Page 61 of Jaded

Maybe it’s the memory that makes the next words tumble out of my mouth. “Have you ever been to the Ice Out?”

“What?” His brows shoot towards his hairline, and his mouth droops slightly. “How the hell do you know about that?”

“I make a point of knowing what the locals know.” I lean over the back of the seat. “Understanding the people and whatnot—doesn’t matter. Have you been?”

“Yeah.” His mouth tightens to a hard line. “It’s a bunch of hacks.”

“Hacks with heart,” I say, my voice softening. “And the town loves them way more than us.”

Coach’s jaw flexes, like my words strike something—but he shakes his head. “We’re better than that cheap hack shit, James. You and me and all the boys on this team. There’s a reason we’re professionals and they’re not.”

Something clenches in my chest, and I realize it’s because I’m thinking ofhim. He says Syd wasn’t the reason he stopped playing—which just means there’s another story there.

“We’re the professionals,” I say. “But they’re the ones with the fans in the stands.”

Coach straightens, his brows pulling low. “If you’re asking for my permission to go to the Ice Out, there’s no fucking way I’m giving that.”

“I’m not,” I say, lifting my hands like a defense against his accusation. “Just . . . pondering. That’s all. A team’s gotta have heart, and the heart of this town’s in the Ice Out.”

I slide into the aisle before he can respond. Snag a seat on the left, exactly halfway down. Not that I’m overthinking.

However, I am gonna spend this entire bus ride to the airport thinking about how Coach iswrong.

We’re better than that cheap hack shit, James.But that’s just it—we’re not better. None of us is better than any of thehacksat the Ice Out. And thinking we are is exactly what’s drawing the line between us and the town.

To save this team, we gottaerasethat line.

Andy Everton bops onto the bus—bright grin, hipster locs, Pink Floyd tee, and all. Skyler slides on behind him, looking like one of the Lords of Dogtown accidentally dropped into Iceville with his waist-length California-blond locks and skater-boi fashion sense.

“Yo, James!” Everton plops into the seat in front of me, Skyler beside him. “You ready to get our ass handed to us?”

“That’s not a very sunshiny attitude, you know,” I inform him. “No wonder we don’t win any games.”

“Just being realistic.” Everton gives me a light punch on the shoulder. “We’re not exactly a power team.”

The truth of those words—and the resigned, almost careless way in which he delivers them—hits me square in the chest. When did the Dingoes stop believing in themselves, in each other?

Skyler pulls out his phone, and he and Everton hunker down to watch fail videos. Leaving me to wonder, while the rest of the team piles on.

More California boys, more transplants.

More people resigned to losing for a few games or seasons. With every out-of-towner Coach recruits onto this team, he further blackens the line between team and town—and Coach and I are definitely not seeing eye to eye on the whole line issue.

Dammit.

The bus rumbles to life, and the darkness scratches at the edges of my mind. Not so much begging to be let in as reminding me there’s no way to keep it out.

When it wants to come in, in it will come. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it, even after all these years.

But right now, I absolutely refuse to dwell on it. Not when I have so many more important things to think about. So I set mytemple against the cold glass and watch the hard lines and soft creases of snowy mountains transform into a tumbled brown-beige desertscape.

On the plane, a new city opens beneath us in a slick spill, like quicksilver and oil sluiced out across the desert, cut by the gridiron of roadways. The scene sharpens into the neat squares of houses nestled into the grey-green of plants and palms, the hard lines of roads.

The beige and soft red of the desert emanates through it all, like no matter what’s built, what emerges from the hands of humanity, nature will always find a way through.

We get off the plane and onto a bus. The city claws itself up around the rented coach. Such a different world from the ice and snow of Day River, this rolling, tumbling, jagged landscape of rock and earth. I might like living out here.

So why is my heart stuck back in Icetown?

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