work or at home or whenever, even when we didn’t have something in particular to discuss. He was thousands of miles away, and his company was a godsend.
While Dallas had been down with her migraine, he’d stayed online with me as long as he could (the dude was wiped and he had to sleep sometime). The next morning, he’d shot the shit with me while he’d waited for his plane. While he’d been in the air and we’d been incommunicado, it had been kind of jarring. The conversations had become so effortless and such a normal part of my day that I sometimes didn’t know what to do with myself when he had to travel or when he was on the ice.
By the time the Snow Bears played again—this time in Chicago—Dallas had bounced back completely from her migraine, and we settled in to watch the game on TV. I put my phone aside since I obviously wouldn’t be hearing from Kelly much for the next few hours, and just watched the game.
The first period had barely started when the camera zoomed in on him on the bench. The commentator was saying something about Kelly spending his first couple of seasons in Chicago before being traded to the Snow Bears, but I mostly tuned it out because I was busy staring at him. He was all focus now, brow furrowed and eyes intently fixed on something off-camera as he—like so many of the players did during downtime—played with his mouthguard between his teeth.
Then he put the mouthguard back in, swung his legs over the boards, and joined his team on the ice.
I sat back, staring as if this was the first time I’d ever noticed him. Seriously, how the hell was the guy on the other end of all these texts the same guy chasing a puck around on my screen? The same guy who’d featured in more than a few of my impure and improbable fantasies? How was this my life all of a sudden?
I wasn’t sure.
But I definitely wasn’t complaining.
Especially when, an hour or so after the game had ended, my phone pinged again.
Dallas was at her mom’s when the Snow Bears came back into town, so as I often did, I joined my brother downtown for a game. Eric was good at getting us last minute tickets near the glass without breaking the bank, and tonight was no exception. We were in the fifth row back behind the goal, which was about as close to perfect as you could get.
As always, we went all the way down to the glass for warm-ups, wedging ourselves in with the other fans who tried to get in close before the game started.
“So you and Dallas met the team?” Eric asked while we waited for warm-ups to start. “For real?”
I nodded. “Yeah. They even played a couple of periods so she got a chance to watch them. I’ll have to show you the video later.”
He whistled. “Damn. And you didn’t bring me?”
“Hey, I didn’t know it was going to be that wild. I just thought it was a private signing event.”
“Uh-huh. And you didn’t bring me?”
“Well, no.” I turned to him and grinned. “It was a family event.”
“Oh. Oh.” He put a hand to his chest. “That hurts, man. That really hurts.”
I gave his shoulder a hard pat. “You’ll be all right.”
“I’m telling Mom.”
“Go for it.” I shrugged. “Still doesn’t change the fact that Dallas and I got to—”
“You’re such a dick,” he said with a laugh.
I chuckled. Truth was, if I’d known what kind of event Dallas and I had been going to, I would have tried to finagle a spot for my brother too. He was a hardcore Snow Bears fan. In fact, he’d been the one to get me into hockey in the first place, and he’d been thrilled to find out his only niece was a hardcore fan as well. He was as devastated as I was that Dallas couldn’t come to games with us. So, yeah, if I’d known what I did now, I’d have brought him that night, and I was pretty sure he knew that. But we were brothers, so there was shit-talking. That was the way of the world.
The arena lights suddenly went dim, and everyone cheered because we knew what was next. As some fast techno blasted from the speakers, the opposing team came down their chute and out onto the darkened ice. A moment later, the lights came on, and a