Page 47 of On Thin Ice

“What does Moira think?”

“Ugh,” Jacob said, really not wanting to tell him.

Bryan took a big bite of pretzel. Offered it up to Jacob. He tore off a piece, but didn’t pop it in his mouth, instead rolling itbetween his fingers, like it might solve all the mysteries of the universe.

Or maybe justthismystery.

“You do realize, Morganhatesme. He thinks I’m personally responsible for denying him the record he really wanted. If he caught me—caughtus—” Jacob hesitated. “He’d flip his shit. Not just on me, but on Finn, and he doesn’t need more of that crap from his dad.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” Bryan said.

“I know, it’s none of his business—”

“No,” Bryan interrupted. “Why he hates you. You were justone goaliehe played against. How is it your fault he didn’t get the record he wanted?”

“We were in the same division, so we did play pretty often against each other,” Jacob offered.

Bryan smacked him again. “You’re smarter than to parrot his stupid ass reasons back at me.”

“Thanks,” Jacob said dryly.

“I mean, it’s not your fault. Heknowsit’s not your fault. You’re just a convenient external excuse. If he blames you, he can’t blame himself.”

That truth settled hard and inescapable inside Jacob’s gut.

Morganwouldblame himself, if given half a moment. Jacob had told Finn the truth: Morgan might be hard on everyone around him, but he’d always been twice as hard on himself.

“Maybe,” Bryan added, “it was even self-preservation to hate you.”

“Let’s not go that far,” Jacob muttered.

“I’m just saying, you two should clear the air.”

“And then, what, he’s going to be perfectly alright with me fucking his son? I don’t think so.”

Bryan laughed. “There’s alotof room between hating you and applauding whatever you and Finn get up to together.”

Jacob shoved the mashed-up pretzel into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “You’re incredibly annoying.”

“And incredibly right,” Bryan said smugly. “Just think about it.”

Like Jacob was going to be doing anything else.

Every time Finn took the ice, he was focused.

It was too much of a habit tonotbe focused. An instinct by now to pull his mind in, to set it at its primary task for the next twenty minutes of play.

But now felt slightly different.Better.

Just like Jacob had said.I want to help you. Make it better. Easier.

And he’d done it.

Therewasa voice in Finn’s head that always wanted him to be perfect, that had trouble sloughing off less-than-perfect defense. But now he reminded himself,it doesn’t have to be perfectto be okayand that was more freeing than he’d imagined it might be.

Malcolm won the puck in the starting face-off, and it was clear, from what he’d heard in the locker room and now by Mal and Elliott and Ivan’s behavior, they felt like they’d been sitting back too much.

They were pushing now, aggressively, and that was Elliott’s favorite way to play, so he was flying across the ice, pestering the Phantom’s defenders, skating circles around them, Mal swarming with him, the three of them working in tandem to keep the puck on that side of the ice.

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