Page 46 of Shootout Daddies
“We can handle anything. You know that.”
And I believe him. I always have.
Because if it weren’t for Rhett, I wouldn’t even be here.
Not just in this parking lot. Not just on this team. Buthere—living this version of my life instead of the one that could’ve swallowed me whole.
I was the quiet kid. The one who brought comic books to lunch and drew sketches in the margins of his homework.
My freshman year of high school, I transferred into the district where Rhett and the rest of the older guys had already carved out their legacies.
Rhett was a junior. Fast, loud, talented. Magnetic in a way I still can’t explain.
And I was nobody. Worse than nobody.
I got jumped in the locker room the second week of school. Hazed by seniors who thought I didn’t belong. They taped my skates together. Dumped my bag in the toilet. Called me every slur in the book.
But I kept showing up. Because I liked the way skating made me feel. Like maybe I could be something more than the nervous kid hiding behind his locker door.
Rhett found me one afternoon cleaning spitballs off my jersey. He didn’t say much, just handed me a clean towel and asked if I wanted to hit the ice.
We skated in silence for twenty minutes.
That was all it took.
The next day, the same seniors tried to corner me in the hallway. Rhett stepped in, said, “He’s with me.”
No one messed with me again.
He taught me to fight. To push back. To shoot clean, hit harder, take up space. We were different, but it worked. He gave me room to find my place.
I’ve relied on him ever since. Even if I pretend I don’t.
“Hey,” I say, turning to him. “I know I don’t say it enough, but thanks.”
He looks over, frowns slightly. “For what?”
“Everything. Letting me crash at yours back when my parents were losing the house. Getting me into hockey. Hell, even just… showing up.”
He shakes his head, like none of it was a big deal. But it was.
He saved me from drowning in silence. Gave me something to build a life around.
“You’d have figured it out eventually,” he says. “You’re not exactly built to stay quiet.”
I laugh at that. “Says the guy who once broke a vending machine because it wouldn’t give him his protein bar.”
“I had low blood sugar.”
“You were hangry.”
He grins. “I was.”
We both look back at the building. Time to head up. But I can feel his hesitation.
“You good?” I ask.
He nods, but it’s tight. “Yeah. Just… not what I expected this week to look like, you know?”
