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I trail off because he’s already shaking his head. “Nothing looked like nothing. Except you hurting. I think that upset Sahara most.” He clears his throat and looks away, standing up on his skates. “And me.”
“Oh.”
We both don’t speak again until we’re on the ice, two sticks and a few pucks, taking turns shooting on the net on one side. He’d asked the peewee coach to leave it out when they finished on one side of the rink.
The pair of us look ridiculous, I’m sure, in business clothes. I’m wearing a sweatshirt from Holden’s back seat over my button-up, while Harris kept on his thick wool coat. But it doesn’t seem to hinder his performance.
“So, how old were you,” Harris starts, hitting another perfectly into the goal. “When you started playing hockey?”
“Five or six, I think.” I shake my slightly damp waves out. “My, um, my foster brother would take me to the rink. He played. And I wanted to be just like him.”
“What was his name?”
“Henry.”
The name is difficult to shove through my lips, a rusted lock on a box I’ve tried to forget existed.
“I’m bad at this.”
“You just started. Calm down.” Henry rolls his eyes and takes my other hand. He’s so much bigger than me he has to sit nearly in a squat. But I’m only six. I’ll grow—Henry promised.
I push off on my skate like he told me, my right leg easy, but my left stays put. I’m too scared to try them both, only pushing with my right foot over and over.
“I’m gonna fall.”
“Yeah.” He nods and my eyes shoot to him, a frown furrowing my brows, which only makes him laugh. “That’s okay. You’ll fall. You’ll be fine. You’ll get back up.”
“Is it . . . is it stupid to be scared of it?”
His eyes soften and he comes to a stop, kneeling on one leg toward me. “No, Tor. It’s not. Even the big NHL guys are scared of getting hit or hurt. Supernormal.”
I nod, a little more determined.
“But if you don’t like it, you don’t have to play. Hockey is hard, physical. And it takes up a lot of time, okay?”
Taking up all my time means being out of that house I know we both hate. It means being with Henry all the time, having him teach me like he’s my real older brother. I think I’ll like hockey, because Henry does. And I want to be just like him.
“I want to play.”
Henry nods with a big grin. “All right. Then we can come here every day, as long as we’re back for dinner, okay?”
My brow wrinkles. “Doesn’t it cost money?”
“Yeah. Stella lets me in for free though, so . . .” He shrugs but there’s a light blush to his face as he talks about the pretty brunette with big glasses who talked to us on our way in. “I can get us both in as long as it’s free skate.”
I nod. “Is she your girlfriend?”
His face turns a brighter red. “She’s a friend.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, but don’t get any ideas.” He smirks. “Just because she’s not my girlfriend doesn’t mean she’s not mine.”
“’Cause you protect her?”
“Yeah,” he says, ruffling my hair affectionately. “We protect the people we care about.”
I shake myself from the memory, the pain of the loss of Henry just as intense now as it was when I was that child. Is it stupid to mourn someone who left me behind? Is it ridiculous to hurt for a boy who was barely my brother for two years when others lose real blood-related family?
