“Yeah. Okay. Can you . . . Give me a second?”
He let out a loud sigh. “I’ll meet you in the cafe downstairs.”
A few minutes later, I sauntered to the hotel lobby and found Liam sitting at a two-top table. I rubbed through my hair as I approached him. “You drink coffee?”
“No. I just want to talk.”
I nodded, still not fully awake. “Let me get a cup and I’ll be right here. You sure you don’t want anything?”
He pouted. “A plain croissant.”
“Sure thing.”
With a cup of coffee and a plain croissant in a bag for Liam, I sat at his table. I flopped it down on the table and sat. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Sorry. Trying to make you laugh. What’s going on?”
Liam picked a flake of the croissant off and licked at it from his thumb. “How did you know what you wanted?”
My jaw tightened. “Wanted what?”
“From your future.”
“Like . . . With your mom?”
“No, god.” His head dipped farther down his neck. “With hockey. How did you decide to keep going?”
“Oh.” I rolled my lips through my teeth and gave his question some thought. “I guess . . . I never really considered it much of a choice? I didn’t want to have some boring job like my dad.”
Liam scoffed. “Well, I don’t either.”
“Okay. What’s holding you back from choosing hockey?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, really.” He paused. “Well. I don’t want to be in your way and Mom’s way.”
“We’re fine, man. Don’t worry about that. What’s holdingyouback?”
“Not being good enough to make it. Doing all this work without a hope of the show.”
I thought back to Cordero’s advice to me all those months before. “Is that the only outcome you’ll accept? The show or nothing?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Just feels like if I’m going to all this trouble, I should have something to show for it.”
I studied his face. His eyes were ringed with deep purple and he kept brushing his hand over the top of his head.
“I got some really good advice not long ago. If you only focus on the big outcome, you’ll miss a lot of great moments in themiddle. Putting too much pressure on getting in the show will only make you feel empty when you get there. You have to think of what’s the worst that could come of that choice too.”
“Not getting drafted.”
“I wasn’t drafted,” I reminded him.
“You’re a goalie,” he countered.
“Sure, but lots of other guys on our team weren’t drafted.”
And look where we are now.
