Page 162 of The Head Game

Plus, there were kids and wives and partners running around, and the mood felt nothing like the electric anticipation before a game.

But it reminded August that maybe, if his life had gone differently, if the world had been different, he could have been on a team like this.

This could have been his life as a player. Not a referee.

When August stepped on the ice, something inside him settled.

He did a few slow laps, warming up. Whatever happened with the league, whatever they decided about his fate, he needed to get on the ice regularly.

Even if it was just to join a beer league team or something.

He felt as home out here as he did anywhere else. But it was so strange to be skating with Nico’s team while he was forced to ride the bench.

A bright splash of color caught August’s attention and he glanced over to see Charlie launch himself in the air, doing a complicated spin.

“Holy shit,” August whispered. He knew Charlie was a retired figure skater but to see that kind of display up close was dazzling.

“I know, right?” Matty said with a laugh as he skated over. “He’s incredible.”

“He doesn’t still compete though, does he?”

“Nah. This is just fun for him.”

For a few minutes, they stood there, leaning on their sticks and watching.

Charlie skated up to Dustin and held out a hand to his husband. He said something and Dustin laughed, taking it. They skated together before Dustin lifted him, holding him aloft for a few moments, then gently lowering him to the ice again and taking off, doing a low twirling jump of his own.

“Your captain has some skills,” August said, whistling lowly. “I’ve always been envious of his skating.”

“Yeah, he’s fucking ridiculous,” Matty said. “Makes me feel like a big lumbering ox.”

August laughed. “I think he could make anyone feel like that.”

“C’mon, Matty,” a small dark-haired boy shouted from halfway across the ice. “Come play freeze tag with us!”

Matty grinned. “I’m being called. Gotta go!”

For a while, August watched the chaos on the ice. There was the freeze tag game at one end, while along the boards near the door there were tiny children, wobbly on their skates, their parents holding them upright by their hands as they encouraged them.

One player—the Russian goaltender, Makarov—swept a laughing kid up in his arms, kissing his cheek.

August glanced over at Nico on the bench with the team’s coach, clearly listening to whatever he was saying, though his gaze never left the ice.

August’s heart ached for him.

“You’re it!”

August felt a tap on his glove and, laughing, he glanced down to see a small girl peering up at him. “What?”

“We’re playing freeze tag,” she said excitedly. “You’re it!”

“Hey, that’s not fair! I didn’t know I was playing!” August protested, but he grinned as he pivoted, spraying snow in the air as he turned to join the game.

By the time he’d played several rounds, August was slightly out of breath and he begged off from joining the next one.

Instead, he slowed to a stop, searching the crowd for Nico’s face again.

He still sat on the bench watching, his arms draped over the top of the boards, staring longingly out at the ice.

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