Page 34 of Home Ice Advantage

“It was fucking weird.”

“Yes, it was. But I—I didn’t want you to hate me.”

He felt very tired, suddenly, ran a hand through his sweaty hair to get it off of his forehead and out of his eyes. “I could never hate you, Shan. You’ve been like—we grew up together. You were my whole life for decades. We just—”

“Grew into different people.”

“Yeah.”

“We still have the court date in December, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a date,” Ryan said, flashing quick finger guns at her, and she groaned in exaggerated disgust.

“Jesus, I forgot what shitty dad humor you have sometimes.”

“But Shan—you’re okay? It’s okay? That we’re doing this?”

“Yeah,” she said. The smile was still a bit sad. “I really think we’re both going to be so much happier when this is done. And that’s all I want. I never wanted to hate you. I just didn’t want to be miserable anymore.” Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then stepped back just as abruptly. “Drive carefully, okay?”

“You know me,” Ryan said, “I’m always careful.”

As he was driving home, his listen-through of “Little Fury Things” was interrupted by the phone ringing. Against his better judgment, he answered. “Hello, Dad.”

“Where the hell areyou? Where are you driving to?”

“I’m driving back from Newfields.”

“Newfields? Why the hell were you there? Did you come to your senses and take Shannon back?”

“Dad... I was picking up some of my things.”

“Divorced,” Dad was muttering. He sounded like he’d been drinking, his voice thick and a little slurred. “Never thought a boy of mine would ever getdivorced. How’re you ever going to show your face in the parish again?”

Ryan desperately wanted to say something about marrying a girl who was younger than your own fucking kids before your wife was even cold in her grave, but he had to be the bigger person when it came to Dad. Trying to fight with him just meant getting deeper into the muck and the mud yourself. You might win the argument, but you’d feel just as disgusting afterward. Instead, he said, “I haven’t been to church in over five years, Dad.”

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Dad said, gearing up to rant again. The irony was, of course, that Dad himself only ever went when one of his boys was getting married, or a grandchild was being baptized or having First Communion.

“Goodbye, Dad,” Ryan said, and hung up.

It hit him all of a sudden, as he was driving. The grief and pain of losing Shannon, or more accurately, the marriage that had taken up the majority of his adult life. The stretched-tight tension he hadn’t even realized he was feeling, being the mature and responsible and adult one, seeing his ex-wife and refusing to take his father’s bait. Ryan didn’t pull over on the side of the road, but he thought about it, thought about banging his head down on the steering wheel and seeing how that would feel.

It had been a long time since he remembered crying. He hadn’t even cried, not really, when his mother had died. He wasn’t actually going to do it now, but he thought that maybe if he was the kind of guy who cried, this would be the moment he did it.

Instead of any of that, another idea formed in his head, impossible to dislodge. It was a terrible idea, but it had some real appeal. Ryan kept driving, took a deep breath, touched his finger against the little text message icon on the car interface.

Chapter Seven

November

Aronson, the text message from Sullivan said, way too late to make any kind of question as to what the point of the text was. It was only by chance that they had each other saved as contacts: Sullivan had come in with grand plans of building a camaraderie among the coaching staff, and Eric had promptly spit in his face about it. There were a few texts in the chain that they had with Petey and Heidi, but this was the first direct message he’d ever received.

What do you want?

Where do you live.

What?

Where do you live. Come on. Give me your address.

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