Page 6 of ICED
“You been doing your stretches?”
“Religiously,” I lie.
She gives me a look.
“Okay, semi-religiously. Like a Christmas-and-Easter kind of faith.”
Mia rolls her eyes but doesn’t call me on it. “You’ve got a couple weeks before full clearance. Don’t rush it. You’ve been skating?”
“Light drills. Mostly just getting my bearings back. Coach is easing me in. Says I need to stay out of trouble.”
Mia snorts again. “And volunteering at a community bakery is his idea of rehab?”
“Public image rehab, yeah. After that last fight, they wanted me to ‘connect with the community.’ Show the world there’s more to Jacko than fists and facial hair.”
She glances up, mock-studying my ginger beard. “There’s a lot of facial hair.”
I grin. “It’s where I store my baking secrets.”
“God help the muffins.”
I laugh, but the truth is, I don’t mind the assignment. Not really. I’ve always found comfort in baking, something about the structure, the science, the smells. The quiet focus of it all. No roaring crowds or brutal hits. Just flour, water, time. And Dave.
Especially when things are noisy in my head, when my body’s off and the game feels far away, baking brings me back.
Mia finishes up with some stretching exercises, makes me promise I’ll ice the shoulder, and then kicks me out with a warning look. “Behave yourself, Jackson.”
“I’m a delight.”
“Uh-huh. Tell that to the icing you exploded in my kitchen at Christmas.”
“That was festive.”
“That was a sugar war.”
I wink. “Same thing.”
It’s drizzling lightly by the time I leave the rink. One of those misty mornings that makes the city smell like wet pavements. I tug my hoodie over my head, slide into the truck, and pull out into traffic.
I don’t know what made me swing by the community centre again. I’m not officially due there until tomorrow. But after yesterday’s cupcake chaos and awkward coffee moment, my brain’s been circling back to Maya.
And her daughter. The little hurricane in pink socks.
I liked them. Not in a “let’s start planning our future” way or anything. Just, I don’t know. It felt good. Real. Like they didn’t expect me to be anything I’m not.
Maya didn’t treat me like a star athlete or a walking headline. She barely even blinked at my name, and I swear she thought I made it up.
She called me a bear.
I kinda liked that too.
Traffic slows as I approach a crossing, and that’s when I see her.
Maya.
She’s pushing a stroller and looking behind her, one hand clutching her hood up against the drizzle, the other guiding the buggy. But she’s not watching the road. She’s halfway into the crossing when…
“Shit!”
