“Pizza, chips, and soda in about ninety minutes,” Ella adds.
Marlee smiles softly. “Blue and gold decorations okay, I assume?”
“Uh, yeah…great. Wow. You guys didn’t have to go to all this?—”
She cuts me off. “Yes, we do.”
“Mar’s right,” Ella says, hip checking me lightly as if she could knock me over. “We’re family. And this is what family does for each other.”
That word.
Family.
It’s really starting to dig its way into my heart.
Into my soul.
And I’m not hating it at all.
“Thank you ladies. Truly. Thank you so much.”
Two hours later,the arena is chaos in the best possible way.
Kids spill into the community room, eyes wide, voices echoing off concrete. Blue and gold streamers hang from the walls and doorways, and the smell of pizza and sugar fill the space.
Connor has a huge smile on his face and the guys are in their element.
Oliver and Griffin lead a locker room tour like it’s sacred ground, the kids shooting questions their way at rapid fire pace.
“What’s the first thing you do when you get in here?” Connor asks.
Take a shit because nobody wants to get out of their uniform once it’s all on.
Griffin grins. “First thing? Well, after a win, we definitely celebrate. The guys get in here and it’s all high-fives and laughter. After a loss? You might find us sulking a little, but we still come together. Teamwork, right?”
“Is thatyourlocker?”
“How much does that stick cost?”
“Why does it smell like feet and popcorn?”
Griffin winces. “Okay first of all, rude.”
Oliver gestures to the rows of stalls. “Yes, these are our lockers. No, you can’t take anything. And the smell is…straight up ambition.”
A kid with a missing front tooth raises his hand like he’s in class. “Do you ever pee your pants during games?”
Griffin chokes on absolutely nothing. “Wow. Just straight to that, huh?”
Oliver blinks. “No.”
Another kid pipes up, “What if youhaveto?”
“We don’t,” Griffin says quickly.
I bite the inside of my cheek, shoulders shaking as I trail behind them remembering that one time that Griffin had explosive diarrhea and totally shit his pants and had to leave the ice to change.
A girl points at the nameplates above our changing stalls. “Why is everyone’s name so big?”
