"I had a feeling. Charlie, grab him a stick."
A guy with dark hair swept into a bun handed me a stick and stuck out a paint-stained hand. “I’m Charlie. It’s an honor to play with you.”
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you Charlie. I’m—“
“Beck Shepherd, we know,” Wick groaned.
“Nice to meet you, Beck,” Charlie winked.
Laughing, I sat on the bench, rolled up my jeans, and put on Logan’s skates.
"You're going out like that?" Wick tapped my knee with his stick as he walked past us.
"It's just practice."
Was I crazy? I didn’t even have a helmet.
I’d forgottenhow good it felt to carve up hard, non-regulation ice with my blades.
"Shep!" Logan fired a puck at me. I caught it on my stick and sent it back to him, tape-to-tape.
I was rusty but not terrible. All that time at the gym didn’t mean anything. Nothing gets you in shape for hockey - nothing but hockey itself. My lungs burned after ten minutes.
Nick Tinsel skated over during a break. The guy was one hell of a goalie. “Nice skating. For an old retired guy.” He squirted Gatorade through the cage of his goalie helmet into his mouth.
"I heard that you retired too.” It was a diplomatic statement, Nick had been kicked out of the league.
“Something like that.” He handed me his water bottle.
“No thanks.” I shook my head.
He shrugged and bit the plastic tube while he spoke. “Logan's got me working with the kids."
“What kids?” Nick Tinsel was a good-looking dude, and if he was on the ice with Clara…
“The peewees.”
“Any power skating?”
“Nah. There’s a local girl who takes care of that. She could probably skate all of us under the table—including you.” The fact that he was chirping me was a good sign. It meant he didn’t hate me.
“I know her. She was an Olympic contender at one point.”
“Yeah.” He finished his water bottle. “It's a sad story really.”
“Sad?”
His eyes met mine. “She’s a great coach now. It would be a shame if they lost their ice time."
"They won't. I'm making some changes.”
Nick shifted from foot to foot in his skates. "I hope so, man. Those kids get the ice-time scraps. I heard they have to practice on the lake sometimes."
Donnie walked up to us and set his shovel against the boards. “Not just sometimes. They’re at the outdoor rink this afternoon, practicingThe Yellow Brick Roadnumber."
The little kids had to skate on the lake ice? “Don’t worry Donnie. I’ll make sure those flying monkeys get plenty of time to practice their jumps - indoors.”
He picked up his shovel. “I knew you’d come around.”
