I get to the arena at five after six, which is basically early for me. Parking is a nightmare, but I find a spot and walk to meet Tyler. The sidewalk is streaming with people in Wildcat hockey jerseys and hats—couples, groups of friends, families. My steps slow as I approach the front entrance.
I stop a girl walking past me. “Excuse me, is there something going on at the arena tonight?”
She smiles big. “Yeah. The Wildcats are playing Dallas.”
“Thanks,” I mutter and continue walking with the rest of the people heading to the game. I stop before getting into the line and pull out my phone to text him, but then realize he’s not going to see it because he’s playing a freaking hockey game.
“I just want to talk about Everly. I have a small conflict. Not a date,” I mutter all the things he said under my breath in a mocking tone. I want to throttle him.
“Hi.” A guy approaches me tentatively. “Are you Piper Vaughn?”
“Yes.” I study his face but can’t place him.
“I’m supposed to give you this.”
I take the envelope from him, and he takes off without another word. If I was hoping for an explanation or maybe an apology, I don’t get it. Instead, I find a ticket for the game and food vouchers.
Against my better judgment, I go inside. My stomach is a wreck, so I bypass food and find my seat. I freeze when I see Everly. I double-check that I’m in the right seat and then she looks up and waves like she was expecting me.
With a sigh, I sit beside her. “Your brother is on my shit list.”
“I’m supposed to tell you that he’ll meet you right after the game and he’s sorry, but it’s the only time he has until next week.”
I arch a brow.
“The team is traveling for away games the rest of the week and into the weekend,” she clarifies.
I nod and search the ice for him. He skates around the net and retrieves a puck. His gaze lifts and I hold my breath when he looks right at me. Of course, he knows where to find me, he bought the ticket after all.
“You come to all the games?” I ask.
“The home games.”
“And the away games?”
“I stay by myself.” Then she quickly adds, “Tyler calls to check in like every two hours and he sends people to pop in and make sure I’m fine. It’s really obnoxious.”
I tip my head toward the textbook in her lap. “Homework?”
“Yeah. I have to finish a chemistry assignment.” She scrunches up her nose.
“You don’t like chemistry?”
“Not really.”
I take the book from her and flip through it. “Yeah, it wasn’t really my thing in school either.”
“Are teachers supposed to admit things like that?”
I laugh. “I don’t know, but it’s the truth.”
She takes it and opens it back up. “Did you always want to be an art teacher?”
“Yeah. Always. My grandmother was a teacher. I would go over to her house and dig through her teaching supplies. My stuffed animals suffered through a lot of pretend school.”
She snorts. “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up yet, but I can’t imagine wanting to relive high school.”
“You don’t like school?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“What about your last school?” I ask tentatively. I let my gaze go back to the ice and pretend like I’m not dying to know what led her to living with her brother.
“High school sucks no matter where you live,” she says so definitively that it makes my chest hurt, and then she goes back to her homework.
Chris texts as the game is starting, Are we still on for dinner later?
“Oh, shi—crap,” I censor myself when Everly’s head pops up. I probably shouldn’t be cursing around a student.
“Everything okay?”
“I was supposed to have dinner with my boyfriend later. I forgot.”
“You forgot about your boyfriend?”
“I was distracted by my rage,” I say as I tap out a response to Chris letting him know something came up.
“How long did you two date?”
“Me and Chris?” I ask as I put away my phone.
“No, you and my brother.”
“Oh. Right. Eight months.”
“Huh.” She looks like she wants to say more but doesn’t.
Everly returns to her homework, and I get lost in the game. Hockey was a big part of my life even before I met Tyler. My uncle Tim was a pro hockey player and at least a few times a year we’d go and watch him play. And on rare occasions, my dad, who had also played as a kid, would lace up his skates and the two of them would play. The memory of my dad makes my smile fall. I miss him.
He had a stroke my senior year of high school that made it hard for him to communicate and to remember certain things. I know he loves me. I feel it when I’m around him, but our relationship is different. He remembers most of my childhood, but he forgets things I told him last year. It’s hard. He’s different. And as much as I don’t want to constantly compare things to before the stroke, we simply aren’t as close; and that ache, missing the man he was, or could be, has woven itself into the very fiber of my being.
I find Tyler on the ice. I watch as he speeds by players and puts himself into position in front of the net. He fights off a defender putting pressure on him, trying to get between him and the goalie, but Tyler holds his ground. Someone passes him the puck, and he turns and shoots it through the five hole, lighting up the goal post.
My breath hitches as everyone around me gets to their feet and cheers on number twenty-one. A couple people near us are wearing his jersey. It’s too weird. Everly even looks happy. She glances back at me still in my seat. “Are you okay?”
“Perfect.” I stand. “I’m going to get some food.”
“You’re not leaving, right?” she asks as I turn to flee. She has to yell over the continued applause and cheers for Tyler.
It’s exactly what I’d planned to do, but looking at Everly and knowing I’ll have to face her and her brother again no matter how this night ends, I change my mind.
“No, I’m not leaving. I’m gonna grab some food though.” I hold up the vouchers Tyler left me. It’s a pretty big stack and I’m going to use every last one on greasy, delicious food that will hopefully distract me from watching my hot ex-boyfriend being cheered on by twenty-thousand people. “Do you want anything?”
She nods, and I get the first real smile I’ve ever seen from Everly Kent.
