Page 5

CHAPTER 4

EMERY

present day

I can’t believe I let my parents talk me into another Granger Road Trip that, for the first time in two years, has brought me into the same arena as Alexei Artyomov.

And we’ll be sitting with his dad!

His mom said she would give up her seat so the three of us could watch together—despite my vocal defence that I could buy a last-minute nosebleed ticket on the Ticketmaster app.

Or, you know, just loiter at a nearby coffee shop until the game was over.

Both fine options for me.

But every time I suggest we don’t need to sit together, I get guilty eyes from my mom. That look that says, you’re moving to Europe and we might never do this again.

It’s not like I’m going forever.

I am going to be gone for a while, though. Long enough that I’ve put my fledgling personal chef business in Minneapolis on hold. There’s no point in trying to hustle to get customers and build a reputation only to leave the city for three or six or more months. But once I had the acceptance letter from the Swiss culinary institute, I started packing and immediately put my social media marketing on pause.

And being honest about that is what locked me into this collision course with my past mistakes. No sooner had the words My calendar is suddenly very empty left my mouth than my mother got a gleam in her eye.

I couldn’t come up with a good excuse, and here we are.

Trepidation mounts as we move through the crowd looking for Alexei’s father.

“Mom, can you send my ticket to my phone?” I point at the team store just before the security gates. “I want to check out the jerseys.”

She laughs. “You always need to be defiant, don’t you? Are you going to wear Rusty’s number for his game against Camden?”

“Yes!” My eyes light up. “Exactly. I’ll meet you at the seats.”

Rusty is Russ Armstrong, one of the veteran players on this new Hamilton team. Years ago, he played in Minnesota with my oldest brother, Camden. Tonight, they’re playing against each other.

The NHL is a very small world in some ways. Too small.

As soon as she AirDrops the ticket to me, I zip away, losing myself in the surge of people who want the silly, plaid-wearing, bagpipe-playing mascot gear that you can only buy here. I’ve been in almost every arena in the league, and this is among the busiest stores.

Good for Hamilton, and good for my delaying tactic.

I make my way to the jersey section, but to my dismay, the Armstrong jerseys are all sold out.

Last summer Rusty was in a sports energy drink commercial that went super viral for how awkward he was in it, and the fact that he’s Scottish and the team aesthetics have a Scottish vibe…it’s a marketer’s dream.

And then the company, BioPunk, followed that up with a new product called SPUNK, and tapped him again to awkwardly endorse the sweet and tangy complete meal drink.

He’s now enjoying a fandom most bottom six forwards never see.

I love it for him, but it does mean I’m out of luck on the jersey plan.

Turning around, I run smack into Alexei. A cardboard cutout version of him, anyway. He’s staring solemnly at the camera, which means he’s making intense eye contact with me, too.

Getting eye fucked by cardboard is a new and unsettling experience.

“Hate you,” I whisper, even though it’s not really true.

I just hate what I would have given him that night if we weren’t interrupted. Even though we didn’t do everything I’d planned, I picked him to pluck my cherry, proverbially and literally.

What a near miss that was.

Shuddering, I jerk back and bump into the person next to me, who clearly ignored the no food or beverage sign at the front of the store, because he’s holding an iced coffee. Or he was, until I knocked into him, and now that coffee is quickly seeping into my long-sleeved cotton shirt.

“What the fuck, lady?”

He gestures wildly, and coffee droplets spray onto the display jersey in front of us.

I snatch the cup from his hand. “This isn’t allowed in here.”

He disappears into the crowd, leaving me looking responsible for a stained jersey.

One of the shop staff narrows their eyes at me and pulls a mobile card payment device out of a holster on their hip. “Would you like me to ring that up for you, miss?”

Me? I didn’t bring a coffee in here!

But I can just see the hockey gossip spreading if I make a scene. Jeff Granger’s daughter… Or insert any of my brothers. Connor, maybe. He’s the most conventionally good-looking of them. Or Forrest. People write fan fiction about him. Wouldn’t take much to twist the idea that his sister is a spoiled brat into A Whole Thing.

Heart in my throat, I accept my fate. Apparently, I’m going to pay…

He scans the tag.

Three hundred and fifty dollars?

Mother of God.

That’s a serious punishment.

“What do I have to do to make this better?” I mutter under my breath.

The clerk is clearly not listening. “Enjoy the game!”

I most certainly will not.

I drag myself to the line for the nearest bathroom. By the time I get inside, my Minnesota t-shirt is pretty ugly looking. It actually looks like a fan deliberately threw something at me for daring to wear the visitor’s colours.

I take it off and set it on the counter and focus on the brand-new jersey I just bought instead, since that has fewer coffee spots on it. I rinse the arm under the sink, rubbing at the marks until they fade. Then I grab some paper towels and turn it over to dry it from all angles.

That’s when I see the name on the back.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Heart sinking, I pull Alexei’s jersey over my head. It’s way too big for me. I try to style it in the mirror, but quickly give up.

Whatever.

My mother will be amused, at the very least.

I toss the ruined shirt in the garbage, then make my way through the concourse. It’s my first time visiting the Hamilton arena, and I like it. I know a bunch of the players on the team from spending a week with them last summer—before Alexei was traded here—so if circumstances were different, I would be happy to cheer for them.

Right now, some of the friends I made on that trip are probably gathering in a suite upstairs for the WAGs and other family members.

I haven’t told them I’m here, for complicated reasons I don’t really want to think about.

Reason, singular. Six feet, four inches tall. Two hundred and ten pounds before a game, one ninety-nine after a hard match, apparently, according to Forrest, who doesn’t know that I never want to know interesting facts about his best friend.

And now I’m thinking about him again.

On the ice, and over the loudspeaker that pipes out to the concourse, the national anthems are played.

I slip into my seat just before the puck drops.

As expected, Mom is deeply entertained by my outfit change.

“Look, Sergei,” she says, patting Mr. Artyomov’s arm. “My daughter has switched allegiances.”

He looks confused until he looks at my jersey, and then he gives me a big thumbs up.

I smile weakly and nod. “Yep.”

“Nice to meet you,” he says in accented English.

“Same.”

We’re saved from the rest of that conversation as the game gets underway. We’re right down at rink level, just three rows back from the ice, and the play swirls in front of us, fast and furious right from the whistle.

The first goal comes forty-five seconds into the game, from Hamilton’s side, much to the delight of the oversized boar mascot dancing a few sections over—and the rest of the crowd.

Sergei and I cheer, too, as my parents groan, because Camden was on the ice for that.

This part will be fun.

Hamilton is an exciting team with fast forwards and brutish defencemen. Their systems are a bit of a mess, but that also makes them hard to read, and the chaos is their advantage.

My dad mutters something about Camden’s plus/minus stat. He’s dash five over the last two weeks, and it’s stressing my dad out, even though being on the ice for a goal against is a reductive way to determine value.

I’m tempted to push that bruise and start a debate about the utility of the plus/minus stat, but then Hamilton scores again —thankfully not when Cam is on the ice this time—and I’m too busy cheering.

The Highlanders have complete control of the game now, keeping the puck in Minnesota’s end consistently until we reach the middle of the period, and the long TV commercial break that sends the teams back to their benches.

As the ice clean-up crew skates out with their shovels, I sink lower into my seat, even though the team bench is all the way on the other side of the ice.

Alexei skates in slow circles as his coach talks to him. He’s too far away for me to be sure, but I don’t think he says anything back. He seems really locked in, just keeping warm and hydrating through the break. Then as soon as the crew is done cleaning up his crease, he beelines it back to his net.

He’s a guardian, a warrior with a mission, and he doesn’t like being pulled away from his post.

When the game starts again, I find it harder to follow the play. Now that I’ve gotten sucked into watching him, I can’t stop.

I’m pretty sure Alexei can’t see our seats through the curve of the plexiglass—and given his hyper focus, I think that might be intentional.

When I’m on the ice, I actually love to see people I know in the stands, but I’m extroverted and feed off that energy. Like a lot of forwards, I’m all about the hype.

Goalies are different.

Alexei is?—

Looking right in our direction.

I fold myself in half and pretend to fix something with my shoe.

When I finally peek again, he’s focused on the game play.

From my lifetime of experience watching NHL games, I know I’m being paranoid.

But I really wish I’d bought a hat in the team shop, too. Maybe I’ll go there at the first intermission between periods, because I’m deeply uncomfortable, both with the situation and my complete lack of a backbone when it comes to my mother.

This trip is giving me anxiety-induced heartburn and it’s just begun. I knew this was a bad idea.

As the teams have an epic puck battle in front of the Minnesota net, I dig in my pocket for a pack of antacids I bought at the airport.

“Get it up the ice,” my dad snaps. “Come on, now!”

Camden’s team does not get it up the ice.

Instead, the puck bounces loose, Hiro Watanabe snaps it to Hayden Calhoun, who beelined it to the net, and Hooner scores.

The arena goes crazy.

My dad mutters something about goalie interference. Sure enough, the coaches think the same thing, and they issue a coach’s challenge on the goal, and the play is paused while they go to the video review.

The Jumbotron starts showing people in the crowd while we wait for the decision.

I slump in my seat again, covering my face.

My mother pokes me. “Stop fidgeting.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not?—”

“You are, and it’s distracting.”

Distracting from what, I have no idea. The refs are going to take their time on this review. It’s already two nothing for the home team, and this goal would make it three zip before the end of the first period.

It’s not looking good for Team Granger, that’s for sure. I think Alexei’s only faced three shots on net so far, and he’s handily dealt with all of them.

Besides, she was just deep in conversation with Alexei’s father. Now she suddenly can’t ignore that I’m restless?

My fingers itch to pull out my phone and text some friends I’ve ignored for far too long. To beg for an excuse to get up out of this seat and not come back until the end of the game.

The refs finally make a call on the goalie interference—yes, it was, so the score remains 2-0 for the Highlanders.

My dad is elated, and I manage to keep still until the end of the period, but it’s a real challenge.

Especially now that the conversation right beside me has turned to Alexei’s baby .

Toddler.

Not a baby anymore.

“Emery, look!” My mom shoves Sergei’s phone in my face. “Isn’t she precious?”

The worst part is that she is precious. Of course she is. She has Alexei’s dark hair, dark eyes, and porcelain skin.

I snap my gaze up to the Jumbotron. The crowd cam happens to flash a shot of the WAGs, up in a suite today, and that’s enough of a sign for me.

“Mom, I’m going to go find Rusty’s girlfriend,” I say in a rush.

When I was a teenager, Russ Armstrong was one of the few players who recognized my hockey ability, and he earned my lifelong friendship. Last summer, after reconnecting at Camden’s third wedding, I spent a week with him and some of his teammates at his cottage, filling in as a plus-one of sorts that morphed into being a fake girlfriend. Despite that questionable decision, because he’s never been anything other than a brother figure, I managed to strike up a real friendship with the woman he was secretly in love with at the time, and Shannon has been poking me to come to a game ever since.

I have politely refused every invite, because Alexei was traded to the Highlanders a month later—and I have preferred to keep an international border or at least a few Canadian provinces between me and my greatest mistake for the last two years.

But here I am anyway, so…

Before my mom can reply, I’m out of my seat and heading for the concourse, my phone out.

Emery

Hey pals. Surprise. I’m at the game tonight! Do you have room for a friend in the suite with you?

The group chat I’m messaging includes all the WAGs who were at Russ’s cottage last summer. And one by one, they all react to my text with exclamation marks and hearts.

Shannon

Absolutely! Kiley’s already out the door, looking for you.

Harper

This is such a fun surprise!

Becca

Get up here, I need an Emery hug!

Ani

Ahhhh! You sneaky girl!

Their affection makes me feel extra silly. They have no reason to bring up Alexei or his daughter to me.

And if I’m upstairs in a box with them, I don’t need to keep slouching down out of paranoia. I might actually be able to enjoy the rest of the game…if I can stop hyper-fixating on the Highlanders goalie.