Page 64 of Penalty Box

“Hey… person I don’t know. Thank you, but it’s always a team effort. Glad you enjoyed the game.”

Mason’s smile packed a punch. The blonde giggled.

“Melissa,” she said, twirling her hair between her fingers. “Now that you know me… wanna dance?”

The air thinned. But maybe just for me.

“Sure.”

Sure. No mulling it over or asking the group if they minded his absence for a few minutes. Or a glance in my direction.

Then again, why would there be?

He was young, single, and free to do as he pleased.

But as I watched them walk out to the dance floor, my fingers clenched my drink so tight I wondered if the glass would break.

19

Mason

The call came just after eight. I was in the kitchen pouring cereal straight into my mouth from the box, still half in last night’s game and sore in all the usual places. My phone buzzed on the counter, and when I sawDadacross the screen, I swallowed the dry mouthful and answered without thinking.

“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”

His voice was steady, but drawn. “Coach Landry passed this morning, son. I’m sorry.”

I blinked, certain I didn’t hear him right. “What?”

“Heart attack, they’re saying. Found him in the barn. Must’ve been in the middle of a feed, looks like.”

The cereal box sagged in my hand.

Coach Landry. The man who taught me to tape a stick and take a hit. To lace my skates tight enough to stay upright, but not so tight I’d lose feeling in my toes. My high school coach, and the first one who told me I had what it took to go pro someday.

Gone.

“Damn.” I leaned on the counter, suddenly cold all over. “He was… He wasn’t old. Sixty, right?”

“Sixty-two,” Dad said. “Funeral’s next Saturday at the Lutheran church. It’d be good of you to come. You were always his favorite.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. My throat felt like it had closed up. He didn’t push, either. That was my dad’s way. Deliver the news and let you carry the rest however you could.

After we hung up, I stood there a long time. Funny thing about grief—it didn’t knock first. It just walked in, dragging its bags across the floor of your life, and you were supposed to keep moving like nothing had changed.

Hunter shuffled out of his room a few minutes later, yawning and shirtless. He took one look at me and said, “You okay, man?”

“Nope.”

“It’ll pass.” He clapped me on the shoulder as he came by, rifling through the cupboards for his ingredients. “I’ll whip you up a little something special in today’s power shake, what do you say? Have you bouncing off the boards in no time.”

We hit the rink by nine-thirty. Tight drills, heavier than usual conditioning, and Coach riding our asses about transitions until we were ready to puke.

“The time for messing around is over, boys,” he yelled from the side. “You want to welcome Stanley home or not?”

I tried to push through it, tried to bury the ache in muscle memory and sweat. But my timing was off. My legs didn’t have the juice. My brain was somewhere in an empty barn in my hometown, where a man who’d shaped my whole damn childhood had taken his least breath.

“Keep that stick down, Calder!” Coach barked from center ice as I fumbled yet another pass.