“Sure. Weekends. School nights. Holidays.” I shrug. “Hockey came before everything.”
“But you loved it?”
“The sport itself? Yeah.” Hockey wasn’t just a hobby. It was a vocation. My vocation.
She tilts her head, waiting.
“But the rest of it—the spotlight, the pressure? That Icould’ve done without. My dad had played pro. Built a reputation. So when people started watching me, I never knew if it was because of my skill…or because I was his kid.”
Her expression softens. “Do you talk to him much?”
“All the time.”
Her smile returns, tentative. “So you’re close.”
I laugh, low and sharp. “Not even a little. He wasn’t really a dad. More of a coach. One who yelled a lot…and showed up drunk to games.”
“That’s awful. Was it just you?”
“I have a younger sister, Britt. He ignored her, for the most part.”
“Do you see her often?”
“A couple times a year. She’s in Vancouver so it’s not like she’s close.”
“Is she close with your dad?”
“No. She cut contact with him completely after our mom died.”
“How…how did she?—”
“Aneurysm. I was twenty-two, Britt was eighteen.” I remember her calling me after my game crying. Crying so hard she couldn’t talk.
“I’m so sorry.” Her brows pinch, pain flickering across her features. “That must’ve been hard.”
“It was quick and painless. Her death was much easier than her life with my father.” I clear my throat, pushing the memories back down where they belong. The room suddenly feels too small, too filled with things I don’t usually say out loud. “I should get going.”
“You could stay.” She blurts it so fast, it takes me a moment to make sense of her words.
“Stay?” I echo, like I need her to spell it out.
“To watch the movie. It’s a classic. Your eleven-year-old self was robbed.”
I shift my weight on the couch, pretending to hesitate. “I don’t want to impose.”
“Please?” Her eyes catch mine, a flicker of mischief under the plea. “It’s way less pathetic for me to be home on a Friday night, eating pizza and watching dinosaurs, if I’m not alone.”
My stomach betrays me with a low growl. “You have pizza?”
“Not yet. But I will once I order it.” She leans a little closer, her voice teasing. “I also have cookies.”
I lift a brow. “Which body part are these ones?”
Her laughter spills out of her quickly. “For your information, they’re flower cookies. Leftovers from a tulip festival committee meeting.”
She’s still smiling when she looks at me, the kind of smile that makes it hard to think about anything but how close she’s sitting to me.
“Alright,” I say, letting my mouth curve the tiniest amount. “I’ll stay.”
