As soon as I pull out of the WIT parking lot, I call Leo. The professional hockey player is my closest friend and someone who has spent days upon days up close and personal with my new boss. If there’s anyone who can tell me if I made the right decision by taking this job, it’s him.
The dial tone rings three times before he picks up, panting into the speaker. “Letty?”
“Tell me about Adam White.”
“Woah, girl. First, hello. Second, why? Are you planning something I should know about?”
I roll my eyes and turn off the gravel road that leads to WIT, heading onto the highway. The GPS in my mom’s car updates to show I only have six minutes until I’ll arrive home.
“Hey, Leo,” I sigh. “And no, not really. He offered me a job today, and I took it. I need you to tell me if that was a stupid idea.”
There’s clanging and a muffled curse. “Say that again?”
I groan. “I knew it was ridiculous.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just surprised,” he says over the sound of shouted voices. “How did that happen, anyway? I doubt you wandered into his arena begging for a job.”
That makes me laugh. “Maybe I did.”
He snorts, and I relax for the first time since leaving Adam’s office. Leo and I have known each other since we played co-ed hockey together when we were twelve and have somehow stayed in contact since then. It’s impressive, considering we still call and text daily eleven years later, even with him playing pro hockey for the Minnesota Woodmen now.
After so many years, I can’t imagine not talking to him as often as I do. It’s become a habit that I don’t intend to break anytime soon, if ever.
“Try again, Letty. This is the first time in years I’ve heard you mention the guy. There’s no way you went there of your own free will.”
I pass the East Vancouver sign and slow to a stop at a red light.
“Fine. It was my mom. She hit him with her new plant in the parking lot of Charlotte’s Flower Shop and told him all about how her hockey star daughter was back in town, newly retired and bored out of her skull.”
Leo’s laugh is a deep rasp in my car’s speakers. “Yep, sounds like her.”
“It’s not funny,” I scold. “She’s dead set on not letting me stay home to take care of her. That’s the reasoning behind her sudden chattiness.” The light turns green, and I hit the gas.
“Are you telling me you haven’t been bored?”
“Sometimes, yeah. But I enjoy taking care of her. I’ve missed out on so many years already. I’m here now, and I don’t want to miss any more. You know better than anyone how it is for us.”
The confession is like dropping a stone in water. There’s the initial plop when it hits the surface before it sinks deep, surrounded by silence. My lungs constrict, and I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as if to steady myself.
Leo mutters something too quietly for me to make out the words—like he’s muffled the speaker—and then the shouting around him stops.
His voice is clearer, steadier, when he says, “I do know how it is. And I know you mean well. Just try to look at it from your mom’s perspective, babes. She already feels guilty because you came home for her, right? Now add that you won’t even leave the house out of worry for her safety to the equation, and I would do the same thing she is. Good intentions or not.”
“You’re not supposed to be on her side,” I grumble.
“I’m not. I’ll always be on your side. But just try to consider how she’s feeling before going all Scarlet Witch on our asses.”
A laugh bursts out of me at the same time I turn into my neighbourhood. The childhood nickname has a wave of nostalgia crashing into me. Leo and his comic references go together like two peas in a pod.
“How many times have I asked you not to call me that?” I ask.
“Too many. But you know I won’t stop. Might as well just accept it.”
I drive up the steep hill that serves as an unofficial entry to our community and spot the pointed roof of my childhood home—all nine hundred square feet of it.
The muted, yellow-painted bricks stand out like a sore thumb amongst the newly renovated dark stone and siding of the neighbouring houses, but I don’t hate it as much now as I did when I was a kid referred to as the ginger with the yellow brick house at the top of the hill.
Tall hedges trimmed just a smidge crooked line the small front yard, and a matching yellow birdhouse that’s seen much better days is perched dead smack in the centre. Add in a mailbox that no longer opens and shuts because of its broken lid, and I’m sure we’re the subject of discussion in the HOA meetings at the end of every month.
Each morning I run past said mailbox and peek inside, I’m surprised not to see a letter from Mrs. Evansburg, the head of the committee, ordering us to spruce the place up a bit.
“Leo,” I say, preparing to shift the subject back to something way too heavy for a Monday afternoon. “I need you to be honest with me. Do you think I can do this job? Training someone to help them reach the dream I had and lost? I haven’t even touched the ice since that game.” Pulling into the short driveway, I shift the car into park and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.
“I really hate when you word it like that, Scarlett. You lost nothing. Your injury wasn’t your fault. Your career was taken from you because life can be an entitled asshole to the best people. But yes, I think you can do it. If anybody can, it’s you. Adam’s a really good guy. I owe him for how much he helped with my knee.”
I release a tight breath and lean back in my seat. That’s exactly what I was dreading he would say. Leo has never lied to me, and hearing his support only makes my decision more real. There’s no going back now. I can’t hide from this anymore.
My eyes catch the flapping wings of a small brown bird as it swoops into the bird bath by the porch steps. The damn thing doesn’t have a care in the world as it lifts its wing and uses its beak to bring water to the exposed skin. I never cared much for birds growing up. There was always so much to do, so many places to be, that I never even paid any attention when one would sing on my windowsill or chirp at me from a tree branch in the backyard.
Stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, was never my thing.
Now, though, I’ve noticed several things and actually paid attention to them in a way I hadn’t before my injury. The slower pace I’ve adapted in my daily life has been the second-best thing to come out of my destroyed career. The first one being my ability to be here, taking care of my sick mother so that she doesn’t have to struggle alone.
“If you were into girls, Leonard Arlo, I would have snatched you up a long time ago. You never fail to stroke my ego when it’s in the dumps.”
He laughs. “Oh, baby. I would have made you mine the first time we met and you told me your great-grandma Betsy could outskate me blindfolded and going backward.”
“It’s safe to say you’ve gotten better since then.”
He has, and he knows it too. I haven’t watched him play in a while, but he’s quicker than me on my best days. I’ve lost far too many bets over the length of our friendship to dare say otherwise.
“Damn right I have. But hey, maybe this job is a blessing. I would love for you to join me on the ice again sometime. Preferably before I retire.”
“Cool it on the dramatics.”
“Hey! Can’t blame me, Letty. You’ve been avoiding the rink. Don’t pretend otherwise. If you keep going on this way, I’ll be a wrinkly old man before I get to see you skate again.”
He’s right. I’ve avoided so much as looking at a pair of skates since my last game. They do nothing but remind me of a failed career and the blatant fact that I don’t know what to do next. I put everything I had and wanted to be into hockey, and when that stopped becoming an option, I realized pretty damn quickly there was no plan B.
“I’ll work on it,” I mutter. My mom’s figure appears behind the living room window, and she waves enthusiastically. “Thanks for talking me off the ledge, Leo. I should head inside before Mom comes and drags me from my car. I’m sure she’s bursting to hear about my interview.”
“Anytime. You know that,” he says. “If the Woodmen make it past the second round, we’ll be playing against either Vancouver or Vegas in a couple of weeks. If we play Van and I get you a ticket to one of the games, would you be there? For me?”
A sliver of panic creeps up my spine before I shove it away. There’s a slim chance Minnesota will lose to their current second-round playoff opponent, the Colorado Knights. Not when they’ve been outplaying them in all three of the previous games and are up two to one in the series. Minnesota will be here in Vancouver in no time since the Warriors also look like they’ll come out above their opponent, Vegas.
Anything can happen in the playoffs, but I’m loyal to my hometown team until the end of time.
“Yeah. As long as you don’t mind me wearing a Hutton jersey.”
“A Warriors girl through and through,” he groans, like me cheering for the Vancouver player pains him. It actually might, now that I think about it. “Fine. But don’t you dare bring a sign.”
“We’ll see. Gotta go, talk soon.” I hang up the phone when he starts to protest.
I’ve only just made it out of the car when Mom comes barrelling through the front door. Her smile is bright enough to light the darkest tunnel.
“Took you long enough. I’ve been just buzzing with anticipation,” she says when I step up beside her on the porch.
The hot rollers in her thin hair bounce as she grabs my hand and pulls me to one of the two wicker chairs decorating the corner of the porch we call her coffee nook. A metallic, glossy purple-and-blue wind chime swings above her chair, playing a high-pitched song in the breeze.
I give my head a slight shake and smile softly. “Well, sit down, busy bee. Let’s talk.”
