My lucky purple skate lace.
The one from the last set of skates I wore before my mom died. She bought me those laces and I wore them for every game while she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. By the day she died, I’d broken one of them, but I held on tight to the one that remained. It was one of the few things I had left that we’d both touched in our time together.
“What are you looking for?” Shiloh asks, sidling up to me, so close I can feel the heat of him against my side. His size would suggest he was someone to overlook, but I get the sense that that would be a mistake. I don’t quite know what it is about him, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually promise him any food, but I’m intrigued enough by him to feed him anyway.
“Nothing important,” I reply, closing the wallet and holding out my hand. “Keys?”
“What if I keep the penguin and give you the keys? It’s kind of cute.”
A bolt of panic flits through me and I frown, shaking my head. “No, he’s mine. I need my keys and my keychain.”
Shiloh tilts his head to the side, eyeing me carefully with a small smile on his lips. I glance down at the hoodie pocket as he slowly pulls the keys out and hands them over to me, penguin included.
“Thanks,” I breathe, fingering the edges of the soft plastic penguin. Huh. I guess it really is a habit after all.
“You’re very strange,” Shiloh mumbles under his breath, still staring at me like I’m some kind of puzzle he can’t quite figure out.
I offer a shrug, hoping he stops with the intense eye contact. “Goalies. We’re all weirdos. It’s a special kind of odd to willingly place yourself in the way of a speeding puck.”
“If you say so,” Shiloh comments. “Where are we going for food? That place with the donuts?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’ll drive. It’s a fair walk from here, but I have my Jeep. I’m choked I didn’t get my donuts last night, by the way. I’ve been craving one since someone ditched me in an alleyway without my keys or my wallet.”
I take off down the concrete walkway, trusting Shiloh to follow. He catches up to me quickly, which is amazing since I’m moving fast and my strides are long. I note that he’s practically running to keep up, and force myself to slow down. He catches my eye and offers me a small smile that almost looks like a thank you before he scowls.
“Like I said, I didn’t take anything. I went back to see if you were still there and I found it in the grass in that weird yard you were in.”
“Why did you leave?” I ask as I lead us into the parking lot and over to my white Jeep.
“Why do you have a roof rack?” Shiloh asks, completely bypassing my question. “Do you camp? Fish? Hunt?”
“It came with the vehicle. That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you leave last night?”
He doesn’t respond with anything but a slight shrug of his shoulders that I can barely make out beneath the giant hoodie he’s still wearing. Dammit. I should have asked for that back too while I was on a roll.
“Take me to donuts?” he asks, opening the passenger door as I push the button that unlocks them.
“First things first,” I comment, hopping into the driver’s seat and starting the engine as we both buckle up our seatbelts. “I’m gonna need you to reach into the glove box and grab me a stack of cards and one of the sharpies in there.”
As I pull the vehicle out of the stall, Shiloh does what he’s asked, and I get him to place them on the center console of the vehicle. Ahead, I can already see them outside the gate to the parking lot, the small group of fans that gather here for autographs after every practice. There are not many today, only a few younger kids with their parents and a couple of older, perhaps teenage, girls. It shouldn’t take too long to get through some autographs, and now that I have my stuff back, I have nothing but time on my hands. I figure Shiloh must have time too, given that he waited this long for me after practice.
“You have one chance to hide,” I say, glancing his way with a smile. “You can hop into the back seat and pretend you’re not here, if you’d like to.”
“What are you talking about?” Shiloh asks, as I pull my vehicle to the weight activated gate.
“Autographs.”
“Autographs,” he repeats, like he isn’t sure what that word means.
I grin and slide down my window the moment we pass through the gate to the parking lot. One of the children, a young boy, stands on his tippy toes to peer into my window and grins so wide I could probably count all his teeth if I tried.
“Forty-three!” he shouts, nailing my jersey number.
“Donovan Myers, goalie,” the woman behind him offers, offering me an apologetic smile. “We’ve been learning names instead of numbers. It’s a process.”
“Forty-three isn’t a bad thing to be called. I’ve heard worse.” She laughs and I turn back to the young boy. “Want an autograph, buddy?”
“I have paper,” he says, holding up a team roster sheet that looks like it’s seen better days.
