His warm smile, and the patience in his voice, made guilt twist in my chest.
I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”
We pasted on professional grins and skated out. After introductions, we explained the first drill. Nico made a crackabout my skating form, I sniped about his haircut, and the crowd ate it up.
We split the kids into groups. One would work on passing with me, while the other practiced shooting with Nico. The ten-year-olds in my group were lively, but they let me help correct their stick positioning and show them how to follow through after a shot.
Across the ice, Nico crouched down to a little boy’s level, demonstrating wrist movement in slow motion. The kid tried it, failed, and tried again. When he finally got it right, Nico high-fived him so hard he nearly knocked him over. I couldn’t help smiling.
A girl in an oversized Barracudas jersey skated up to me. “Can you show me how to do a slapshot?”
“Absolutely.” I demonstrated before talking her through each step. “Bring your stick back, weight on your back foot, swing forward, and be sure you hit the ice behind the puck so the stick can flex. Shift your weight forward, and follow through toward the target.”
She tried it, and the puck barely moved.
“Not bad for a first try,” I said. “Want to see what happens when you really commit to it?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yeah.”
This time she wound up like she meant it. The puck flew across the ice, and she shrieked with delight when it sailed into the goal.
She turned to her friend. “Did you see that? I did a slapshot!”
Nico caught my eye from across the rink and grinned.
When the kids begged us to play one-on-one for them, we couldn’t say no. It stopped feeling like PR as soon as my stick touched the puck. Nico and I moved on instinct and read each other without looking as our rhythm clicked into place.
I cut wide, and Nico slipped past me, grinning as he lifted the puck off my stick.
“You’re getting old, Pack,” he called over his shoulder. “Let me handle it.”
“Handle your wheelchair, grandpa.” I stole the puck back and took off in the other direction.
The crowd exploded with laughter. Even the shouts of “Packo!” didn’t mar my enjoyment.
Nico and I went back and forth, stealing, chirping, and showing off for the kids. As soon as one of us would put the puck in the net, so did the other. Once, Nico deked so smoothly I nearly face-planted trying to keep up. He laughed, and when I flipped him off, the kids went wild.
It reminded me of sneaking into the rink late at night in Michigan. No one else would be there, so it was just us and the ice. We usually played until we couldn’t feel our legs, then stumbled back to the dorm and slept through our early classes.
Now, in Houston, we called it a tie after fifteen minutes. We were breathless and grinning, and when he slung an arm around my shoulders, I did the same.
During Q and A, a small girl stood up. “My daddy said you used to be best friends, but then started hating each other. Are you friends again?”
The rink went quiet as I glanced at Nico. He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but his eyes stayed on mine.
“Something like that,” I said.
She beamed. “I knew it. PackoForever!”
Nico and I laughed along with everyone else.
Afterward, while we changed in the locker room, one of the coaches came in. “More reporters showed up, so we have all the press outside now.”
Nico groaned and slumped against his locker. “I wanted to chill.”
“We’ll handle it,” I said. “Quick answers, and we’ll be done.”
Outside, it was chaos. Cameras flashed, the crowd raised their phones over their heads, and all the reporters shouted at once.
