Page 82 of Reach Around

Something about the way these kids look at us—it does something to me. It strips away the pressure. The bullshit. The noise in my head. I’m not Brogan Foster, the guy who hasn’t scored in five games. I’m just a guy helping a kid fall less.

Since Power Play catered this event, Joely is on the edge of the rink, clipboard in hand, talking to Mom and Madeline. She’s smiling—like actually smiling. Her whole face lit up like it’s getting all the warmth in the room. Our eyes lock for a second, and her smile softens. It does something to me I don’t have words for yet.

“Coach Brogan!” one of the kids yells, grabbing my pant leg. “Watch this!”

He takes off—if you can call it that—arms flailing, nearly crashing into Shep, who’s currently letting a little girl put a pink sparkly sticker on his helmet.

“Is that legal?” I call out.

“She’s got good taste!” Shep yells back.

I laugh. Full-on, belly-deep laugh.

“I told you to skate with your knees bent!” Duff bellows from the bench like he just got called up to coach the Minnesota Mayhem.

“D.U.F.F.! D.U.F.F.!” the kids chant, pounding their sticks on the ice in rhythm.

Coach folds his arms across his chest. “You little hyenas better knock it off.”

A kid skates up to me, face red from laughing. “Did you know it stands for Dumb, Ugly, Fat, Friend?”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t,” I say, trying not to laugh.

The kid grins wider. “Last time we had community skate, he said it didn’t bother him. So we made shirts!”

I glance toward the stands. Sure enough—three kids are wearing white T-shirts with “D.U.F.F.” scrawled in sharpie across their chests like tiny anarchists. Duff looks like he’s either going to retire on the spot or adopt all of them out of pure spite.

I skate over to him. “You holding up okay, Coach?”

He groans. “If I wanted to be bullied by eight-year-olds, I’d have my grandkids over more often.”

“Kids love you. That’s what this is.”

He glares at me, then shrugs. “Well, I am kind of their hero.”

“That’s what the shirts say, for sure.”

Coach mutters something under his breath that sounds like, “These damn kids are lucky I like ‘em,” then turns his attention to another Mite tripping over a cone and slipping spread eagle across the ice.

Joely’s still by the boards. She’s not watching the chaos anymore—she’s watching me. And not in that flirty way she sometimes does when we’re alone. It’s different. Like I’m a stranger she’s meeting for the first time but still somehow knows.

It hits me. This moment. This rink. These kids.

Thislife.

I’ve been chasing something for so long—first points, then praise, then contracts—and it all fades a little when I see Carter finally make it across the ice without face-planting. Or whenAddie makes a goal in the tiny pop-up net we brought, and I get tackled with a hug so hard I nearly go down with her.

I’m not a star out here. I’m a helper. A coach. Dare I say an inspiration? And maybe that’s…enough?

Joely’s mouth twitches into a half-smile when I catch her staring. She doesn’t look away. Neither do I.

My chest tightens. Maybe this is what she sees in me—this guy. Not the Slammers forward with a decent slap shot and streaky stats. Just a man who can show a kid how to stop on skates without eating ice.

That thought does something to me. Something that settles low and heavy and real.

I think I’m falling harder than I thought and not just for her.

But for this.

---