Page 340 of The Lies We Play

“You didn’t fuck it up then either.” Creed steps into Halston and presses his forehead to his. “We’ll give each other a chance at this life. Not you proving yourself to us. Not us forgiving you for something you didn’t do. All of us. Again.”

Halston closes his eyes.

Creed keeps going.

“It’s going to take time to believe it wasn’t our fault. Individual therapy. Group therapy. Medical care. All of it. We’ll do the work.” His hand goes to Halston’s chest, flat over his heart. “But I know us. I know we’ll be fine.”

“We’ll be fine,” I agree.

For a moment, the room is only breath and tears and the sound of the city outside, continuing without knowing it has been asked to make room for a family that almost didn’t survive being loved by the wrong people.

I know it the way I know my own pulse.

The world has begun, very quietly, to make room for us again.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Creed

Now . . .

We’re going to lose this game. I just know it.

Monty is on the net.

That is the entire problem.

Alberto Montoya Navarro Wade is doing what he does best, which is reading the play three seconds before any of us know we’re running it.

He stops Mihalik’s wrist shot at three-oh-eight.

He stops mine at four-fifty-two.

He stops the kid we called up from Hartford two weeks ago at six-thirteen, on a one-timer the kid should’ve buried. And the kid skates back to the bench, shaking his head the way young guys shake their heads when they’ve just learned what a real league goalie looks like from eight feet away.

I tap the kid’s helmet on his way past me.

“He read it before you shot it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That’s not on you.”

“I know.”

“It’s a little on you.”

The kid laughs, breathless and pissed, which is the right reaction. If you can’t laugh after Monty robs you, you’ll spend the rest of the night skating around with your feelings hanging out, and nobody needs that on national television.

Mihalik drops onto the bench beside me and squirts water into his mouth. “Your brother-in-law is being annoying tonight.”

I roll my eyes. “The asshole is always annoying.”

“Tonight moreso.”

“Tonight he has a reason.”

“What reason?”