Page 141 of Her Goal
Everyone is having a blast.
Until Leah appears at the DJ’s microphone, gripping the bag from the limo. “Excuse me, everyone. Hudson and I wantto personally thank all of you for joining us today. We had an unexpected guest join us.”
I imagine she’s going to mention my family, so I join her at the mic.
Instead, she says, “His name is Howie.”
From the crowd, I hear a gasp and I’m quite sure it’s Cara.
Leah pulls the ceramic gnome from her bag.
“We’d like to formally return him to his home.”
The general looks of perplexity filter across the faces in the crowd. Then Hunter emerges and takes the figurine from her hands. He squints as if looking for someone and when he spots Coach Badaszek, he gives it back to its rightful owner.
“Howie?” Coach asks, looking from my brother to me. “Am I seeing double?”
Cara is by her father’s side. “No, Dadaszek. This is Hunter, Robo’s brother.”
“There’s another Robo?”
“I don’t play hockey, sir, but I did take this from your lawn a long time ago. He went on many adventures. I apologize.”
My coach grunts. “My wife got Howie for me when I was hired to coach the Knights. Uh, thanks for returning it.”
To my surprise, Badaszek plants his hand on my brother’s shoulder and draws him into a huddle. The kid is either going to get the talking to of his life or a few pointers. I place my money on the latter. For being the toughest coach in the league, he sure knows what matters … and how to play matchmaker if my sense that he paired me up with Leah for figure skating was on purpose.
Turning tomywife, I say, “With that awkwardness out of the way, can I have this dance?”
“The only thing that could possibly make this better is if we were on skates.”
“Noted.” With that, I loop my hand around Leah’s middle and we sway to the music.
After a few box steps where we narrowly miss several of her smaller cousins playing Ring Around the Rosie, I say, “Returning Howie to Badaszek was bold.”
“Figured today is for closing some doors and opening others.”
Gripping her by the waist, I dramatically lift her as we spin in a circle. “You’re mine.”
She shakes her head. “No, you’re mine.”
Dipping her back, I say, “Are we really going to argue about this?”
“I suppose not. I didn’t realize it right away, but you’re my goal, my goalie.”
“And you’re my life win. My always. My forever.”
We kiss … and then kiss again after cutting the cake and another time when we’re alone in the hallway, waiting for more photos. Again, after the first round of guests say goodbye, and another time after I talk to my parents. My father says only a few more words, but my mother does enough talking for the two of them. They’re attending my next game, so I plan to win. However, my focus right now is on my wife.
Leah and I kiss another time when we sneak off to the kitchen to find some extra dinner rolls. Then we kiss again after we duet a karaoke song. When everyone says goodnight to us, we kiss in the limo. For a moment, I’m afraid I’m having déjà vu when I spot Howie on the seat beside her.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Badaszek said we should keep him and consider it a wedding gift.”
“Why?”
“He said his wife would want us to have him.”
