Page 69 of Taylor

She pulled up her drawings. Part of her had always hoped to find a way to make a living doing artwork. Having a creative career like that allowed her the ability to follow her hyperfocus instead of working against it. It held such promise for her but always felt so out of reach. Taylor had given her permission to think about it again. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

She pulled up a series of drawings she’d been working on. It was a whole folder of players interacting with the team mascot Mr. Wizard. She pulled up the image of Taylor interactingwith Mr. Wizard. They were looking at a pad, and Taylor was explaining the finer points of the game to him. There was one of him and Cash, where Cash was missing a tooth looking like he’d just been in a fight, giving the Mr. Wizard a noogie. Of course Conner and Mr. Wizard were holding the cup up over their heads. Sven was giving Mr. Wizard style advice with a wink.

“Alice, these are really good. When did you do these?” Taylor asked as he carefully examined each drawing.

“I’ve been working on them over the past couple days. I did most of them during the game. I was just there to post videos, so I had a lot of downtime. So, I was just watching the game and sketching them.”

“I think you should really look into trying to do this stuff professionally... If it makes you happy, that is... I know some people don’t want to turn something into a job that is their stress relief?—”

Sensing his uncertain ramble, she stopped him. “I’d love to do something like this as a living, but I’ve tried, and I’ve always been really bad at the business side of it.”

“You said that before. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know... I’m not good at the organizing part of it. Selling myself is another thing I’m not super great at.”

“What if I could help you with those things?”

“You don’t have time for that. You have so much work to do on the ice. I don’t want to pull focus.”

“Alice, I want to help you. My mom is a writer, and I know she hires artists all the time for character art, which is exactly what you are already doing. I told her about?—”

“You told your mom about me?”

“Yeah,” he said like it was nothing. “I can give you her email. I think there could be a market for you there.”

She nodded, taking it in. Character art was something she could do. But as she looked up to ask a question, his focus had returned to the game, so she went back to the piece on her iPad.

Later that night, Alice was in bed, while Taylor was packing for the road trip they would be leaving on for after the game. Part of her didn’t like to think about him being gone for almost a full week, but that was part of it. She’d gotten used to it being the daughter of a NHL coach for most of her life, but that didn’t seem to be helping much.

She was sketching with colored pencils and the sketch pad he’d given her as a gift as he packed. “So, you’ll be back on Tuesday?”

“Yeah,” he said as he emerged from his closet with a closed suitcase and set it by the door. “Tomorrow is game day, so I’ll get up and have a morning skate. I’ll bring home food from the center and take a nap until I have to get ready to go. Do you have to be in?”

“Nope. Sasha said I just need to be at the game in the press box again.”

“Okay, do you want to hang out here while I’m in morning skate and then I can come home and we can relax together?”

“Are you sure?”

Growing up around hockey, she knew game-day rituals were important to lots of players, but she had a hunch they would be nonnegotiable for him.

“Yes,” he said, moving over to her and cupping her face. “I know things are going to change a little, and I know it’ll be hard for me, but that is worth it if we can make this work.”

“So . . .” she said, “talking about making things work . . . When should we tell people?”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled and shook her head. For someone usually one step ahead of everyone, other times, he was absolutely clueless.

“Well, I ran into Kate and Wes in the elevator. I didn’t tell them we were together, but I’m guessing it wasn’t too hard to figure out.”

He nodded slowly and settled on the bed next to her.

“Alice, I’m not someone who goes into relationships thoughtlessly. I have given this thought, and I want to be with you. I’d say let’s tell everyone right now...”

“But my dad . . .”

He nodded. “Yeah . . . That feels tricky.”

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