I glanced over and saw Sav looking kind of sheepish.
I felt my eyebrows pinch together as I quickly peered at Duke in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know what?”
“She’s almost finished, dude. She’s only a couple credits away,” Duke said. “She was supposed to graduate this May.”
I felt my mouth drop open and I did a double-take looking at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She giggled in her seat. “I wanted it to be a surprise.” She bit her lip shyly and rubbed her stomach. She’d been doing that a lot lately and I wondered if it gave her comfort. “You gave me the idea actually, when I visited you at school, remember? I was going to invite you to my graduation. But I put off this semester… after… ya know.” She shrugged.
I shook my head in awe, feeling so damn proud of her. I was happy she took the time to explore her own passions for herself.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do to make goin back easier, if that’s what you wanna do, just say the word,” I told her. “In the fall, me and Duke will watch the little guy at the rink. I bet Coach Petersen would love to hold a baby.”
Duke cackled in the backseat, probably picturing the gruff Coach being all gentle with a baby.
51. Griff
I think my nerves were kept at bay by our crazy journey to get here…
But now that I could hear the loud crowd beyond the cement walls, my legs were shaking like they were made of jello. There were a lot of fuckin people outthere…
I braced my jersey clad arms on both sides of the trash can and felt my body heaving again.
“Oh shoot. You okay, old man?” Duke walked out in his skates and Crewmen uniform and snickered as he slapped my back. “They told me to come check on ya.”
I spit in the trash can and cursed under my breath. “How are you so chill?”
Duke shrugged and took a swig from the can of Mountain Dew in his hand. “It’s the same game, man. We’ve played it a million times. It’s no different. Besides, all those people are here for us,” he said, flashing me a bright smile. “Kenny even said there were a couple models in the crowd,” he wagged his eyebrows at me. Kenny was one of the team’s equipment managers. He was the only other guy in the locker room who was also 19, so he and Duke hit it off pretty quickly.
I couldn’t help but think that Duke was ready for this. He was ready for fame… I, on the other hand, only cared about one person in that crowd… and I really didn’t want her to see me losing my shit on the ice out there…
“Where’s Sav sitting?” I asked him. While both of us wanted to be the one to buy her ticket, I bowed out and let Duke. She was a huge part of his success and we both knew it. She spent all those years trudging back and forth in the snow with him to the Ice League and helping him with his game before Nick and I even came along. He wanted the honor of buying her his first game ticket.
“She’ll be sitting behind the net, off to the left a little. Picture where she used to sit at my games in the Ice League’s NHL side…” He cracked a smile. “Well, when she didn’t have concession stand duty. Remember?”
I nodded and felt myself smiling. Of course I remembered. It was where I first laid eyes on her… I chuckled thinking about my teenage self struggling to ref because it was hard to take my eyes off her when she was sitting there in the stands. She’d move along with the play because she was so engrossed in the game. It was one of the only times I could really watch her without anyone noticing…
Duke’s forehead creased. “You ready to head back in?”
I was not… But I slowly stood and felt myself fall in step behind him as we walked back into the Crewmen’s lockerroom.
Inside, Coach was already busy running plays on the large white board.
“Nice of you ladies to join us,” he said dryly.
“Sorry, Iwas-”
“Barfing, we know,” he barked, to which other guys shot me knowing grins.
I sat there in my cubby with my head down, not hearing a word Coach was saying. I just stared at my skates.
It’sjust another game… just another game…I repeated to myself.
When Coach finally called out that we were ready to head onto the ice, I sat there frozen as I watched everyone walk out.
Each player tapped the #33 locker before leaving theroom.
Emotion clogged my throat.
