“What is it?” Devin asks.
“It’s my mother.”
She pauses. “Oh.”
I glance over my shoulder. Everyone is looking good, and I can step away for a few minutes. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Devin.
If I don’t answer now, she’ll keep hounding me. Better to get it over with.
Still wearing my skates, I walk into the locker room and hit the answer button. “Hello.”
My mom snorts. “Oh, is that how you answer your mother’s phone call? Like she’s a telemarketer?”
I sit on a bench and rub my forehead. Shit. Five seconds into the phone call and I already have a headache. “Hi, Mom.”
“Oliver.” Her voice is hard. “Why didn’t you tell us about your job? You’re assistant coaching?”
I freeze. How did she?—
“I got a Google alert,” she says. “There’s an article about you in a Portsmouth paper that says you’re the new assistant coach at the high school. I thought you were just visiting Niall for a while. Since when did you decide to stay there? And coaching? There are so many better things you can do with your time.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’ve been putting this conversation off for long enough. Might as well dive right in and explain it all. “I?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, and I remember that she doesn’t want my answers. She wants to hear herself talk. “You can make it up to your father and me when we come into town next week. I have a conference in Portsmouth.”
“Since when?” I’m fully aware that I sound like a petulant child, and I don’t give a damn.
“It recently came up, and that’s not what matters. Find us a place to stay. I checked your game schedule and we’ll be there for your next game.”
“You’re coming to a game?” It’s hard to believe. They barely ever made it to my own games. Now they want to come to a high school game that I’m coaching? It feels like some kind of trap.
“I’ll send you the flight information. I have to go. Bye.” She hangs up quicker than I can even think of responding, and I’m left sitting here with a silent phone.
My parents… are coming to town.
And I feel like I could throw up.
Are they coming just so they can take a look at my new life and say “told you so?” They always argued hockey would never get me anywhere, unlike a “real sport” like football, and in their eyes I probably look like a failure, washed up and assistantcoaching high school. I couldn’t feel better, though. I love my new life. I have a great job. I have peace. I have Devin.
Devin.
My family has never liked her, starting with the fact that they consider physical therapy pure quackery. Never mind that it’s scientifically backed and it helps people, myself included, all the time.
Maybe it’s that they just want something to hold against her since she’s so important to me. Like all my other life choices, she’s another thing for them to tear down. And it’s hard to find something wrong with a person as amazing as Devin. But really, I don’t know and I don’t truly care. Something else entirely is taking up my attention. I can already picture the look on Devin’s face when I tell her my parents will be at next week’s game, and it’s not a pleasant one.
My limbs feel heavy and my balance is off as I trudge out of the locker room. Devin is busy talking with her intern, and I have to finish up with the practice. Once we’re all wrapped up, I wait for her in the parking lot so we can drive down the street and grab the pizza we’ve been talking about for the last two days.
When she emerges from the side door to the rink, her puffy jacket a bright blue against my dismal afternoon, a bit of the weight lifts from my heart.
“Hey.” She smiles big, and the last of that weight vanishes.
“Hey.” Wrapping my arms around her, I bring her in for a kiss. She melts into me, her taste warming my blood and spirit.
Breaking apart, I grin down at her. Someone could be watching us—a teacher or a student—but I don’t really care. There aren’t any rules against Devin and I dating; she’s not even technically a coworker, and let the world see. This is the kind of perfection that should never be hidden.
“Long day?” She asks.
“Only because every minute wasn’t spent with you.”
