Page 38 of My Best Bet

“How about we talk about it after school, yeah?” I asked her.

Her shoulders fell and her eyes rounded with sadness. “Okay, but I had a lot of fun last time, Dad.”

“Yeah, she had a lot of fun, Dad,” Kappy added.

He was making this harder than it already was. I kicked him under the table, hard. He crunched forward to hold his shin, but his shoulders shook from laughing.

Now I was even more pissed at Hans because it was his fault that I was in this shitty position in the first place.

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An hour later, I threw open the Coliseum’s pro-shop door and stalked over the skate sharpening station where he was bent over the machine holding a pair of old Bauers.

“What’re you playing at?” I demanded.

Hans slowly powered down the machine and took off his glasses, then he just stared at me in disappointment, likehewas mad atme.

“What?” I demanded, my nose flaring with an angry breath.

“Waiting for you to calm down.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

My eyes widened. “Calm down?” I pointed to my chest. “Me? Calm down?” I burst out. “You… You…” I was too frustrated to even form words.

“I?” he coaxed, arching an amused bushy old eyebrow. He started fiddling with his machine. It was then that I noticed his papery hands were slightly trembling.

My eyes drifted over him. He was getting older. Much older. His white hair was thinner. His face looked more gaunt than usual. His watery blue eyes looked tired. I hated seeing him look so… vulnerable.

I never thought of him as old, but reality just smacked me in the face. He was an old man.

And I was screaming at an old man.

An old man who’d always looked out for me.

But still, he crossed a line he had no business even touching.

“You know I love Lucy like a granddaughter,” he said suddenly.

I clenched my jaw. He was going right for the throat with that comment and he knew it. “I know you do.”

“And I’d want her to have the best coach.”

My chest heaved with a deep breath. “And you think that’s Mer?”

“Ms. Bennett was always the best, yes.”

If I hadn’t known he’d always called her that, it would’ve felt like a dig. Because we all thought she was going to be Mrs. Conover one day.

God, that hurt way more than it should have.

I’d wanted that more than anything else at one time in my life. At one point, I was ready to throw all of this away just to hold her. Sometimes, late at night when I couldn’t sleep and I was succumbing to worries, I wished that I had thrown it all away back then just so I had a teammate again.

But I couldn't go back.

Back then, I was a boy who had no responsibilities.

I had Lucy now.

She came before anything and anyone else in my life.

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