Page 24 of Lucky Laces
She leans back against the desk beside me.“No, that’s okay.”Turning, she glances over at me, lips curving up at the edges.“It’s just been a long time since anyone’s called me that.”
I lift my brows in question.
“That was my grandma’s nickname for me.”
“This the same one who also made those killer oatmeal chocolate chip cookies?”She brought in a huge batch of them for the team after our first practice of the season—likely to bribe us into not hating her after she kicked our ass from one side of the ice to the other.
Her mouth curves.“The same one.”
“So, I’m in good company.”
“Yeah.”A flicker of sadness.
“What?”I ask quietly.
“Nothing,” she says.“I just miss her.Miss them.”
“Them?”
More sadness, but this time I only see it for a moment before her gaze drops to her lap.“My parents,” she says quietly.“They died in a car accident when I was nine.”
I tense so violently that pain shoots through my leg again and I have to close my eyes against the wave of nausea before I can speak.“I’m sorry,” I rasp.
A long, taut moment.“It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t mean it was easy.”
More quiet.Then a soft sigh, “No,” she agrees.“It wasn’t easy.”
“Did your grandma see you coach?”
A shake of her head.“Not professionally.But she knew where I was going already.Bought me my first suit to wear on the bench.”
“The one you wore to the first game this season?”
“Yeah.”She looks at me, confusion in her green eyes.“How’d you know?”
“It’s a little different from your normal style.”Something I probably shouldn’t have picked up on.
But…obsessed.
“It mostly lives in my closet because I’m too scared to ruin it.But I’ve worn it the first game of every season with the teams I’ve coached.”Her face softens.“And on her birthday because it’s nice to feel close to her.”
I wonder what that’s like.
To feel close to your parents.
To want to remember them fondly—hell, tohavefond memories at all.
Yelling and high expectations.Fists and disappointments.
And…
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and such a belief in what Dee was doing that she invested in a suit she never saw worn.
I’m glad Diana had that.
Even as I tamp down on the jealousy that I didn’t.
