Page 26 of Practice Makes Perfect (Pine Barren University #2)

sixteen

LINC

I exit the rink feeling like someone filled my legs with concrete.

Coach Barrett insisted on running extra drills—his favorite punishment for what he called our “lackadaisical performance” against Colgate last night.

Three hours of skating suicides later, and I’m not sure I can make it to my apartment without dying.

My teammates trudge alongside me in various states of exhaustion. Maine looks like he might vomit in the nearest trash can, while Rook—despite being our goalie and therefore supposedly exempt from the worst conditioning drills—appears ready to collapse face-first onto the pavement.

“Hey,” Maine pants, slapping my shoulder. “At least we’re building character, right?”

“Character and lactic acid,” I mutter, shifting my gear bag to my other shoulder. “Perfect combination.”

“Shame we all didn’t have specialist appointments to get to,” Maine snorts, a clear jab at Mike, who’d missed practice.

As I’m about to respond, my phone vibrates in my pocket.

I pull it out, and see my mother’s face on the screen—a selfie she took on my phone last Christmas, complete with reindeer antlers and red-painted cheeks—so I wave at the guys and peel off from the precession heading back to the center of campus.

As I answer, guilt immediately floods my system. I haven’t called her for weeks. Then, with a sigh, I answer. “Hi Mom,” I say.

“Lincoln! My hockey star!” Her voice practically bursts through the speaker. No matter how many times I’ve asked her to call me Linc, she insists on my full name. Says she didn’t spend nine months growing me just to abbreviate the name she picked.

“Sorry I haven’t called?—”

“Oh, please,” she cuts me off with her characteristic exuberance. “You’re busy! It’s your senior year, and you’re captain now!”

I barely suppress another sigh. “Co-captain, Mom.”

I can practically hear her dismissive hand wave. “Everyone at the school I work at is so impressed. Mrs. Gutierrez—you remember, the art teacher with the ceramic cats?—she stopped me in the hallway just to say how amazing it is that my son is captain.”

“Co-captain,” I repeat, though I know it’s futile.

“I’ve told absolutely everyone at work. And my entire book club!”

This is new. “Your book club?”

“Yes! They’re all going to be watching your game against Brown next weekend.”

I sit up straight, suddenly alert. “All of them?”

“All twelve! We’re making a whole day of it. We’re doing food, and cocktails, and I made special t-shirts with your number on them.”

An image of twelve middle-aged women in custom hockey jerseys materializes in my mind. I can already hear them screaming my name every time I touch the puck, and thank the man upstairs that they won’t actually be in attendance versus Brown.

“Mom, are you sure they want to spend their Saturday watching college hockey?” I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Don’t you guys usually do wine and cheese for your meetings, and talk about books and stuff?”

“We’ll have wine and cheese!” she declares, as if that solves everything. “And don’t worry about whether they’ll enjoy it,” she continues. “I don’t care if they enjoy it! You’re my boy, and I’m going to support you!”

I sigh internally, but don’t dare say anything.

My mother has always been my biggest cheerleader—the one who drove me to 6 a.m. practices before she went to teach, who learned hockey despite having no previous interest in sports, who still has my broken youth hockey stick mounted in our living room.

But sometimes her enthusiasm feels less like support and more like suffocation.

“Lincoln? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, Mom. I’m here.” I rub my eyes. “Just tired from practice.”

“Oh! How was practice? Did you work on that thing the scout mentioned? What was it—your left-side checking?”

“How do you even know what the scout said to Coach?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

She laughs. “The hockey moms’ message board, of course! Someone’s husband overheard and posted about it!”

Of course. The infamous message board—my mother’s primary source of information about my hockey life since she can’t physically be at every practice and game. I’ve learned not to ask too many questions about what gets shared there. The less I know, the better for my mental health and the team.

“We actually spent most of practice running drills until Maine threw up,” I say, deflecting. “Coach wasn’t happy about the Colgate game.”

“Well, you’ll do better against Brown. I know it.”

This perfectly captures my mother’s unconditional—almost blindly optimistic—faith in me.

It’s simultaneously heartwarming and crushing.

I should be grateful. Hell, I am grateful, because most of my teammates have parents who barely know what position they play.

But sometimes I wish she’d… dial it back.

“Actually,” she continues, her voice shifting into conspiracy mode, “Meredith’s husband—you know Meredith, with the twin boys?—well, her cousin works at a sports management agency, and she heard that a few scouts might be at your Brown game!”

My stomach clenches. “Mom?—”

“I know, I know. Don’t talk about the scouts!” She laughs. “But I’m just saying…”

“I’ll do my best, Mom,” I mutter, as if I can just pencil in a hat trick.

“You always do, sweetheart! And?—”

There’s a brief shuffling sound, and then my dad’s voice comes through the phone. “Hey, son. How’s it going?” he says.

The relief is instant. I exhale, not realizing I’d been holding my breath. “Hey, Dad.”

My father’s voice is the calm after my mother’s verbal storm—measured, quiet, with none of her dramatic inflections. In the background, I can hear her protesting that she wasn’t finished talking to me, but truth be told I’m glad for a moment of respite.

“Your mother’s been hogging the phone, so I thought I’d jump in,” he says. “How are classes going?”

The simple question—about something other than hockey—makes my shoulders relax for the first time in this conversation.

“They’re good. Advanced Kinesiology is kicking my ass a bit, but I like the challenge.”

“That’s your sports medicine focus, right?” I can almost visualize my dad’s eyebrow raise. “With the rehab emphasis?”

He remembers. Of course he does.

My dad might be quieter, but he listens.

“Yeah,” I say. “We’re studying recovery protocols for serious joint and ligament injuries. It’s actually pretty relevant to what Mike’s going through.”

“How is he doing? Still struggling with being sidelined?”

“You could say that,” I respond. “He’s… Well, it’s complicated.”

“Injuries always are—physically and mentally.” My dad pauses.

“Your grandfather was never the same after his back gave out at the construction site. Not just because of the pain, but because he lost his sense of purpose. His work was everything to him, and providing for his family was his life’s mission. ”

This is classic George Garcia communication—thoughtful, somewhat philosophical, and entirely devoid of direct advice.

He offers perspective that is an absolute bulls-eye, but leaves the conclusions up to me.

He’s always been like that—trusting me to figure it out, even if it takes a while—and I appreciate it.

“I’m trying to be understanding,” I say. “But it’s hard when he’s actively making things worse for the team.”

“Mmm,” my dad hums noncommittally. “Speaking of teams, your mother mentioned you’ve got a new group project in that biomechanics class?”

For a few precious minutes, we talk about normal college senior stuff. Not NHL prospects or team drama—just classes and professors and that weird coffee place on campus that somehow burns their beans every single morning yet stays in business.

I actually find myself laughing when my dad describes his latest work adventure—apparently, a shipment of donated canned goods for his charity food program turned out to be entirely creamed corn. Three thousand cans. Ample food but of the worst kind.

“You laugh,” he says, “but you try getting creative with creamed corn recipes for two hundred hungry kids.”

“Creamed corn smoothies?” I suggest.

“Don’t think we haven’t considered it,” he snorts, and in the background, I hear my mother’s voice growing louder, and then there’s more shuffling.

“Your father is terrible at sharing!” My mother’s voice returns. “Anyway, I should let you go. I know you’re busy. Just remember to keep an eye out for suits!”

She means scouts. Again with the scouts.

I sigh, but not loud enough that she’ll hear. “Sure, Mom. Love you,” I say.

“We love you too!” She makes an exaggerated kissing sound into the phone.

After hanging up, I stare at my phone, exhaustion settling over me like a physical weight. Her expectations—along with everything else—feel like they’re compressing my chest. How is it possible to get off a call with the person who loves you most in the world and feel completely drained?

I drop my phone back into my pocket and resume my trudge toward my apartment, legs still burning with each step. The conversation with my parents has left me more drained than Coach Barrett’s suicide drills, though in a completely different way.

Sometimes I think I’d rather skate until I vomit than navigate the minefield of my mother’s expectations.

After a few minutes of walking, allowing the crisp evening air to cool my overheated muscles, I find my thoughts drifting to Mike. Another practice he’s missed, another excuse that Coach pretended to believe. I get that his ankle is still a mess, but his attitude is a bigger problem at this point.

What started as cold silence between us after our argument has evolved into an elaborate dance of avoidance.

If I’m in the kitchen, Mike’s suddenly got urgent business in his bedroom.

If I’m watching TV, he needs to be literally anywhere else.

We’ve become experts at tracking each other’s movements around the apartment, ensuring our paths cross as infrequently as possible.

Two months left in the season, and I can’t even speak to my co-captain without the conversation devolving into passive-aggressive bullshit. The only thing worse than an injured captain is an injured captain with an attitude problem.

I reach a crossroads on campus. Left leads to my apartment, where Mike is probably sulking in his room. Right leads to the 7-Eleven and a possible Slurpee, which suddenly feels like the only good thing that might happen today. It’s not much of a choice, so I pivot right.

As I walk towards my sugary hit, my phone burns a hole in my pocket, or at least, it feels that way. Em has been living in my head rent-free since our car conversation two nights ago. And, not for the first time, I find myself pulling out my phone, thumb hovering over her name.

What would I even say?

Hey, still thinking about how you told me your deeply personal trauma, wanna make out?

Yeah, that would go over well.

The memory of her in my car—the way she let her guard down, how natural it felt to talk to her, how close I came to kissing her—flashes through my mind. I still regret not closing that gap between us, despite knowing it would complicate everything.

But our next lesson is only days away. If I text her now, see her before then…

I’m not sure I can maintain the boundaries we established.

The more distance between us, and the more time that passes between that charged moment and the next time I see her, the better chance I have of sticking to our arrangement.

With reluctance, I pocket my phone without texting her.

It’s the right call.

The one area of my life where I still have some measure of control.

The blue and fluorescent white of the 7-Eleven sign beckons me forward like a beacon of hope in my otherwise complicated existence. I push open the door, acknowledging the cashier with a nod as the bell jingles overhead, then make a beeline for the Slurpee machine.

The last time I was here, I ran into Em and she proposed our… arrangement. But unless the universe has a sick sense of humor, tonight I’ll need to be content with filling the largest cup with Blue Raspberry. Then, as I head to the checkout, something catches my eye.

The chips Em was buying the other night, the ones she said were her faves.

I hesitate for just a moment before grabbing them and adding them to my purchase. As I slap them on the counter, the cashier rings up the purchase with the enthusiasm of someone who’d rather be literally anywhere else, so I don’t bother making small talk.

Heading out of the store and walking back to my apartment, Slurpee in one hand and corn snacks in the other, I realize I’ve put myself in a ridiculous position. I bought snacks for a woman I’m definitely not texting tonight or thinking about at all.

Smooth move, Garcia.

I consider tossing them in the nearest trash can, but that seems wasteful. I could eat them myself, but I’m not big on salty snacks. I could leave them for Mike as some weird peace offering, but knowing our current dynamic, he’d probably assume they were poisoned.

“This is stupid,” I mutter, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

A passing student gives me a curious look, and I realize I’m standing motionless, having an existential crisis over a bag of chips. My life has officially reached a new level of pathetic. I start walking again, but my phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish out my phone, and see it’s a text from Em.

Can’t stop thinking about our conversation the other night. Thanks for listening. Looking forward to our next lesson. :)

And just like that, every resolution I made about keeping distance until our next lesson evaporates. My thumb hovers over the keyboard as I debate what to say. Something casual? Something flirty? Something that acknowledges the weight of what she shared without making her uncomfortable?

Before I can overthink it anymore, I type:

I can’t stop thinking about it either, or about you.

I hit send before I can talk myself out of it, then immediately panic.

Too much? Not enough? What the hell was I thinking?

My phone buzzes again almost immediately:

Lea’s promised to knock next time.

Relief washes over me, followed by a laugh that startles another passing student. I’m grinning like an idiot at my phone in the middle of campus, holding a rapidly melting Slurpee and a bag of chips I bought for a woman who just texted me.

Maybe I do have control over something in my life after all.

It’s just not what I expected.