Page 20 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
I’m there. Conrad’s already sealed off Boomer on the weak side. All that quiet patience, four years of knowing exactly where I’m going to be. The lane is open for half a second.
I shoot.
Wyatt goes left. Puck goes right.
It should go in. It doesn’t. The puck hits the crossbar with a crack that echoes through the rafters, and Toby—my accountability partner, the man with the clipboard, the walking evidence of my ongoing disgrace—scribbles something without looking up. Probably Subject appears unhinged. Recommend additional supervision.
“Benson! Ease up!” Coach Hart’s voice cracks from behind the boards. “This is a positioning drill, not a demolition derby.”
My stick cracks against the ice. “Yeah, Coach.”
It’s been three days since the gala, and I still can’t get my head right. Can’t get that one syllable out of my head. No. I don’t know why I even tried.
It’s fine. I’ve already written her off. Just another person who sees the version of me they want to see. I circle the rink. Return to position.
Across the rink, Cole Thompson is having another hushed conversation on his phone. When Brody skates past, Cole stuffs the phone away so fast he fumbles it against the boards, then plasters on a grin that wouldn’t convince a golden retriever.
I’ve been watching him for months—since he accused me of doping (framed is more like it), watched my career catch fire, and stood back and let it happen. But lately, something’s changed. He’s checking his phone between drills. He’s dropped fifteen pounds he didn’t have to lose. And today, before practice, I spotted him in the parking lot with two men who looked a long way from friendly. His eyes caught mine, and for that split second, I saw the look of a drowning man searching for dry land.
Then, just as quickly, the look was gone, replaced by cool stone.
I should say something. But the last thing I need is to draw attention three weeks before contract renewal meetings. He’s on his own.
Practice ends, and all I want is to get out of here. I shower, change into street clothes, reach for my suit jacket, and fish in the pocket for my parking pass.
My fingers close around something else. Small. Delicate. A chain so fine it’s barely there.
A silver bracelet with a tiny charm—a miniature book, no bigger than my thumbnail, with pages that actually open. The clasp is broken, snagged on a thread of my jacket lining.
I stare at it a moment, and I’m back in the elevator with the woman who said I believe in good stories, then vanished before I could ask her name. She exited so fast—practically a sprint—that I never saw her face.
I close my fist around it. Pocket it.
“Beckett.” Coach materializes in the doorway. “There’s a Farewell Skate event Saturday at Sutton Arena. I need you there.”
My memory flashes to the old arena where I learned to skate. It’s where Dad practiced before the accident. Where Coach found me doing crossovers alone at six a.m.
Too many memories, and that’s the last place I want to go. But…I owe a lot to Sutton Arena. To Coach. I swallow my objection. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
“Two p.m. Don’t be late.” He stops. One hand on the doorframe. “Everly might be there too.”
Perfect. “Super. Can’t wait.”
He looks at me a beat longer than is comfortable, one brow rising. “I thought you two used to be friends.”
He did? But I nod. “Yep.”
My tires slosh over the remnants of March snow, mostly melted from the storm the other night. We’re likely to get another few blizzards before true spring can take hold. I roll into the driveway of my mom’s bungalow, which sits on a quiet street in Payne-Phalen. The house waits for me, unchanged for all these years.
My mom purchased the house when I was ten, two years after my dad passed, using the last of his life insurance money. It was meant to be our fresh start, even if there wasn’t a bit of “fresh” in it. The house had that lived-in charm—creaks on the stairs, paths on the floorboards, a yellow kitchen with daisy wallpaper from the sixties. My mom always swore she’d paint over it when she got a chance, but that chance still hasn’t shown up.
I step inside, kicking the slush off my boots on the doormat that reads Bless this mess.
“Beckett?” My mom’s voice carries from somewhere in the back of the house.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me!” I slide my jacket off and pop it onto one of the hooks by the door, leaving my boots on the mat below.
I find my mom at the kitchen table, tea steaming beside her, the newspaper crossword splayed out before her. Her hair hangs over her shoulder, a braid of silver and brown.
