“She hates me,” I add darkly, and the laughter only gets louder.
Behind them, the PTA mothers exchange looks sharp enough to cut glass. One leans in, whispering just loud enough to carry. “Inappropriate she brought a dog in here at all.”
Another tsks. “If the animal has tendencies, what kind of example is that for the children?”
My jaw tightens. They’re not talking about Miso, they’re talking about Lulu. Twisting her warmth into recklessness, clearly waiting for an opening.
Lulu laughs, ignoring the moms entirely and clapping her hands once to reel the class back in.
“Okay, okay, no dog weddings in my classroom, thank you very much.”
“Can we at least have a dog reception?” a boy hollers from the back.
“Sure, but Dusty’s allergic to cake, so you’ll all be eating broccoli instead,” she shoots back without missing a beat and grins over at me. “Is broccoli an approved meal, Mr. Miller?”
“Only if it’s served with chicken and rice,” I deadpan.
Once the laughter dies down, Reid leans a shoulder against the whiteboard, arms folded. “So, what’s your favorite part of hockey? Who wants to be a goalie? Defenseman? Center or wing?”
Hands shoot up everywhere, kids shouting over each other.
“Goalie!”
“Forward!”
“Fighting!”
“Skating fast!”
It’s chaos again, but the fun kind, until a boy near the middle keeps his hand down. He slouches lower in his chair, muttering, “I suck at everything.”
The noise dips for a second, kids around him twisting to look. From the back, the moms exchange knowing glances, one of them shaking her head and rolling her eyes. The kid is clearly known to them.
Lulu doesn’t miss a beat. She crouches beside the boy’s desk, warm and calm. “Everyone sucks at first, buddy. Did you know Logan fell on his butt in his first pro game?”
My head snaps to her. “Lu—”
Thirty pairs of eyes swing to me.
I clear my throat and nod, scrubbing a hand over my jaw. “She’s not wrong.”
For a second, there’s silence, and then it breaks simultaneously.
“I fell over in my first game, too!” a girl blurts.
“I still skate like a baby giraffe!” another adds.
“I missed an empty net once and cried for two hours!”
“I puked in my helmet!”
The room turns into a chorus of failures, shouted like badges of honor. Confessions, failures stacked on failures, every kid trying to top the last. And the boy who’d slumped in his chair looks around wide-eyed, until he can’t help it—he grins. Shoulders straighter and face brighter, not because I saved him, but because Lulu cracked the door open and every kid rushed in behind her.
This wasn’t how I was raised. I grew up in a house where mistakes were hidden, not shared. Where failing meant shame, not practice. My parents drilled perfection into me, demanded it until the idea of slipping up felt like a death sentence. Even now—an NHL star with my name on the back of a jersey—they’venever once told me it’s okay to fall on my ass. That everyone does. That failing is how you learn.
I’m rooted to the spot, floored. She took one small mutter, one chance for him to disappear, and spun it into belonging. My embarrassment, her story, his spark. She made failure safe.
It’s fuckingmagicto witness.
