Northern State.
Of all the teams. Of all the possible opponents for the last game I’ll watch from these stands - Northern State, Jake’s team, the first game I ever watched here, the night I met him.
Perfect symmetry, I think, settling into my seat. Slightly cruel, but perfect.
He finds me before the game starts.
I’m sipping my coffee when he drops into the seat beside me.
“Last game?” he asks.
“Last game,” I agree.
He looks out at the ice being resurfaced, pale and clean under the lights. “You know the first time we played your team, I’d already started to notice a difference in their skating. Took me about thirty seconds to figure out why.”
“Flattery.”
“Fact.” He grins. “Good luck to your guys today. They’re going to need it.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.” He stands. “I’ll come find you after.”
He leans down and presses a kiss to my cheek - and then he’s gone, back to his bench.
I watch him go and feel a little sad. He belongs to a different chapter. I can feel that already. But it was a chapter that did what it was supposed to do and has been closed properly.
I open my notebook.
The teams file out.
They win.
3-2, third period, Ward with the winner off a setup that Mateo reads perfectly - the transition clean and certain and exactly what we’ve been building toward since January. I watch it happen from the stands and I feel the satisfaction of seeing work pay off.
Jake finds me afterward like he promised, making his way through the dispersing crowd, and his face is genuinely delighted- no ego in it, no complicated feelings about losing, just a good person being happy for someone else’s win.
“You can see the technique coaching there – incredible improvement.”
“They worked hard.”
“You worked hard. I’m so pleased for you, Elida. All of it. That it’s working out with Brita - Sweden. All of it. You know… if you wanted to try to keep this going…”
“Jake-”
“I know,” he says. Uncomplicated to the end. “I know it’s a no. I think I’ve known for a while.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Genuinely.”
“Don’t be.” He opens his arms. “Come here.”
I hug him properly. He holds on for a moment and then steps back and looks at me.
“Thank you,” I say. “For Brita. For all of it. That was one of the kindest things anyone has done for me in a long time.”
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing.”
