My hold on my temper turns to steel. I shove my frustration down, ignore her question—and maybe the realization that she’s not wrong. “Yes,” I say. “Bad shit happens to good people. But I don’t see you as a woman who needs rescuing.”
She sniffs. “Right.” It’s a dry rejoinder. “Sure.”
“Red—”
“Andyoutrying to lecture me on the fact that there’s more to life than hockey.” Another sniff. “That’s fucking rich.”
I pull into a spot but don’t put the transmission into park because that will unlock the doors and I don’t want Joey to be able to escape, not quite yet anyway. “I have a life, baby,” I tell her gently. “I have friends and I have my sister. I work a lot, but it’s not the only thing in my world. I go out to dinner, grab a drink with one of my buddies, go to see shitty movies with my sister. Can you say the same?”
I know the answer to that, even before she turns her irate gaze to mine.
It’s a no.
Because she goes to Sierra games, she goes to practice, she watches video and makes plans for the team and basically livesand breathes doing everything she can to make the organization the best it can be.
But there are no Game Nights or bad movies or drinks with friends—no matter the city we’re in.
There’s no shopping days or trips to the spa.
There’s no planned meetups with Beth and John, no treating herself to a nice dinner with some girlfriends.
It’s…empty.
And I know that she’s used to it.
I know that she, for some reason, thinks she deserves it.
And I know that she fuckinghatesit, even as she wears it like it’s the mantle she must bear.
Same as I know I can’t let that truth stand.
Not for another day, another hour, another fuckingsecond.
But I also know that today’s not the day that truth is going to stick.
“You can’t,” I say, shifting into park.
Not a second after the locks disengage, she pops open the door, letting in the cold morning air.
“Fuck you,” she hisses.
She slams it shut, moves to the trunk, and a moment later, I watch her, with her backpack perched on her shoulders, wheel her suitcase across the tarmac.
Then I smile.
Because mad isn’t distant.
Because buried longing isn’t unaffected.
And because…nothing good is ever easy.
SEVENTEEN
Joey
I’m tucked awayin the corner of the hotel bar, giving the guys who’re unwinding with a beer the space to relax without their coach watching them.
Lines are prepped for tomorrow, reports on our affiliate teams are in. There are a couple of young players I’m watching, seeing when they might be ready to come up and play in The Show. But they’re not quite there yet.
