Page 109 of Thrown for a Loop
Present Day
After Chase storms out of my apartment, I can’t calm down. I put on my flannel pajamas and brush my teeth. But when I lie down on my bed, my heart still thumps with anxiety.
Chase wasn’t angry because I lost him a job. Chase was angry because he thinks I betrayed him to my mother.
Which I did—but only because I was trying to protect him.
My whole life caught fire, he said. That’s the part I still don’t understand.
I pick up my phone and consider calling my mother. But it’s twelve thirty, and she won’t answer anyway.
Then my gaze falls on my uncle’s nagging text. He lives and coaches in Vancouver now, where it’s not quite so late. So I touch his avatar and put my phone to my ear.
“Zoe,” he answers gruffly. “Hey. How’s it going in New York?”
The phrasebig orange fireballcomes to mind, but I don’t share it. “The Legends are a great organization.”
“Did they say anything yet about giving you a contract for next year?”
“No,” I admit. “But I live in hope.”
“Do you need money?” he asks. “You can’t possibly survive in New York on a temporary contract.”
“I didn’t call to ask for a loan. Jesus. I’m a grown adult.”
“Then why don’t you act like one? Your mom is getting new gray hairs every day worrying about you. Call her.”
I take a deep slow breath. “I’ll call her tomorrow,” I promise with some reluctance. “If I can’t get a full-time job next year, then she won’t have to wonder anymore, because I’ll be right back under her roof.” Like a grown adult who failed. Again. “How are you, by the way? Good team this year?” He coaches a minor league team these days.
“Good. Not great,” he says gruffly. “We’re on a three-day road trip.”
“Ooh, sorry.” Those bus trips can be brutal. “Look, I have a question for you. Remember Chase Merritt?”
There’s a silence on the line. “Kind of. Why?”
“Kind of? I assumed you wouldn’t forget one of the most successful players you ever coached.”
“Zoe, he wasn’t my player for very long.”
“And why is that?” I ask, getting to the real reason for my call. “I noticed that his stats from his second year with you look strange. Like maybe he didn’t play the whole season or something. Was he injured?”
“Uh…” He chuckles uncomfortably. “I don’t recall an injury. We just didn’t get on very well.ThatI remember. He wasn’t putting in the effort.”
Chills rise up my skin as I try and fail to imagine Chase Merritt not putting in the effort for his college coach. “What didn’t he do, exactly?”
He sighs. “Who knows. It was a long time ago. And he left before the end of the season.”
That’s the weirdest part of all. And nobody’s memory isthatbad. Every coach remembers the ones who made it big. “Did he lose his place on the team? Or lose his scholarship?” Because if he wasn’tinjured, those are the only two possibilities that make sense. “Good players don’t just quit.”
“Sure they do,” my uncle grunts. “Look, Zoe, I gotta go. I’m on a bus with twenty-three hockey players. You sure you don’t need money?”
“No, I don’t.”Not from you.“Good luck with your game tomorrow.” We sign off, and I set the phone down again and study the darkened ceiling of my living room.
When I lost Chase, I was eighteen years old. He was nineteen. But to me, he seemed much more mature and worldly than I was. It never occurred to me that his life could be completely derailed by me or my family.
I’m an idiot.
My phone vibrates with a text, and I grab it off the mattress, hoping to hear from Chase.
