Try not to think about me too much before Saturday.
Me
You’re assuming that I’ll think about you at all.
Zach
You’re right. Why would you. I’m very forgettable. Just a guy. Average height. Normal face. Nothing special.
Me
You’re over 6 feet
Zach
Is that tall? I hadn’t noticed.
I’m laughing at my phone when my dad knocks on my open door.
“What’s got you so giggly?”
I look up. He’s leaning in the doorway. Jack Anderson. Alternate captain. Twenty years in the NHL. The reason I know whaticing means and what a power play is and why you never, ever date hockey players.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just texting.”
“Mhmm.” He gives me the dad look. “That’s a lot of smiling for nothing.”
“I have a date, okay? With a guy. Don’t make it a thing, please.”
I can feel the shift in the room before he even says anything, the way the casual lean against the doorframe stops being casual. “A date,” he repeats. “With a guy.”
“That’s typically how dates work.”
“What kind of guy?”
“A nice guy.”
“He better be.” He crosses his arms. “I hope he’s not one of these hockey types. I’m serious, Mack. I’ve been around these guys for twenty years and I love them but half of them have the emotional maturity of a golden retriever and the other half think—” He stops. “Actually, no, some of the guys on the team are great. Rodriguez is great. Luca’s a good guy underneath all the—” He waves his hand. “But as a general rule. For dating purposes. Hockey players are a gamble.”
“Dad, you ARE a hockey player.”
“Which is how I know. I was terrible in my twenties. Ask your mother. She’ll tell you stories that would make you lose all respect for me.” He points at me. “I just don’t want you dealing with the schedule, the travel, the ego stuff. You’re too smart for that.”
“Noted.”
“Is he an athlete?”
“Oh my god, goodbye.”
“I’m just asking!”
“Goodbye, Dad.”
He lingers for a second like he wants to keep going, then shakes his head and leaves. I hear him telling Mom in the hallway, ‘She’s got a date with some guy and she won’t tell me anything about him,’and Mom’s response, muffled but clearly amused, something along the lines of leave her alone, Jack.
He’s not wrong, is the thing. Everything he said about hockey players is true. The schedule is brutal, the travel is constant, and the ego thing is real. I’ve seen it my whole life, watched guys let the league turn them into people their families barely recognize.
And I’m going on a date with one anyway. The quiet one who sits at the end of the bench and works harder than anyone, who has these big, bright eyes that go all panicked when he’s trying to talk to me.
