I did. Me.I’mthe fuckup.
To my relief, he doesn’t come over. He and a little knot of other players head out to the parking lot, leaving me and Remy stewing in the type of silence that makes me want to peel my own face off. She won’t even look me in the eye as she gets back to business.
“As you know, we have a Mite Skate tomorrow afternoon for two hours. Photo ops. Autographs.” She digs out a paper from one of her folders and hands it to me. “Think you can handle it?”
“Yeah. ’Course.” I take the paper, even though I have one just like it in my gym bag. I’d rather deal with kids than with my feelings any day. Kids are easy. Adults are where things get dangerous.
* * *
The next day dawns bright and sunny, which feels a little disrespectful considering the current state of my life.
Dante sends the SUV for both of us again because, apparently, public humiliation isn’t enough anymore. Now he wants sustained psychological damage too.
The drive across Vegas is brutal.
Remy sits beside me in tense silence while I stare out the window, pretending not to notice every tiny movement she makes. The soft sound of her breathing. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous. The faint citrus smell of whatever lotion she uses.
I keep going back… there.
Ugh.
At one point, our eyes meet accidentally, and we both look away so fast my eyeballs jam up. Neither of us seems fully sure what we’re supposed to do with each other after yesterday.
Honestly, arriving at a rink full of tiny hockey kids feels less emotionally dangerous than being trapped in that car with her.
I liked visiting the smaller rink on the outskirts of Vegas, but there’s something extra special about mite skate at a big community rink. They’re practically babies. I don’t think I was ever that small. I went straight from the womb to squirts.
As I lean over the edge of the rink and watch the kids fumble around, I notice a dad helping his little boy tie his skates. The kid leans against him automatically, comfortable in a way that feels completely foreign to me. My heart constricts, and I taste bile at the back of my throat. Nah, scratch that. I might have been small once, but I was never this damnyoung.By the time I was as old as these kids, I was practically grown in other ways. Old enough to know exactly when to stay out of the way to avoid a blow.
“Rourke!” One of the kids spots me and points at me. His helmet is askew, and his skates look a size too big. It’s cute as hell. “Look, Mama, it’s Rourke!”
I take that as my cue to hit the ice and skate over for a meet and greet. Remy stands by the boards, taking notes with the same detached demeanor she’s had all day. Like the other night never happened at all.
Like her thighs weren’t squeezing my head into a vice. And I never wanted her to let go. I can still taste her on my tongue.
“Looks like you’ve got some big shoes to fill,” I tell the boy who first spotted me.
“Yeah. They’re my brother’s.” The consonants come out soft and indistinct:bruvvers.When he speaks, there’s a gap in his mouth where at least two teeth are missing.
I kneel down to his level. “Then what’s your brother wearing?”
The kid tips his head back to keep his helmet from flopping in his eyes. “His new skates! These are too small. But he’s not here, so, uh, I guess he’s wearing sneakers, probably?”
I nod sagely at this deductive reasoning. “Is he a good brother?”
“Mostly.” The kid wrinkles his nose. “Unless there’s cake. Then he’s kind of a butt.”
“Duly noted. Is he a good enough brother that you’d want to take him a signed photo? I can do one for each of you.”
“Yeah!” The kid whirls away in search of his parents and shouts something about getting a signed photo for Carter.
I use my reprieve to check on Remy again. She’s talking to one of the moms. Moments after I turn my head, she gestures to me, though she continues to face the woman.
The mom looks me dead in the eyes before telling Remy, “Oh, you’re his handler? He must be a menace. Should he be around kids? He seems like a bad influence.”
The worst part is that some ugly little piece of me immediately wonders if she’s right. Fuck that. I turn away before Remy answers. Not that she’d speak that loud anyway.
I sign photos for Carter’s little brother. I take pictures with a few of the kids, and some families, and even with somebody’s labradoodle. Any joy I felt at the start of the event fades over the next two hours. Remy isn’t looking at me, and a few of the parents give me a wide berth. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that people think I’m the kind of asshole who would take my supposed problems out on a little kid, or the fact that all these happy families remind me of everything I’ve never had.
