Page 101 of Untouchable Player

I shake my head. The way Coach says it so upfront like that, it doesn’t make me feel embarrassed like it usually does when someone brings up my scholarship.

“Your dad might be disappointed at first, but I can talk to him if that helps.”

I stiffen, “I don’t think it will.”

“Want my advice?”

“Yes please?”

“This is just advice, you can take it or leave it, and you don’t get to blame me if you take it and it doesn’t work out.”

“Okay.”

“Graduate. If you still wanna play hockey next year, go to a team in the ECHL where you wanna live, maybe somewhere close to your friends or your girlfriend or whatever and bug them for a try out, show them your college resumé, hopefully with the championship trophy your senior year, and give them my number for a reference. And if you don’t, well then you’ve got a degree from an Ivy League school. Go do your graduate degree at community college. Get your accreditations and learn to be a coach or a personal trainer or a sport’s nutritionist.”

“Yes Coach.”

“Jesse this is just my opinion.”

“It’s smart.”

He laughs. “Get out of here and think about it, talk it over with your parents and your teammates and girlfriend or whatever.”

“Coach?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,”

“okay, whatever,”

“I have a boyfriend.”

Coach raises his eyebrows, I can see he’s shocked and doesn’t know how to take it, but he recovers well.

“So then…” he slaps me on the shoulder, he’s the only person who instinctively avoids my bad shoulder, “talk to him about it.”

I text Nate as soon as I get out of the rink,

‘Can you talk? Something big happened and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Yes, are you okay? Where are you?’

‘At the rink, meet at your house in about thirty minutes?’

Nate’s mom answers the door in another one of those soft-looking cardigans. She looks a lot happier than the last time I saw her. Actually, she’s kind of grinning at me.

“Nate, Jesse’s here!” she shouts up the stairs in a singsong voice.

Nate comes powering down a second later, grabbing me by the arm and running upstairs with me trailing behind.

“You boys have fun!” his mom calls after us.

“What was all that about?” I ask as Nate presses his back to the wall in his room.

“She knows about us.”

“How?”

---