He nods and offers a smile again, but it doesn’t quite feel right. I cock my head to the side a bit as I scan his face, noting that there’s a bit of worry lingering in his eyes. “What’s up? Did something happen?”
“No,” he sighs as I put the Jeep in drive and head out onto the road. “Not really. Just… Iggy didn’t come today.”
“Iggy?”
“One of the kids at the center. I think you saw him hugging me when you came to visit? He missed class today and he never misses. I asked Pierre, but he hasn’t been there all week. I’m just…” He trails off, ending his sentence with a shrug.
“Maybe he’s sick?” I offer.
“Maybe. I don’t know. His situation at home isn’t the best… and the last time he was absent for more than one class, they called and let us know. I’m just… I don’t know.”
I don’t know what to say that could take away the worry creeping into Shiloh as I head for Sal’s, but I take a chance on something else. “Tell me about Iggy?”
“He’s gentle,” Shiloh offers, his voice wistful as he smiles. “The best kid, really. Talented too, despite being so little. He just… he’s a really good kid in a really shit situation. All thestudents at Helping Hearts are really good kids in places they don’t deserve to be.”
There’s a gravity to his tone, a certainty that speaks to a deeper knowledge of things I don’t know anything about. I’m again reminded of the scars on his hip, though I know now is not the time to bring them up. I pushed too hard before and almost drove him away. I just have to trust that eventually he’ll tell me where they came from so I can slip that puzzle piece into the place it belongs in my mind. That he even let me pick him up here speaks volumes, even though it’s such a tiny thing. He’s trying, I can tell, to let me into the places it feels safe for him.
I open my mouth to ask more about his art class, but he beats me to it with a question that redirects attention to me instead. “Practice went well?”
“Yeah.” I nod as I pull the Jeep over to the curb beside Sal’s. “Really good, actually. I heard from my agent that the Copperheads didn’t disapprove of me dropping the mitts, which is a relief.”
“You were worried,” he says, not asking, confirming.
“Kind of. The league is trending away from fighting being a huge part of the game. There aren’t many real goons left, but sometimes everything just gets chippy out there and it becomes inevitable that there’s gonna be a fight.”
“Goon?”
“A player put on the ice whose job is to fight,” I explain, with a grin. “That used to be a big thing. Sure, the guy could skate, but his real skill came in protecting his team and dropping the gloves.”
“Violent,” Shiloh says as he opens the door of the Jeep and hops out. “I didn’t know hockey was quite that vicious.”
I get out and join him on the sidewalk in front of Sal’s. “It was. It still kind of is.”
Shiloh nods, but I get the feeling that he’s slipped a million miles away in his head again, worrying about Iggy. Taking a chance out here on the public sidewalk, I grab his hand and give it a small tug, catching his attention.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” I say, as his eyes meet mine. “Maybe he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Something in his eyes says that he doesn’t quite believe me, but he sighs and nods anyway. “Maybe.”
Oakley flies across the ice on my TV, heading for the goal with the puck on his stick. He shoots and I tense, then sigh under my breath as the shot is scooped up by the opposing goalie. Shiloh sits on the couch in front of me, nestled between my outstretched legs with a blanket on his lap. His hands hold a book he told me he needs to read for one of his classes, but his eyes keep drifting to the game on the TV.
“He didn’t score,” he points out.
“He’ll keep trying. Maybe it’ll happen.” It likely will. Oakley has scored a goal in the last three games he’s played and is on a roll out there tonight.
“Is this what you do? Play hockey all day and then watch your friends play hockey all night? That’s it?”
“That’s not all I do,” I reply with a laugh.
“No?”
“Sometimes I play hockey video games.”
Shiloh rolls his eyes, but he smiles as he turns back to his book, settling into my chest even more as he turns the page. I lean down and press a kiss to his curls, then lift my hand to run my fingers along his scalp as the game continues on the screen.I know he’s still worried about Iggy, but tonight he’s managed to settle into this scene of domestic life here with me, and that’s something I’m also adding to the “he’s trying” column in my mind.
Oakley’s team doesn’t manage to score before the end of the first period rolls around, and I’m nearly asleep on the couch beneath the slight weight that is Shiloh’s frame. I yawn as he hums softly under his breath, turning the page in his book and wiggling a bit where he sits.
“Uncomfortable?” I ask, as intermission starts and commercials fill the screen.
