I log into the team’s video software. The queue’s already waiting — a West Coast team’s last three games, my assignment for the week. Tag every zone entry. Type, side, result. Simple. Endless. Mine.
I slide my AirPods in and hit play, and the world narrows to hockey and a clock.
The big left defenseman picks the puck up behind his own net. Six-four, heavy-footed, all reach and no feet, the kind of player who survives on wingspan. He moves it up to his winger, takes it back, rolls down the right side, and carries it over the blue line himself.
Pause. Entry. Player 44. Carry. Right side. Shot. Save.
Play.
Three minutes of game clock later he picks off a long pass at center and walks it in clean, like nobody told him he’s slow.
Pause. Carry. Right side. Turnover. Save.
Play.
He flips it into the far corner and doesn’t bother chasing.
Pause. Dump. Right side. Lost possession. Save.
Three down. Ninety-something to go in this game alone, and two more games after it.
This is what they pay me for, and I am very good at it. I check the clock in the corner of the screen, and I’m two minutes ahead of my own schedule, the way I almost always am. I close the laptop, pack my bag, and head out to the garage.
I’m fairly sure I’m the only person on this entire street who drives to campus. Everyone else walks. I hate walking in the cold, and I hate it more than I care whether anyone finds that princessy, which is a word I have heard applied to me exactly once, knocked through plexiglass in a voice I’d recognize anywhere.
While the garage door grinds up and the engine warms, I open my notes and pour everything from this morning into the format my father likes — clean, labeled, no editorializing, just what I saw and where and how often. The way he reads fastest. I give it two minutes, hit send to his email, and reverse out.
I wait for the door to seal shut behind me before I move, and his reply is already lighting up my phone.
Dad: The report is good. Thank you.
Dad: Don’t forget to make a report for the game on Friday and Saturday.
I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts, reversing down the drive. How, exactly, would I forget? God forbid I miss a game. God forbid I ever stop watching the boy.
When I pass the hockey house –– or the lame infamous name of the Hawthorne House –– I keep my eyes forward. I don’tlook at the porch, or the road where I nearly killed him, or the door he disappeared through. I don’t give it a single inch of my attention, and I refuse to think too hard about how much effort that’s taking.
Stanley Ermington is a problem.
Chapter 3
Stanley
“She tried to kill me!” I slam the door behind me hard enough to rattle the picture frames. “On purpose. With a vehicle. In front of where I live.”
Benson doesn’t look up from the couch. “Who?”
“Linwood!”
“Stop lying,” Blue calls from the stairs, still holding Melly’s framed face to his chest like a shield. “She stopped and talked to you.”
“She said oh, it’s just you.” I throw my arms wide in the entryway. “Just you?JUST ME. Like I’m a pothole. Like I’m a dead raccoon in the road she has to go around. Do you know what this face is worth in endorsement money?”
“Lower than you’d think,” Benson says.
“You want to know what she is?” I plant myself in the middle of the living room. “She’s an ice queen. No — scratch that, too generous. She’s a clipboard goblin. She’s the human equivalent of sitting bare-assed on a cold toilet seat at three in the morning. She is the reigning, undefeated Princess of the Third Row.”
Benson glares at me.
