Page 63 of The Riley Effect

We’re interrupted by a generic ringtone coming from the other room.

“I have to go get that. Can you guys keep an eye on breakfast?” Mom asks us. We nod in unison.

“Your parents are amazing.” The sadness in Ivy’s eyes kills me. Nothing I say will ease the longing she has in her heart for the family she wishes she had. Pulling her closer, I wrap her in my arms. Ivy needs to know that I’ll always be her safe space.

I let her go so we can finish cooking the bacon and start on the pancakes. Playing house in the apartment I grew up in.

There is something magical about introducing the person you’re dating to the neighborhood you grew up in. The best thing about growing up in Brooklyn is that the block doesn’t change much. The same family runs the pizza shop across from the building I grew up in. The bodega still has the best bacon, egg and cheeses you’ll find in the burrow, but the one place that I can’t wait toshow Ivy is the unassuming building two blocks down from my apartment.

“Hey, Jalen,” the burly man behind the desk greets us as we walk in. “You helping out with…” His eyes shoot to Ivy, piquing his curiosity.

“Ivy, this is Coach Hale. Coach, this is my girlfriend, Ivy.”

She holds out her hand, trying to make the best first impression on the man who introduced me to the sport that changed my life.

The grin on my former coach’s face has me holding my breath. Coach Hale is an old-school kind of guy, the kind who says the first thing that comes to his mind and deals with the consequences later.

“What size skates do you wear, Ivy?”

“I don’t,” she tells him. “I play basketball at Westvale, and my coach would kill me if I hurt myself this close to the postseason.”

“I just wanted to bring her along to show her the place where I spent the majority of my childhood,” I explain.

“If you go to Westvale, you probably know Byron, right?”

“I do. I’ve heard the two of them raised hell back in the day,” Ivy says, patting my shoulder.

Coach proceeds to tell Ivy about the time Byron and I snuck into a rival team’s rink and let loose a bunch of frogs in the lobby.

I look over my shoulder as Coach and I walk to the locker room to suit up for practice. Ivy’s wrapped up like a burrito in her big down coat, beanie, and scarf, sitting on the bleachers across from the home team’s bench.

“She seems like a good one,” Coach says, sitting on the beach in the locker room sliding on his skates.

“She’s the best.”

All it took this time was listening to a few stories from my childhood for Ivy to receive another stamp of approval.

“That’s it!” I scream through my hands from the other side of the ice as a kid on my team scores the game-winning goal. Ivy jumps to her feet from the home bench. She’s been sitting with the substitute players on the team Coach Hale assigned me. Scrimmaging has always been my favorite part of practice. It’s when you can put everything you worked on throughout the day to the test, and there is no better feeling than when you see it all come together. I started coaching once I figured out that there is one thing that rivals perfecting a new skill of your own, and that is watching a kid struggle with a skill, and then one day, it just clicks. In this case, it’s for a game-winning goal. It’s a feeling I’ll never get over.

“Yes, Jack!” I pump my fist in the air before skating over to him. “I told you’d get it down.”

“I’ve been practicing,” His grin is missing his two front teeth. “I’ve been working really hard to show you when you came back from college.”

The second grader’s confession has me pulling him into a hug. I was lucky to have both my parents in my life growing up, but the male role models I met through this youth hockey program have been some of the most influential people in my life. Being on the other end of it now, I’ve known some of these kids since they first started the program, and it kills me that I can’t be here more often. I feel like they grow so much–both physically and in the game– while I’m away at school. I know it’s only going to get worse when I’m in the NHL next season.

“You did amazing, buddy!” I squat down so we are at eye level. “I’ll be here for a few more days if you want to get some work in, have your mom call me.”

Jack throws his arms around my neck and pulls me into a hug. “Thanks, Jalen!”

The sweetest laugh fills the air, and I know who it belongs to before I spot her. When I finally find Ivy, she is on the ice in her boots, helping a kid–who can’t be older than five– onto the ice. My mind jumps to a time in the future, bringing our kids to the rink for early Saturday morning games, afternoons walking through Central Park, and nights on the couch watching movies. I’m falling for this woman, and I don’t care who knows.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”

Ivy looks up at me right as her big brown eyes begin to roll. “Your parents are at a Christmas party. There was no way I was going to sleep with you in a two-bedroom apartment if they were here.”

The conviction in her voice is cute, but let’s be honest, she wouldn’t be able to resist all this.

“Are you hungry?” I ask, my hands tangling in her caramel-colored hair.

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