- The Granger Brothers: Growing Up With The Ultimate Hockey Dad
- Five Teams Shopping for Deadline Upgrades
CHAPTER 26
FRANKIE
When I get home from the hospital mid-afternoon, there’s a courier package leaning against the front door. Inside is a Logan Granger jersey, three tickets for the upper level, and a handwritten note:I wish that these were rinkside, but I will feel you cheering me on from the rafters.
I’m touched that he organized not only a ticket for me, but for my friends as well.
Inside, I find Sloane and Liz both working at the dining room table. I dump my backpack on my chair, then set the delivery box on the table with enough of a thunk that they both look up.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I say innocently. “But does anyone want to go to the hockey game tonight?”
“The boy aquarium?” Sloane claps her hands together. “How fun!”
Liz winces. “We shouldn’t objectify them, Sloane.”
“They’re in the entertainment business. We can objectify them a little.”
“Please be serious,” I groan. “This is stressful for me! In a good way, but still.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.” Sloane’s expression turns grave. “I promise to treat this trip to the boy aquarium with the utmostrespect. They are athletic marvels, and the whole thing is a cultural phenomenon, and?—”
I snatch the jersey off the table as she dissolves into laughter.
“I’m not taking you,” I shout as I march to my room. “I’m going to sit in all three seats by myself!”
“No you aren’t,” she calls back. “That would look weird and draw attention to the hot girl in the Granger jersey!” And then, to Liz, maybe just to be a brat, she says, “But seriously, all that stretching is remarkable, isn’t it? Have you seen the TikToks?”
Their debate fades to a background hum as I try on the jersey and look at myself in the mirror. Nervous excitement stares back at me as butterflies have a rave in my belly.
Who are you, Frankie?
I can’t believe I’m wearing a Buffalo sweater right now.
I’m not the same girl who got on a plane to Vegas a week ago, that’s for sure.
The train is packed with people in LA jerseys. I’m not theonlyperson in a Buffalo jersey, but it’s a sea of silver and black all around us.
“I think that Hot Thoracic Fellow might like the way I look in an LA jersey and nothing else,” Sloane says.
Liz rolls her eyes. “Does he even like hockey?”
“He’s Canadian, so I assume so?”
“Okay, our first stop will be the team store,” I say. Better that she focus her hormones on HTF than the players on the ice.
But when we get there, I realize there’s a lot of context that my friend is missing, because she immediately reaches for the jersey of a really problematic player, just because she likes his last name.
“Not him…” I say, guiding her to the blanks. “Maybe get one without a name on it. They aren’t all good people. They’re just good at hockey.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Maybe I’ll put my own name on it?”
“That’s an option.”
A butch woman with rainbow earrings in front of us turns around, does a quick up and down check and clocks Liz as a fellow queer woman. “Hockey’s a fraught fandom, but there are some good guys on the team.”
