OUTSIDE WARD’S OFFICE, we can hear him talking on the phone, probably fielding calls from other organizations. Nausea rolls through me, but Hazel slips her hand into mine.
“Freaking out yet?” I ask.
She shakes her head, eyes steady on me. “Nope. I meant what I said about us figuring it out.”
“Your studio—” I start, but she covers my mouth with her hand.
“I said we’ll figure it out.”
I sigh, nodding, and she replaces her hand with her mouth on mine. I think about her snapping at the security guard to back off while telling me she loved me and I feel like laughing, but then I remember that I might get sent away and leave everything good I’ve collected this season, and the ugly feeling in my chest hardens.
At our side, someone clears their throat, and we break apart.
My blood runs cold at the sight of the man in front of us. “Dad.”
I didn’t even know he was in town. He’s the last person I want to see right now.
“Rory.” He shifts, glancing between me and Hazel, and for the first time, he doesn’t look like the stern man who raised me.
He looks worried.
Hazel stiffens, removing her hand from mine before sticking a finger in my dad’s face.
“You,” she says in a demonic voice. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
My dad’s eyes go wide.
“You’re the fucking worst,” Hazel spits out, stabbing her finger in the middle of his chest.
“Can I—” he starts.
“No.” She pokes him again. “I’m talking. Your only job was to love Rory, and you fucked up, Rick. You fucked up big time.”
She’s terrifying.
My dad turns to me with a strange expression, eyebrows at his hairline and eyes flashing with pain. It’s the expression he wore when my mom walked out, I realize, and my chest aches.
“Is that what you think?” he asks in a low voice. “That I don’t love you?”
My exhale is shaky, and I swallow. “I think you love hockey.”
He takes a step toward me, but Hazel moves between us. My territorial dragon, ready to strike. My hand comes to her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. Nerves are spilling over inside me, but after the conversation I had with my mom today, I know I need to be more up-front with my parents. I can’t run from this with him.
“I’ll never be enough for you,” I tell my dad, “and now you’re trying to trade me away from the only team I’ve ever loved playing for? The only coach I’ve looked up to?” My heart races. “I don’t want you to be my agent anymore. We want different things for me.”
He looks crushed. “I thought this was what you wanted.” He shakes his head, confused. “You’re not playing your best anymore. When we started getting offers, I figured a new team would get you back to where you were last year.”
“What, fucking miserable?” A cold laugh scrapes out of me. “I am playing my best, but all you care about is the points on the board.”
He shakes his head again, not getting it. “I just wanted you to be at the top of the league so you’d be happy.”
Something in my chest deflates with exhaustion. “That doesn’t make me happy anymore. I don’t know if it ever did. You want me to be you, but I’m not. I don’t want to be the star anymore. It’s…” I swallow. “It’s lonely.”
“Life is lonely,” my dad says in a flat tone, like it’s a fact.
Our lives are about hockey first, he said on the phone a couple months ago.
“No, it’s not.” My gaze goes to Hazel, and she gives me a small, supportive smile. “It doesn’t have to be.” Emotion hitches in my throat. “I’ll never be enough for you, but I don’t need your approval anymore.”
I have Hazel’s, and I have my own. Even if I get traded, I like the player I’ve become this season.
“Not enough for me?” My dad blinks at me. “You’re everything to me.”
“Every game, every pass, you’re watching and making notes so you can call and tell me everything I’ve done wrong. We’re done with that, though.” I fold my arms over my chest. It hurts saying this.
He stares at me before he looks away. Defeat pulls tight in his features. “My dad never gave a shit about me playing hockey. It didn’t matter that I played professionally or broke records.”
My grandfather on his side passed when I was a baby; I never met him, and my dad never spoke about him. My mom once mentioned that he was a professor, a workaholic, and an alcoholic. My dad runs his hand over his hair, and it’s like looking in a mirror.
“I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care,” he says quietly.
He shows it the only way he knows how. Through his eyes, I see his calls and emails in a different light. I see him wanting what he thinks will make me happy. “That’s what Mom said.”
He stills. “You talked to Nicole?”
“We’re trying to patch things up.” Vulnerable honesty flows out of me like water from a faucet. It’s addictive, telling the truth like this.
He stares at me for a long time, frowning, regret flashing in his eyes.
“She asked about you.”
“She did?”
“Yep.”
A long pause. “I think about her every day.”
His honesty shocks me. Rick Miller doesn’t care about anything but hockey, or so I thought. “Maybe you should call her.”
He shakes his head, glancing down with a hard set to his jaw. “She left me.”
The corner of my mouth tilts in a sad smile because for years, I told myself she left me, but my dad has his own lies he tells himself.
“I compare everyone to her,” he says quietly. “That’s why all my relationships fall apart. No one’s Nicole, and it’s only a matter of time before they realize that.”
My chest aches, and even though he’s made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for years, made me think hockey was my only value, he’s still my dad.
“Call her,” I tell him, “because I think she thinks about you, too.”
He grunts, acknowledging but not agreeing, and the three of us stand in silence.
“Hockey’s the only thing we have in common,” he finally says, looking lost. “I don’t know what else to talk to you about.”
“Maybe we should change that.”
At my side, Hazel watches, guarding me. My dad’s gaze swings to her and he clears his throat.
“Hi.” He sticks his hand out to her. “Rick.”
“Hazel.”
My dad is an intimidating guy—tall, broad, with an intense, commanding presence—but Hazel can be intimidating right back. She holds his eyes, and in her gaze, the message is clear. Don’t fuck with Rory.
I hide a smile. I love her so fucking much.
“The physio and yoga teacher,” he says with a nod. “Good to finally meet you, Hazel.” He clears his throat, glancing at me. “I love you, Rory. I don’t say it enough.”
“You don’t say it at all.”
Shame passes over his features. “I want to, it’s just…” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Hard.”
I can’t imagine a guy like my grandpa told my dad he loved him.
I think about the things I’ve done this season—going back to the pickup league after I failed miserably, taking risks in games with the team, telling Hazel I love her.
“Hard things get easier with practice.” The knot in my chest begins to loosen, and I follow my own advice. “I love you, too.”
He pulls me into a hug, and while we embrace, whatever I’ve been missing all these years opens in my chest, taking up every inch of space.
We break apart, and he clears his throat. “I’m in town for a couple days,” he says. “Maybe I can take you two for dinner.” He nods to her with a serious expression that I think might be nervousness. “I’d like to get to know you better, Hazel, if that’s alright.”
“Of course.” She smiles, any trace of anger from before gone. “Rory plays in a pickup league on Tuesday nights,” she adds lightly. “I’m sure they’d love for you to drop in.”
He gives me a sidelong look, arching an eyebrow. “Pickup league?”
“Mhm. It’s fun.”
“Fun,” my dad repeats, like he isn’t used to saying the word.
“You gotta pass the puck, though. No hogging the shots.”
His expression turns bemused, and I snort, because watching him try to be a team player after fifty-five years of being the star is going to be a trip.
“Passing the puck,” my dad murmurs. “Okay, then.”
Stars score goals, but there’s so much more to life than being the star.
Ward’s office door opens, and my coach looks us over.
“Come on, Miller.” He tilts his head into his office. “Let’s talk.” My dad steps forward, but Ward levels him with a hard look. “Just Rory.”
My dad opens his mouth to protest, alarm in his eyes as he looks at me.
“We’re not negotiating,” Ward says. “He doesn’t need an agent for this. I just want to talk to my player.”
“It’s okay,” I tell my dad. “I take back what I said about you not being my agent anymore, but I want to talk to Ward alone.”
He looks between me and Ward before he nods. “Okay.”
I follow Ward into his office, close the door, and pray I can convince him to keep me.
