Page 58 of Love Me Boldly

“Graham!” I stood as Jackson called to me and lifted my hand out to the kid who now had the puck. “Give me one second, little guy, all right?”

Jackson had been a player on our college team and now ran an athletic training facility nearby. He started putting on hockey camps for low-income kids two years ago to build attention for the sport. Every summer he’d called and asked if I could come help him, but until this summer, I’d declined. I wasn’t even sure why I’d agreed to come back now, but maybe it’d been long enough. Six years had to be far past long enough to get over the girl who broke my heart before I truly realized I’d given it to her. But now that I was here, I was counting down the hours until I could leave and head back to Denver. A small town northwest of Charlotte, it’d been the first school district to hire me for a coaching position when I was right out of school. I’d had to substitute teach for two full years before a permanent science teacher position opened up, but I didn’t regret a single minute of those first two years. My dad helped me financially, and I couldn’t have done it without him, even if deep down I knew he wanted me closer to Raleigh.

Denver was also hours away from the college campus, the girl, and the time in my life where everything that I thought I knew and felt turned out to be a complete disaster. Being back on campus made me think of her constantly. I couldn’t stop it. We’d spent a few months together, a mere blink in the span of time, but it wasn’t just the time we had together that made Holly difficult to forget. It was the bomb she tossed in my lap and then walked away, practically vanishing without a trace, that I always came back to.

All these years later, and I was still pissed she didn’t give me the respect of a conversation. Didn’t give me achanceto come to grips with what her father had done and who she was. It all made being back in Boone frustrating, but I wouldn’t take it out on the kids.

It wasn’t their fault I’d had my heart broken by a girl and couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Jackson skated to me, coming to a quick stop and spraying ice into the air. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, you looked tired, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”

“Nothing. It’s…look, I know it took a lot for you to be here. I get it. I just…I appreciate you being here, is all, but if it’s too much…”

He tapped his glove against the side of his thigh. Jackson and I were teammates, but we hadn’t been close. Not like I’d been with Eli and Tanner. He knew about Holly, though. Hell, everyone knew. After I found out about Holly and her dad and then she blocked me and Tracey adamantly refused to give me her address, everyone knew what happened. Things might spread in a small town, but things blew up on a hockey team. Especially when I played like crap for three weeks and almost cost my team a run at the playoffs.

“I’m not going to be a di—jerk,” I corrected. Little ears and all. “To kids, Jackson. And there’s only a couple hours to go, so I’m good.”

“Yeah, well, a couple of guys were talking about getting out of here for the night and going out before everyone heads home tomorrow. You wanna come?”

“That’d depend on where you’re going.”

There were places I would always avoid.

“I heard a place in Deer Creek is pretty cool.”

And that was one of them. “Yeah, I’m out.”

“You sure? We’ve got Ubers planned and everything. There’s a restaurant by a ski slope that sounded pretty cool.”

I swiped sweat off my cheek and tasted dirt and sweat. “It’d take an act of God to get me back in Deer Creek, Jackson. I’m good. Y’all have fun.”

“Oh shit. That’s where…damn, man. I’m sorry. Really. We can change.”

“Don’t.” I was already walking away. “It’s my issue I can’t put to bed. Y’all have fun, and if you’re lucky, I’ll see you here next summer.”

Deer Creek. Damn. Every time I heard the name, which was often considering the tourism and location and the fact it was on my local news’s weather forecast every damn day, my gut still tightened.

Holly was out there. Somewhere. Living her life. Probably killing it at some massive corporation as a finance rep or whatever she’d be doing. She’d be making good money, setting up her own apartment or home. And she’d be miserable. Still locked behind all the walls she never gave me the chance to scale.

Which was what sucked in all of this. If I ever saw her again, even with the past a difficult hurdle to jump between us, I still wanted to try.

“All right, kids!” I slapped my stick on the ice to get their attention. “Ready for some more?”

Tiny cheers went up on bodies barely large enough to skate with all that gear on.

Soon, another area of ice was open where we could practice shooting. I needed something else to think about for a while. Shooting always cleared my mind. “Follow me, guys.”

The kid with the worn skates was at the front of the line. He was adorable. His blue eyes were enormous, round, and bright, and there was a tiny divot in the middle of his chin. He called every coach he sawsirlike it’d been so drilled into him it was the first word he spoke, and his r’s sometimes came out as w’s. I taught and coached high schoolers who were all attitude and trying to find themselves and thinking rebelling was cool. Spending my days around high schools was eye-opening. They acted all tough and cool and like they knew everything, but inside, they were tiny adults who needed acceptance as they explored the world and themselves and the future. There was so much to them, so much stress in their lives they needed to navigate. I was glad I could be a part of it.

But there was something so special about the kids I’d spent the last few days with.

It was their innocence and kindness and excitement over the smallest things. It was in the encouraging others when they had a good play during a scrimmage and the way their faces scrunched up in concentration when learning something. Parents joked about kids ruining their lives, and older teachers I knew grew grumpy as the years went on at how much things changed, how disrespectful the youth was.

But I figured that’s because they were focused on it. I saw a lot of good in the world, in school, and on the ice. I saw a lot of goodness in the pint-sized kiddo standing in front of me, already wrapping his fingers around the stick in the exact same place I’d coached him on yesterday.

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