Her gaze sweeps the room, skimming right over the PTA mothers to land on me for half a second, and I catch the sly twinkle there.
“Class,” she says, bright and measured, “today we’re joined by twoveryspecial guests—Mr. Miller and Mr. Hutchison of the Colorado Storm.”
The way she leans onmisterhas my mouth twitching. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Daring me not to smirk.
“Who has a question they’d like to ask?”
For a beat, the room is quiet, thirty pairs of eyes blinking at us like they’re not sure if we’re real.
Then it detonates.
“HOLY CRAP!”
“No way!”
“My dad hates the Storm, but I love them!”
“LOGAN MILLER, YOU’RE HUGE!”
“Can you skate faster than a cheetah?”
“YOU’RE MY FAVORITE GOALIE!”
“Do you have your own jet?”
“Logan, how much can you bench? My dad says he could take you.”
“REID, WILL YOU SIGN MY FOREHEAD?”
The noise ricochets off the walls, kids practically bouncing out of their seats. At the back, the PTA moms purse their lips like excitement is beneath them.
I nearly choke at the kid thrusting a marker in Reid’s direction, head tilted back, ready for it to be scrawled on with permanent marker. As if the man’s about to Sharpie his skull and send him back to math class branded for life.
Reid takes a step away from Sharpie kid and starts calmly answering every question thrown at him.
“Do you make, like, a million dollars?”
“No.”
“Do you live in a MANSION?”
“No.”
“Why are your ears so pink?”
“Genetics.”
“Are you dating Taylor Swift?”
“No.”
Each reply is flat as stone, and the kids go feral for it, shrieking like he’s just delivered the funniest punchline of the year.
That’s when Lulu claps once, sharp enough to cut the noise but bright enough to feel like part of the fun. “Okay, okay, slow down, one at a time! And unless one of you is secretly TMZ, let’s keep questions to hockey, okay?”
The kids all laugh. She’s got them eating out of her hand, not by silencing them, but by joining in—redirecting without shutting them down.
“Hands up if you have a hockey question,” she adds, arching an eyebrow. A forest of hands shoots into the air. “That’s better. You might even get more than a one-word answer out of Reid that way.”
