Page 77 of The Rebound Plan

“I’m pretty sure I confessed to some wild days, too,” I say gruffly.

She sighs. “Ugh, that’s enough of that. Distract me, please. Show me those TikToks of your countrymen ripping on your ads.”

“I’ve got something even better.” I swipe through my album of photos from my last trip home. “Did you know there’s a statue built in my honour in my hometown?”

She gasps in delight. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Like…a permanent one?”

“Bronze, in fact. The real deal. I am the pride of [Scottish town name]. And every time I join another NHL team, they add a new badge around the base.”

“Oh my God.” She claps her hands together in glee as I hand over my phone to show her photos of me standing in front of the bronze, idealized version of myself. The hockey journeyman and the hockey hero, side by side. “They’re so proud of you.”

“Aye, they are. It was a bit rude to leave that enthusiasm behind when I was twelve and move to a land where everyone and their brother is better at me than hockey.”

Her gaze lifts from my phone to my face, immediately sobering up. “Twelve?”

I shrug. “It made sense at the time. I was being scouted a bit, but mostly by video. There are more amateur scouts in any city in Ontario than there are in all of the UK. My parents weren’t together anymore, and they agreed my Mum should bring me to Canada. She was the one with the dual citizenship, after all.”

Shannon’s brows pull tight. “Is she still here?”

I shake my head. “No. She moved back to Scotland as soon as I was eligible for the draft.”

She reaches out and covers my hand with hers. “It sounds like there’s some complicated history there.”

I squeeze her fingers. “Yeah. Maybe for another time, though. That’s not the kind of distraction I wanted to offer.”

“Any time. We can compare dysfunctional family tales.”

“We have more in common than you might think,” I say. “Your story about getting on the bus and heading for New York when you were eighteen. That was me and the draft. I went with another OHL teammate. He went in the first round. The next day, his whole family sat with me until the very end.”

Her eyes are huge and filled with concern about an event that happened eighteen years ago and clearly worked out in my favour. “Were you drafted?”

“Halfway through the seventh round, yeah.”

She smiles, relieved for past me, and eases her hand out of my grip. I hadn’t noticed I was still holding it. “I’m going to look for that video.”

I laugh. “If you do, I’m going to have to look for your stints as a weather girl.”

“You underestimate my ego, sir, if you don’t think I’d like that. Once an aspiring actress, always an aspiring actress. I love an audience. Well…” She gestures at her face. “Usually.”

“I’m not an audience, Shannon. I’m a friend.”

“Those aren’t the same thing?” She says it lightly, but her voice cracks.

Silence stretches between us. She drinks a good amount of her coffee.

I wait her out until she sighs. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you pity me.”

“I swear to God, that’s not what I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking then, with that unbearably soft look of understanding on your face?”

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