Declan’s mouth shifted, not quite a smile. “Owen’s a firefighter. Loud. Funny. Thinks every silence is an invitation to be aproblem. Nate’s quieter. Owns a small construction company back east. He’s the one who fixes everyone’s houses and refuses payment, then complains nobody respects his time.”
“Sounds like Harper.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah. She’s twenty-one and terrifying. University student. Thinks I’m an idiot.”
“You are, sometimes.”
I looked at him. “Wow. On my off day.”
“You brought her up.”
Tiny stopped to investigate a frozen pile of leaves with the intensity of a bomb squad. We stopped with him.
“Harper’s smarter than me,” I said. “More organized. Less dramatic. She remembers birthdays and oil changes and where she put her wallet. She also calls me when her sink makes a noise because apparently NHL center equals plumber.”
“Do you go?”
“If I can.”
Declan looked over. “Of course you do.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with how easily he read the answer. “Our mom died when I was eleven. Harper was nine. My dad did everything, but I was old enough to know he was outnumbered. So I helped. Badly, probably. Made lunches. Checked homework. Lied and said I wasn’t scared when Harper was.”
Declan’s face changed, not pity. Attention.
“What was your mom like?” he asked.
The question got under my ribs.
“She was loud,” I said. “In a good way. Sang in the car even though she had a terrible voice. Knew every stat from every game I ever played. Used to bang on the glass with her wedding ring and embarrass the hell out of me.” I rubbed my thumb against the seam of my pocket. “After she died, the house got quiet in this way I couldn’t stand. So I filled it. Talking. Moving. Being a pain in the ass. Anything.”
Declan didn’t speak right away.
Tiny finished with the leaves and dragged us forward.
“My dad didn’t know what to do with quiet after my career ended,” Declan said eventually.
I looked at him.
“He’d watched me play since I was a kid. Traveled, coached from the stands, pretended not to cry when I was drafted.” His eyes stayed on the path ahead. “Then my knee went, and suddenly every conversation was about what doctors said, what rehab looked like, whether I had a plan. He meant well. They all did. But I didn’t want to be someone’s project.”
“That why you coach?”
“Eventually. At first I was angry.”
“You?”
That got a real look.
“What?”
“You’re like a granite countertop with a whistle.”
“I was not always controlled.”
I tried to imagine it. Declan younger, injured, furious, losing the one thing that had made his days make sense. It shouldn’t have been hard. I knew what hockey did for me. The routine. The boards. The clock. The simple violence of knowing where to be because the game demanded it.
