Page 10 of Her Goal
I press my lips together, trying to hold back the truth, but much like my mother, Cara is somehow able to drag it out of me without firing a shot.
I blurt, “I found the gnome in the box of Robo’s things.”
They all lean in, likely wondering why I had one of the NHL’s goalie’s belongings to begin with. Well, everyone except Cara. She knew Hunter and I were friends and, by association, his brother’s enemy.
“Why didn’t you return it?” Hurt coats her voice.
Drawing a deep breath, I answer, “The gnome tormented me for years. I’d find it in my locker, car, everywhere. I had a feeling Hudson was behind it since he was the hockey player and Howie is a hockey gnome. When I looked in the box and saw it, that was confirmation. It’s petty, but I figured if I left it in his garage on top of the boxes, I’d get a teeny tiny bit of revenge because, as the guilty party, he’d have to face your father … his new coach.”
Ella rubs her hands together. “Ooh, sounds like a juicy story.”
Jess plants herself on the couch. “This ought to be good.”
Cara nods and joins her. “Spill the beans.”
Plopping down on the loveseat like I’m being interrogated, I tell them how Howie came to be in my possession.
“Hunter always said his brother had a habit of generating bad ideas around midnight.”
“Nothing good happens at that hour,” Gracie says.
“He’d texted me a few times saying Hudson was threatening to steal the school mascot.”
Cara gasps. “Not Reggie!”
“For the record, I was adamantly against it.” Prickling with shame, I shrug. “Hunter always acted as if he was against most of his twins’ ideas. Looking back, if I’m being totally honest, I think he was the mastermind. I just kind of went along with them.”
“Let me guess, this one was no different.”
“More like, I knew that if I didn’t sneak out and try to stop them …”
“How did Howie become part of this caper?” Cara asks.
I gaze at my hands. “After the hockey team won their game against Clarkson’s biggest rivals, Hudson came home pretty boastful. Hunter and Hudson argued in the bathroom. I guess that rattled Hunter and so instead of going after the mascot, Reggie, he convinced him to steal something from the coach.”
“This was in high school and Dadaszek had only just started with the Knights,” Cara says.
“Coach Walker lived in north Omaha. Hunter said the car he shared with his brother was on empty and he didn’t have gas money. I wouldn’t cough any up, so we ended up walking around with the plan to toilet paper some houses. Then it started raining and soggy TP is no fun.”
“Where was Hudson in all this?”
I wince. “He probably fell asleep.”
Looking back, the times Hunter said his brother was going to get up to no good, Hudson usually dropped out of frame and I ended up tagging along with Hunter to make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble.
“You toilet-papered houses?” Gracie gasps as if scandalized.
“This sounds like a series of terrible ideas,” Heidi adds.
Emerson, my coworker at O’Neely’s, leans in, “I had no idea you led such a sordid life, Leah.”
I sigh. “More like I was trying to save Hunter from himself.”
It’s all so clear now. A soft voice among all the louder ones whispers that maybe Hudson was trying to save me from Hunter. It instantly goes quiet when the other voices in my mind argue that Hunter was afraid to admit how much he liked me, otherwise he risked ruining our friendship—at least, that’s what he told me.
Cara spins her finger. “Back to the story.”
“We were walking down Golden Bantam Lane?—”
