The bubble we’d been living in for the last hour didn’t just pop; it disintegrated under the weight of a dozen iPhones and the sudden, bustling energy of a crowd that had realized there was a celebrity in their midst.
From my spot by the railing, I watched the shift happen in real-time. It started with two teenage boys in Surge jerseys hovering at the edge of Michael’s skating radius, whispering and pointing. Then a dad in a puffer vest skated over, nearly knocking over a toddler in his haste to reach the center of the ice.
"Hey! You’re Landry, right? The new transfer?" the man shouted, loud enough to draw every head in the park toward them.
Michael straightened up, his professional mask sliding into place with a practiced ease that made my stomach do a nervous flip. "Yeah, that’s me. How’s it going?"
I looked at Gabe. He was standing three feet away, his stick held limply in his hands, his face a mask of sudden, cold confusion. He’d been mid-sentence, asking Michael about the weight distribution on a snap-shot, and now he was invisible.
"Can we get a photo? My son plays for the Northside Lions, he’s a huge fan!"
Michael glanced at Gabe, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face, but then he nodded. "Sure. One quick one."
One quick one turned into five. Then a group of girls skated over, giggling and holding out their phone screens. Then someone produced a Sharpie from the depths of a parka. Michael didn't tell them to back off. He didn't say,'I’m in the middle of something.'He stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, the "Cap" of the San Antonio Surge, smiling for every lens and scrawling his name on every offered surface.
"Michael, I thought we were doing the release drill," Gabe called out, his voice sounding thin and small against the growing chatter of the crowd.
Michael looked over his shoulder, his pen mid-stroke on a crumpled program. "Just a second, Gabe. Hold on."
But a second stretched into ten minutes. The ice around them was becoming a bottleneck. People were stopping their own skating just to stare, to whisper, to be near the orbit of the man who had scored the game-winner last Tuesday. Michael looked out of his depth, his eyes darting toward me with a silent plea for help, but he didn't stop. He was trapped by his own image, tethered to the persona that belonged to the city, not to us.
I watched Gabe’s shoulders hike up toward his ears, the universal sign that the defensive wall was being rebuilt, brick by bitter brick. He looked at Michael, who was currently laughing at a joke the puffer-vest dad made, and then he looked at the puck sitting abandoned near his skates.
Without a word, he turned, digging his blades into the ice with a violent, resentful force as he skated toward the exit ramp.
"Gabe! Hey, wait!" Michael shouted, finally breaking away from a group of fans. He took two long strides after him, but the crowd closed in again, a woman clutching his arm to ask about Grayson’s recovery.
Gabe didn't stop, and he didn't turn around. He hit the rubber matting at the gate and disappeared toward the benches, his head down, his gait an angry blur.
Michael finally managed to disentangle himself, his face flushed and his hair a mess from the wind and the helmets. Heskated toward the railing where I was standing, a weak, sheepish grin on his face.
"Man, talk about a home-ice disadvantage," he said, breathing hard as he reached for the railing. "I didn't realize the park was a scout’s convention today. I think I signed more napkins than I did checks this month."
He laughed, a short, nervous sound, looking for me to join him in the joke. I didn't. I stood there, clutching the cold water bottles, my eyes hard.
"Is that what that was to you? A signing session?" I asked, my voice as cold as the lake beneath his feet.
Michael’s smile dropped. "What? No. Kayla, I couldn't just tell them to go away. They’re fans. It’s part of the job."
"Your 'job' was supposed to be out there with Gabe," I snapped. I gestured toward the empty bench where Gabe was already shoving his skates into his bag. "He finally let you in, Michael. He finally trusted you to be his mentor, and the second a camera came out, you chose the fans. You chose the job over the kid."
"That's not fair," Michael argued, his voice rising in frustration. "I was trying to keep everyone happy. I didn't want to cause a scene."
"You didn't want to look like the bad guy," I corrected him. "You were more worried about your reputation than you were about the boy who was standing three feet away waiting for you to finish a sentence. You’re so used to being the star that you don't even know how to be a person when people are watching."
"Kayla, listen to me—" He reached out, his hand gloved and cold, but I stepped back, the movement sharp and final.
"I think this was a mistake," I said, the words feeling like stones in my mouth. "I think the 'friendship' and the 'mentorship' and the whole 'happy Saturday' was just a fantasy I let myself believebecause it was easier than being alone. But the reality is that your world is too big for us, Michael. And my world is too fragile for you to keep dropping the puck."
"I can fix it," he pleaded, his eyes searching mine. "Let me talk to him."
"No. You’ve done enough talking for one day," I said, turning away from the railing. I could see Gabe standing by the park exit, his bag slung over his shoulder, looking like he wanted to disappear into the earth. "I’m going to take my son home. He has a life to get back to. One that doesn't involve being an extra in your highlight reel."
"Kayla, wait!"
I didn't wait. I walked away from the ice, away from the man who was currently being swallowed by another wave of fans, and toward the boy who was the only thing I had left to protect. I left Michael standing on the frozen lake, the captain of a team I no longer wanted to play for.
19
