Glancing over my shoulder, I slow but don’t stop. Jenna Packley jogs to catch up. She shoulders an obnoxiously large bag, and her keys jingle in her hand with the movement.
“Did you want to maybe grab a bite to eat or something?” she asks when reaches me. “These practices can go so long that by the end of them I’m about ready to eat my shoe.”
“It was only an hour-long scrimmage today.” Even though it felt much longer than that.
She brushes my comment off. “There’s a great bar just down the road that has the best wings.”
Ah, so we’ve gone from grabbing a bite to now a bar.
Jenna’s pretty, I’m not going to deny it. She’s got shoulder-length golden-brown hair that she clearly puts a lot of effort into.Her makeup is light but enough to show that she’s done it. And being a former hockey player herself, she’s still in good shape.
But I’m not interested. Not in the slightest.
“I’m headed over to my dad’s for dinner tonight,” I say, reaching my car. It beeps as I unlock it and throw my duffel into the backseat.
Jenna stops next to it, standing a little closer to me than she should be, and bats her eyelashes at me in disappointment. “Well, maybe next week then. I’d love to get to know you better.”
I close the door and lean against it, crossing my arms. “Because we’re co-workers?”
She smirks. “Of course.”
Sure.
I’m not trying to be a total dick, so I say, “I appreciate you and Alice welcoming me into the fold here, but I’m not interested in anything beyond that.”
“If you’re not ready to date, I understand.” Her hand extends toward me, as if she’s going to pat my shoulder, but then it retracts when she sees my darkened gaze. “I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”
My jaw clicks. “Why would you be sorry about that?”
“Well—” she sputters. “I just thought—It’s polite?—”
“Polite to bring up private business that has nothing to do with you?” If she thought she was going to gain some sort of brownie points with me by bringing up my failed marriage, she has another thing coming.
Her mouth gapes and cheeks flush bright red. The keys in her hand jingle as she fidgets with them.
“You don’t know me,” I say. “We work together, and let’s keep it at a professional surface level, alright?”
“I really wasn’t trying to?—”
I don’t care to hear anything else. Without letting her finish, I get in my car and shut the door with a pointedthud. As soon asshe backs far enough away, I reverse out of the spot and take off toward my dad’s house.
It’sa quick drive back to my hometown where my dad still lives in the same house I grew up in. The trees lining the familiar street are just starting to transition, dusting the roads in splashes of orange and yellow leaves. There are times when I wished I still lived in the city, but autumn in Michigan isn’t one of them.
I turn left into a cul-de-sac, driving straight ahead to the white cottage house with blue shutters. Warm light glows from the windows inside, and I can make out Dad sitting in his recliner. I slowly lumber out of my car and up the few steps to the front door.
“Hey, Pops,” I say once I walk in the door. The instant smell of sugared vanilla hits me like a wave of bittersweet nostalgia.
Dad cranes his neck, pulling his attention away from the baseball game he’s got on. “Son, glad you could make it.” He shuts the footrest of his recliner and meets me halfway across the living room for a hug. While he’s getting old, he’s still strong as he slaps my back. “Good to see you.”
“You too. Thanks for the invite.”
He waves me off. “You never need an invite. This is your home.”
It is, but it also isn’t. Even when I was in the league and living in New York, I was still close with my dad and brother. But being back in the same area as them feels different. Like they carved a new way of life here that I no longer quite fit into.
“You need a haircut.” That would be my brother’s way of greeting me. I turn toward the kitchen as he strolls over wiping his hands on a kitchen towel.
“If you had hair like mine, you wouldn’t buzz it off.”
