Page 38 of Penalty Box

“Care to share?” Mason asked, his tone light and airy, as though we weren’t on the edge of disaster.

“No.” I shoved my phone into my pocket and started to leave. “You can leave this stuff. I’ll clean it when I get back.”

“Cass?”

But I didn’t turn back, or slow down.

12

Mason

I never found out what Coach wanted to talk to Cass about, or why he had interrupted our makeout session in the maintenance room. But it must not have been about me, because Coach was his normal angry self at practice that day—rather than hisdon’t touch my daughterself.

I wasn’t expecting anyone at our team’s morning skate the next morning, so when I spotted two familiar figures standing behind the barrier—one tall and stiff like a board, the other with wild black curls, waving excitedly—I nearly dropped my stick.

I went over and leaned my stick against the glass. “Dad? Hallie? What are you guys doing here?”

“Surprise, dummy,” my kid sister deadpanned, and gave me the most unenthusiastic high-five known to man.

My dad hung back with his hands-in-pocket stance he always defaulted to in unfamiliar places. “Son.”

Laughter bubbled out of me, and I pulled them both into an unsteady hug. I held onto them while I tried to make it off the ice, and although my dad muttered under his breath, he didn’t fight it.

“Okay, enough.” Hallie twisted out of my grip, painfully aware of the stares coming from the rest of the team. “You need to calm down. People are looking.”

“Those people are my team,” I said, and turned back to wave at Coach.

He looked from me, to my dad, then gave a thumbs up and flashed five fingers.

“We have five minutes,” I said, leading them to some empty seats. “Explain yourselves.”

“Dad wanted to know why you were so embarrassing,” Hallie spoke first. “That viral video turned you into a thirst trap back home, and now our doorstep’s permanently covered in gaggles of horny teenagers.”

“Hallie.”

“Sorry,flocksof horny teenagers.” She rolled her eyes.

My dad’s eyes nearly jumped out of his head, and I burst out laughing. It was fun watching Hallie do what I never had the guts to… give him a hard time. Sometimes I loved her most because of that.

“You guys are staying for the game, right?”

My sister sighed a sigh that weighed a hundred tons. I was surprised she didn’t sink the whole rink with it. “The plan was just to come here and give you that message in person, but we might as well see what the hype’s about.”

My dad threw another warning glance her way, and she slid lower in her seat. “You’ve been doing real good, Mason. It’s past time we watched you play.”

Never one for many words, or many emotions, hearing that from him was enough to make my whole week. It was better than if he’d gone all misty-eyed and sentimental.

“Thanks, Dad. And I’m sorry that you only have one child making you proud.”

Hallie didn’t need to take her eyes off the ice to land a whopping slap to the back of my head. “Ow!”

“No fighting.” My dad shook his head, staring us both down. “Together two minutes, and you’re already acting up.”

“She started it.”

Hallie echoed me, but added a whiny twinge to it while also pulling her face like that of a crying baby.

“Real mature for a high school graduate,” I said with a grin. “I would’ve thought you’d grown up by now.”