He didn’t look at anyone at all, so there was no fantasy inside my head that our eyes met. He seemed modest as he took his place in the lineup. Maybe even shy.
But now, anthem over, I remember how his chest felt beneath my fingers. How strong his arm was around my back. There was only force in his touch then.
I wonder what he thinks of Sylvan’s plan.
I wonder if he evenknowsaboutSylvan’s plan.
After taking our seats and a hushed, awed quiet rolling through the crowd, it’s time for the puck drop.
Despite the reason I’m here—coercion—I feel giddy watching the center,Ryles, judging by the last name over the number 11 on his back, and a Lynx glare at one another with the ref to the side.
Growing up, Mom took us to every Hurricane’s game she could get tickets to in Raleigh. Nolan, her, and me were always way high up in the nosebleeds but it didn’t matter. Since we’d never had better—certainly never hadthisview—I was giddy to be there. We won free T-shirts over the course of several years, and they felt like trophies. I have no idea how much seats costher back then, and I wonder briefly now if Marty takes her to games with better views. He’s some C-level executive at a digital marketing company, and while he never wanted to use that money on either me or my brother—as he made clear from the outset, and Mom still fell head over heels for him—I hope he at least uses it on her.
They live in a nice house in Cary, and Mom only works part-time at a bookstore, so she must be treated decently. Financially, at least. Marty is cold, aloof, but something about him had melted my independent, headstrong,tiredmother. Maybe it was the last one that caused her to fall into his arms. Doing everything solo for so many years raising us.
Or maybe it was the fact I was about to leave for college, and Nolan had left years before to NYC.
Maybe she was tired of being romantically alone and couldn’t bear the thought of being physically so.
Mostly, I don’t blame her.
I just wish we were closer, like we used to be, rather than a relationship consisting of sporadic texts exchanged month-to-month.
“Shit!”Cynthia hisses under her breath beside me and I blink, focusing again as I lean forward in my seat, my drink clutched in one hand.
As soon as the puck dropped, Drayton took possession, and now I watch as Ryles passes back to Faust, and number thirty-three casually slaps it to Sylvan, who hauls ass toward the goal. But there are like three blue-and-white men in front of him, and I can barely watch as he gets closer, the Lynx’s goalie preparing himself, eyes like a hawk on the puck that this far from the opponent’s net, I can’t really see.
I forget my glasses constantly. Nolan always told me I’d look—and see—better with contacts anyway. But poking circles into my eyes doesn't appeal to me either.
The crowd is on their feet and I’m sure as hell not missing this. I stand, too, not having to press up on the tiptoes of my black heels. Yes, heels; I’d spent too many days in a row in Uggs and stretchy pants, and heels feel like armor to me.
I bring my hands to my chest, careful not to spill my drink on my white sweater with the popped collar, loose and comfortable over my leather pants. I don’t even notice I’m holding my breath until Sylvan’s slapshot careens past three men, then slips past the goalie’s outstretched glove, cleanly into the net.
The response in the arena is instantaneous.
Everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs, and as Sylvan casually skates by the net and turns, his teammates coming to hug him, only Faust hanging behind—but his eyes seem connected to Sylvan’s—Tas turns to me and throws her arms around me, nearly catching me off balance. But Cyn is behind me and she presses her hand to my back to keep me steady.
The roar in the stadium is insane and I find myself screaming along with everyone else. When Tas lets me go to put both fists in the air—her drink safely in the cupholder between us—I turn to Cyn and we hug each other, both of us squealing a little as we do.
“Less than two minutes in!” some man yells behind me, and fresh screams rise up to the rafters where jerseys and the Canadian flag are hanging.
After a moment, the face-off is set up again at center ice, and we all reluctantly return to our seats to watch.
My eyes are on Faust’s back, and I wonder if either he or Sylvan have a single thought in their head of Jackson’s corpse, or if it’s only me he seems to keep circling back around to haunt.
THIRTEEN
NEVE
It’s not as cold as it was when Jackson died.
I haven’t looked into any funeral information for him. I have no idea if a funeral is even scheduled. The quick article in Drayton Times said flowers could be sent to his father. No mention of his mother, allegedly the woman whose house I stayed at with the pool while she was in Costa Rica. I don’t know if any of that was true, when he confessed it to me the morning after our hookup. I don’t know anything about his life, but I feel a weird pang thinking of his death. It’s not grief and maybe I should feel guilty about it, but I don’t.
Mostly it’s the image of his body in my head. The tang of blood in the air.
It’s strange. Unfamiliar. The only thing I could compare it to is not having a dad in my life since he left when I was a child, but I’ve lived with that for over a decade now, and Jackson was no fucking father figure.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Cynthia asks me as Tas speaks to someone on her phone, her smile free and her eyes a little glassy under the outdoor lights of the arena. “It’ll be fun, and…” Cynthia leans in conspiratorially to whisper inmy ear. “You might find out more about your mystery, murdery men.”
