Page 101 of Caught from Behind

“You’re out of line, son.”

“No,” I say, “you’re just used to me toeing the line.” But seeing Ella’s face last night, hearing the shit her dad pulled and how deeply it hurt her, feeling that same wound pulse inside me has loosened my tongue. “I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m not going to listen to you shit on me or take your phone calls or reply to the asshole texts. It doesn’t help me with hockey and it sure as shit is not good for my mental health.”

Silence for long enough that my anger banks slightly, that a blip of hope flickers to life in my belly.

Maybe this time he’ll listen.

Maybe this time it will be different.

Maybe this time he’ll actually hear me.

“You’re not seriously going to start talking about this mental health woo-woo bullshit now, are you?”

I grind my teeth together, bite back a reply—because what good will it do?—and grip the steering wheel tightly as I navigate out of downtown proper and start winding my way up to my house.

“Now,” my dad goes on, like I’m not anything more than a robot to program, a virtual player in a video game to tweak and modify and mold to be exactly what he wants. “With this new system Coach is running, you need to be quicker on the breakout?—”

I roll my eyes.

Always the fucking breakout.

“Then clean up your play through the neutral zone,” he says. “You’re not connecting your passes like you should.”

I flick my gaze at the clock, weigh the likelihood of driving off the highway and putting us both out of our misery in the cold Tahoe water.

Unfortunately, that won’t keep Tahoe blue, will it?

Thinking about the often-sported bumper sticker in this area steadies me enough to ignore his droning.

Mostly because the water I’m getting glimpses of as I drive by reminds me of the blue of Ella’s eyes.

“…and if you do that, then you’ll play better…”

I don’t reply.

But, of course, he can’t take a hint.

“Did you hear me?” he asks.

“I hear you,” I say. “But I’m not discussing this.”

“Son, I’ve watched you play for more than twenty years. I know what you need?—”

I flick my gaze at him. “Do you really think so?”

Because I’ve told him exactly what I need—or don’t need, anyway.

“I sure as shit do,” he says. “You need to work harder. You need to spend more time in the gym and focus your game play on the breakout and in the neutral zone. You need to feed the puck to Lake because he’s the team’s leading scorer?—”

“And I’m right behind him, you realize that, right?”

Despite what my dad thinks, my last few seasons have been the best of my career—it’s why I got the pay bump, why I’m on the top line, why I’m the second leading scorer on the team, and why the Sierra are at the top of the Pacific division (even though we’re in a neck-to-neck fight with the Eagles to keep that spot).

“Lake is the man with the finishing skills,” he says, “and add in Knox to clean up the traffic in front, and those two are going to keep the team moving up in the rankings.”

But not me.

Apparently, I have nothing to do with that.

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