Page 43 of Penalty Box
Stress?
The stress of… secretly seeing a hockey player?
“Look,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’m not here to fight with my daughter. But more time around the rink isn’t going to fix your problems with school. Running away from your problems is never the answer. If you need help, say so.”
“Help?” It started dawning on me that this may not have been about Mason at all.
“I spoke to your professor, and she said there are tutors available through the school. No charge.”
The realization landed like a brick. He wasn’t here about Mason. He was just worried about me flaking out of school. It should’ve been a relief, but it made the guilt even worse. Lying to him, going behind his back the way I’d been doing…
“If I’ve taught you anything, Cass, it’s to run toward the defensive line, not from it.” The tenderness in his voice reflected in his eyes, and melted the last of the wall I had constructed around me. “You have so much potential.”
“Okay.” That was all I could manage to salvage from the mulch in my brain.
He nodded once, satisfied. “You’re here now, so it’s no use paying for a flight home. But when we get back, I want your word—”
“No distractions,” I swore to him.
He studied me for a second longer, then left the room, the door clicking softly behind him. I stood there, jaw clenched, blood pounding in my ears.
God, how did things get so messed up so fast?
The reason floated into my mind, all rough beard and muscular chest. I crossed the floor in three long strides, back to the window. But the bus had already gone. There was justan empty curb and a crumpled coffee cup tumbling down the sidewalk.
I needed to clear my head. My motel was on a block that hadn’t changed much since high school. The same cracked sidewalks, same tiny one-way street traffic, same corner stand that still sold buttery pretzels and gritty coffee strong enough to wake the dead.
I hugged my coat a little closer, bracing against the wind. The pretzel guy hadn’t aged a day. Still wore his beanie too low and kept his cash in a metal tin duct-taped to the inside of the cart. I ordered a coffee and cradled it in both hands to stave off the worst of the cold.
There was a mural on Third that I had walked past every day for years. I picked the bench across from it to have my coffee, soaking in the flock of starlings in paint as they soared upward into a swirl of constellations. I sipped my coffee, grateful that even now, the mural remained untagged by graffiti. About three sips in, my phone buzzed with a text.
It still wasn’t Mason.
Travis (EQ):Are you nearby? Hydraulics problem at the arena. Let me know if you can make it in.
EQ stood for ‘equipment’ and I sighed with relief. Finally, a real reason to be useful. Something to help my lie be less of a lie.
I thumbed a quick reply: Be there in ten.
The industrial whine of the overhead lights hummed low and steady in the workshop at the home of the Edmonton Oilers. It was weird being back, and beinginthe back at that. Felt like home and not, at the same time.
The hum blended with the soft clicks of my socket wrench as I got to work on the blocked valve on the trailer’s lift gate. I’d stripped off my coat, and was being extra careful to not get oil on my Surge crew polo. Not that anyone would care. I wasn’t making any broadcast reels. But I wanted to leave from here to the game later, looking at least semi-presentable.
“Oh. Sorry.”
I looked up, and a young girl stood in the doorway, dark curls framing her oval face. She wore black jeans and an oversized Surge hoodie. My people.
“I forgive you,” I said with a wry smile, wiping my hands on the oil rag from my back pocket.
She gave a dry laugh, looked up and down the hallway, then back at me. “I think I’m lost. I’m trying to find the locker room.”
“Good.” I rocked back on my heels, trying to place her. I couldn’t. “You’re not allowed back there. Or here, actually.”
She inched further into the workshop, dropping a shoulder to the wall just inside. “I’m with the team.”
“That’s what all the groupies say,” I scoffed, and turned my attention back to the backed-up valve. “Best you find your way back to the public area unless you want to be escorted out. Not a bad deal. They give you a pair of shiny, silver bracelets that don’t come off without a key.”
“I prefer mine lined with fur.”
