Page 176 of The Home Grown
The line goes silent for a long beat. And I wait. I wait, wondering if I’ve wasted my breath—wondering if I’m a fool for trying.
“Look, I see what you’re trying to do hereand?—”
“Do you?” I ask, cutting him off. “Because believe me, if there’s anyone I’d love to see not icing tomorrow … it’s you. But … I know you need to be there. For you. For all the years you’ve put in. You’ll only regret it if you don’t.”
Another stretch of silence. And I can feel the tension through the line, like he’s about to punch a wall or something.
But then he speaks again.
“Well, thanks for the pep-talk but I think I’ll pass.”
I was afraid he’d say that.
I have no choice but to pull out the taunts; try to coax a reaction from him.
“Really? You don’t want one more stab at kicking my ass?
“Betts—”
I snigger to myself, then reset my expression. “I’m just saying. Jokes aside … this is your life.”
“You’re right. And it’s my decision,” he says.
“Well, okay. If you’re sure. I guess you really are an asshat.”
He huffs. Then I get an odd feeling he’s smiling—wherever he is.
“Ring Coach, Langer. Tell him you changed your mind. If he’s got his head screwed on, he’ll be expecting your call.”
The silence draws out, and I wonder if he’s hung up on me. I’m about to pull my phone away from my ear to check the screen when he speaks. A single word that fills me with both dread and relief.
“Alright.”
ELLIE
“Why can’tI see him yet?” Kelly’s best friend, Tom, stands on his tiptoes as he peers down at the ice. “Shouldn’t he be out by now?”
He’s been asking the same question for the past ten minutes, but as if by magic, there’s a rumble of cheers as our guys step out onto the ice for warm-ups ahead of the semi-final game.
Tom, raising his beer high in the air, is the loudest of us all. He waves and applauds, all while wearing the same ‘Koenig’ labelled jacket as Kelly, even down to the matching ‘56’ etched underneath.
Next to Tom, Kelly rolls her eyes, though she claps along.
“There’s Mike,” she says, nudging my arm and I turn to see a flash of auburn as he settles his helmet down onto his head; my heart thudding like crazy at the sight of my number six.
“But where’s Johnny? Do you see him yet?” Tom asks, bouncing on the spot. “Why is he always last?”
“He’s the captain,” Kelly says. “It’s like a thing.”
“It’s offensive, that’s what it is,” Tom says.
But I can hardly hear their conversation play out. I’m watching Mike take his usual half-laps of the ice.
He shoots one puck towards the empty net, circling around to repeat the shot a second and then a third time before stopping on the blueline. Dropping to the ice he positions his stick out in front of him so he can do that ridiculous-looking ‘frog pose’ stretch he demonstrated on my living room carpet.
It shouldn’t send a tingle of excitement through me, but it does. And the same feeling makes me think about that moment in the rink—that shady room that I now associate with one of the best orgasms I’ve ever had.
And it’s as if he knows I’m watching. He gets to his skates, turns and locks eyes with me for a brief moment before he winks.
