In a hockey arena.
Where it’s climate-controlled to a nice chilly temperature for the ice.
Everyone around us shoots to their feet yelling, and both of us leap up too.
I have no idea what we’re cheering for until a buzzer blasts through the arena. It takes me too long to focus on the padded-up players on the ice gathering into a group hug.
Goal.
Thrusters scored a goal.
“That’s what happens when you make bad calls, ref!” Goldie yells.
The entire arena bursts into a victory chant—something aboutthrust this—led by a rocket-powered bratwurst beating a drum on the jumbotron over center ice.
And it’s not until we’re all seated again with play resumed that it occurs to me that the Pounders need a victory chant.
We need our fans yelling something every time we score a try or a drop goal.
And that should’ve been the first thing I thought of.
The Thrusters are up two-nothing at the end of the second period. We’re at the end of a row in the lower bowl behind the penalty boxes with access to a private lounge. When we get up to stretch and get more drinks during the break, there’s a seven-foot-tall rocket-powered bratwurst mascot hanging out and taking pictures with fans.
Goldie drags me over and makes me stand in line, and I hold her hand too tightly the whole time we’re waiting.
Four days.
She’s leaving in four days. Three months in London, then at least a year on the road.
I saw the map on her phone last night. She’s been playing with routes. Looking up vacation rental houses. Making notes about what she wants to ask people for her book.
My chest is getting tighter and tighter. Sweat drips down my spine.
My heart hasn’t been this attached in fifteen years.
I don’t like it.
Goldie chats with the people around us. Apparently one of the Thrusters’ long-time big stars is retiring this year. There’s chatter about draft picks and head office turnover. How much longer the team’s ventriloquist will stay on staff, which, yes, I did hear right. Some celebrity is in attendance and people are hoping for pictures with them too.
And none of it matters.
Not when I’m trapped in a steel box wanting something I’vesworn I would never want again.
Especially from someone who’s leaving.
I smile for pictures on Goldie’s phone when it’s our turn to pose with the bratwurst mascot. I buy her an ice cream and get myself another water. She introduces me to someone who’s apparently important in the Copper Valley sports world, but it doesn’t penetrate why that matters.
“Are you okay?” she whispers while we’re heading back to our seats after she’s eaten her ice cream.
No.
No, I’m not okay.
“Tired,” I lie.
She studies me that way she does, like she’s looking for all of the things I’m not saying behind that single five-letter word.
And then she says the magic phrase. “We can blow off the rest of the game.”
