me either—or I burned that final bridge and was truly alone in the world.
Oh look, it was the consequence of my past bad decisions coming to kick me in the head. Wasn’t that just dandy? Thanks, Charlie. Thanks a lot.
I slid into the shotgun seat. Steele and Breck shared the back bench seat, content to be wrapped around each other in the cramped space. Danny and Ridge settled into the middle seats, setting up electronics and blankets and snacks as necessary.
“Ready?” Leo asked as he hooked up his phone and cued up his latest audiobook.
Not even a little. “As I’ll ever be.”
He pulled back onto the highway. The headlights burrowed tunnels through the night and the rumbling of the tires blended with the rumbles of Steele’s snores. I let the voice of the narrator wash over me and stared out the window as my past rolled closer with every mile.
4 Eric
The upbeat music pumping over the speakers in the rink was putting a damper on my pity party. It was hard to skate sullenly to Katy Perry. It was even harder to keep feeling sorry for myself when Grace Yamagishi took the ice.
“Eric!” she called, making a full-speed beeline over to where I was carving lazy circles into the freshly surfaced ice.
I opened my arms for her hug. She slammed into me at about a quarter of her top speed, and I let her momentum carry me into the boards. “Oof,” I said as my back hit the wall. “You’re too strong for me, Gracie.”
Her smile burned off a tiny part of the dark cloud that had followed me since I’d woken up, aching and stiff, and feeling twice my age. At twenty-three, Grace was one of the Special Olympics’ top figure skaters. She was also my stepbrother’s girlfriend, and, most importantly, my friend. We skated together most mornings after my morning workout.
“Why were you skating in the dark?” she asked. “Bad day again?”
“Yeah,” I confessed. Two decades of hockey were hard on the body. My joints ached on a regular basis and it took me a solid half-hour in the mornings to work out the kinks. Sometimes I wanted to stay in bed, but I knew I’d feel worse if I did. “Everything hurts,” I confessed.
“I know.” She nodded, eyes wide behind her thick glasses, and patted my arm consolingly. “You know what makes me feel better?”
I pretended to think, finger to my chin, eyes up to the ceiling. “Um, ice cream? Kittens?” I looked down at her and grinned. “Or ma-a-a-y-be…kissing Sammy?”
“Eric!” she shrieked, covering her face with her hands. I could see the blush coloring the tops of her ears.
I laughed, my bad mood totally blown away. “Aw, it’s okay,” I said, putting my arm around her and pulling her close. “Don’t tell anyone but”—I bent down to whisper in her ear—“I like kissing boys, too.”
She giggled now, shoulders shaking. “You’re bad,” she said smacking me lightly on the arm. “Skate with me. Nadia told me to warm up.”
That meant we had about five minutes before her coach showed up and before I needed to get started with my day. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend those minutes. “You’re on,” I said. “Race you!” I took off before she could reply.
“Cheater!” she yelled as she chased after me.
Two hours later, I was sitting in my office contemplating vendor invoices, taxes, and payroll and wishing I was back on the ice with Grace. Or playing again. Or, hell, why not wish I was fifteen years old again with my mom still alive, the world spread out like a banquet in front of me, and my whole life ahead of me?
Why not wish for the moon while I was at it?
My office was on one end of a walkway that hung suspended over the ice rinks below. A bar with some ancient pinball machines and a few booths was on the same level. The official name of the bar at the rink was Between the Sheets, but everyone just called it Sheets.
There was a full bar along the short side of the room with more barstools. Three wide-screen televisions over the bar silently played hockey games. Cracked red vinyl booths lined the long wall and a random collection of Formica tables and uncomfortable metal chairs filled in the center of the room. The tables were rearranged at random to fit the needs of the various social groups frequenting the place. Two cocktail table arcade game consoles