No, I’ll just work extra hard to make sure we win so I won’t have to pull you away from your warm bed to help me wallow in my sorrows.”

“Great, well shoot sharp and I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later, Liam.”

Rob was in the kitchen when I walked in, a pen poised over a crossword clue.

“Morning, Rob,” I said as I set the pastry box on the counter.

“Morning, Liam, you been for a run?” he asked.

“I went on half a run, aborted it, and bought pastries instead.”

“A wise choice,” he said.

“Just you up?”

“In the house yes, but Stassie and Aaron went for a pre-breakfast walk.”

“They couldn’t persuade you to join them?”

He tapped his puzzle with the end of his pen. “It seemed like the only time I might get to myself to get through my crossword.”

“Oh, I’ll leave you to it,” I said as I picked the box up.

“No rush. Actually, there is something I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to know that this comes from a place of love and there is no pressure or expectation attached.”

He set his pen down and I started to feel nauseous, like I was about to get told off for something.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“My assistant coach told me he was leaving at the end of the season, which means I am in the market for a new one. Now, I don’t know if coaching is something you would consider, but I would like to offer you the position.”

“Oh.” It was the only thought in my head. There was a lot about retirement that I’d been enjoying. The free time. Not having to worry about being at the rink on time. Life was less stressful when I didn’t have to go through my entire game day routine. And the day-before-a-game prep. And the post-game wind down. I loved sleeping in my own bed every night and I didn’t miss the travel. But on some level, I did miss hockey. Skating with Lenny the other day had reminded me of how much I liked being around the ice.

High school hockey would require less of me than pro hockey did. It would keep me close to the ice and would open me up to a whole other aspect of the sport that sounded interesting to me. I was wary about orienting my life around the sport again, but I was looking at a man who managed to be a successful coach for years and raise a family, so I knew that balance was possible. I was more wary of the fact that if I said yes to this, then it would mean me putting roots back down in Westchester. A place that Alana very much did not live, even if she did still call it home.

“You don’t have to give me an answer right now. I appreciate that it’s a lot to consider. Let me start with this, I know you’ve never coached before in the capacity that I am asking you to, but you did help me with the summer programs for a few years before you went pro, and you were great at that. You have a very analytical way of viewing the sport that I think would be invaluable. But more important than that, you respect when enough might just be enough. I know the past few months can’t have been easy for you, with people constantly telling you that you shouldn’t have retired, but you’ve stuck to your guns and that is an admirable trait. You know that life outside the rink is sometimes more important, and I think that kind of understanding might be crucial to some of these kids when faced with the reality that going pro might not be in their timeline. Plus, you work as a nice counterpoint to me. You made it to the NHL. I peaked in college.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh.

“You didn’t peak in college, Coach. I wouldn’t have been half the player that I was if I hadn’t had you in my corner every step of the way. If you say the way I view the game is analytical, it’s because of the way you taught me to play it. I got good at shooting because you made me run drills until I could find any pocket of the net in my sleep. You were the one who taught me that balance is important. You set realistic expectations for every single one of those players on that ice, and we were all better for it. Plus, you have those kids of yours who turned out pretty well, and I don’t know if they would be the same people if you were always travelling for hockey.”

“One of my kids could not be more apathetic to hockey if they tried,” he pointed out. I smiled.

“Apathy is better than hatred if you ask me. And she’d hate it. If you picked professional hockey over her and Aaron, she would have learned to hate the sport and maybe even you, and then who knows where we’d be?”

She wouldn’t be in my life, that was for sure. And my life without Alana in it was like the sun without the moon. It just didn’t work. Even when she left me, she was still somewhere in my orbit, and I was better for it.

“I’m not asking you to do that either. Pick this sport over her. I know that she has a life in Detroit, and I know that you must have some roots there too. Asking you to move back here would be a lot and if you decide that staying there is what is best for you, for her, then so be it. But I want you to know that the offer is on the table.”

“When do you need to know by?”

“End of January.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll let you go take those up to Alana now,” he said as he picked up his pen and immediately filled in a clue.