Page 9 of Pucking the Single Dad
Brad's jaw tightened. Without a word, he took my hand and led me to the players' bench. He shrugged out of his hoodie and draped it over my shoulders—it was still warm from his body and smelled like him.
"Tell me about your most challenging student," he said, settling beside me.
"My most challenging—what?"
"Distraction technique. Finn and I use it during bad attacks. Tell me something that really tested you as a teacher."
So I did. I told him about Tyler, who threw chairs when frustrated but wrote beautiful poetry when calm. About Maya, whose autism made eye contact painful but who could solve math problems that stumped teachers. About every child who'd been labeled "difficult" when they just needed someone to see them differently.
Brad listened with the same intensity he probably brought to game footage, asking questions that showed he was truly paying attention. He shared his own stories—teammates' kids who struggled in school, his own challenges with what he now recognized as ADHD before hockey gave him focus.
"I would have been one of your projects," he said with a self-deprecating smile.
"Students, not projects," I corrected. "Every child deserves to be seen as a whole person, not a problem to solve."
"Is that why you do it? Special education?"
"I volunteered at a children's hospital in college," I said, remembering those transformative months. "There was this boy, Chris, who'd been in an accident. Everyone focused on his physical therapy, but he was struggling to read. I started working with him, adapting materials to his abilities. The day he read an entire book by himself..." I smiled at the memory. "His mom cried. His doctors were amazed. But Chris just looked at me and said, 'I knew I could do it. You just showed me how.'"
"And you were hooked."
"Completely. Marcus never understood. He said I was limiting myself, that I could do 'so much more' than work with 'those kids.'" I felt the familiar anger rise. "As if helping children learn isn't important enough."
"Marcus sounds like an ass."
The blunt assessment startled a laugh out of me. "He was. Is. I just took too long to see it."
Brad shifted closer, his warmth a comfort in the cold rink. "Sometimes we can't see things until we're ready. Took me two years to admit Sarah was gone, really gone. I kept her voicemail active just to hear her say 'Leave a message' every day."
"Do you still—?"
"No. Finn found me listening to it one night, crying in my truck. He climbed into my lap and said, 'Daddy, Mommy's not in the phone.' Kid was five and understood better than I did."
The lights suddenly blazed back to life, making us both blink. A cheerful voice called out, "You folks can head out now! Sorry about the lockdown!"
We stood up, the spell broken by fluorescent reality. But as Brad helped me off the ice, his hand lingered in mine.
"Same time next week?" he asked, then quickly added, "For skating practice. You're getting better."
"I nearly fell twelve times."
"But you didn't. That's progress."
I looked up at him—this careful man who measured breathing rates in precise increments, yet was asking me to take an unmeasured chance.
"Okay," I agreed.
Driving home, still wrapped in the ghost of his warmth, I thought about the moment before the lights came back. The way he'd leaned toward me, how I'd tilted my face up, the space between us shrinking until—
"Stop it," I told myself firmly. "He's grieving. You're rebounding. This is a terrible idea."
But I was already planning what to wear next week, already imagining his hands on my waist again, steady and sure.
Back in my cabin, I pulled out the romance novel I'd been reading, then set it aside. For once, reality was more interesting than fiction. Complicated, messy, probably inadvisable reality—but interesting nonetheless.
I fell asleep wearing his hoodie, which I'd "forgotten" to return, telling myself it was just because it was warm.
But warmth had never made my heart race like this before.
