Page 74 of Home Ice Advantage

Eric ran through any number of things he could have said, includinghow the hell did you get my number. What he settled on was: “Can I help you, Mr. Clifton?”

Clifton chuckled; his deep voice amused. “Just Paul or Clifton, please. Mr. Clifton makes me think of my father, and he’s been dead for years.”

Eric laughed, too, a little uncertainly, and waited for Clifton to go on.

“I’m sure you can probably guess why I’m calling you, Aronson.”

The thought had been forming in his head, but he was superstitious enough that speaking it before he was ready felt like it would just be drawing the attention of the ayin ha’ra. Instead, he took a deep breath, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“As you know, there was recently a complete overhaul of both the front office and the coaching staff. While we have our former assistant serving in a temporary capacity right now, we’d like to offer you the opportunity to interview for the head coach’s spot.”

Eric’s head was full of static. He’d been working for this for so fucking long, and he’d beenwantingit for even longer. He’d thought maybe it might’ve been the time when Leclerc got fired, but that hadn’t been in the cards. He wasn’t even upset about Ryan being hired anymore, not when it had ended like this. But the offer...this wasn’t the way he thought it would’ve happened, bittersweet and almost tainted.

He was a practical man. There were only thirty-two positions. This opportunity wouldn’t come knocking again, maybe not ever. Eric exhaled. At his left, he could see the traffic zipping by on the interstate, no one aware of all of the noise in his head. “Thank you very much for the opportunity,” he said. “When would you like me to come down for an interview?”

“I’ve looked at the schedules, and I think this Friday would be most convenient, if you’re available.”

Eric flipped through his mental calendar. The team was playing back-to-back home games for the next two days, so they would be late nights. It was a little under four hours on the Acela. He wondered, for a second, whether he could convince Ryan to come with him, whether they could make a weekend out of it. But that wasn’t possible. Not only did he not want to tell Ryan about it immediately, they had practices on Saturday that neither of them could miss to go swanning about New York.

“I’m available, so long as Conroy doesn’t shut it down,” he said. He’d make it work. He’d have to talk to Joe Conroy, but he’d make it work. “I’ll let you know if it’s going to be an issue with the Beacons.”

And then he’d have to talk to Ryan.

After hanging up with Clifton, he called Conroy to work out the details.

“I don’t know whether I want to take the position,” he said, because he was being honest. Conroy had always been up-front with him, and Eric wasn’t the kind of guy to bullshit. “But I’d appreciate if you would allow me the opportunity to interview.”

“Of course we won’t stand in your way if you have the opportunity for a head coach’s position,” Conroy said easily. “We’ll miss you behind our bench, of course. But I won’t prevent you from pursuing a promotion of this nature.”

“Thank you, Joe,” Eric said. “Can you not tell R—Sully about this yet? Like I said, I don’t know if I want to take this position, so I don’t want to...make things weird on the bench.”

“Whatever you want.” Even though he agreed, Eric could almost hear his eyebrows shooting up.

Eric hung up and drove the rest of the way to work.

It wasn’t much time to prepare for an interview, but that was almost better. He couldn’t overthink things, even if he tried. Today he just had to concentrate on the practice and the game and then on figuring out how he was going to explain his absence to Ryan. They didn’t win the game, which was frustrating; even one of Ryan’s ten minutes of frantic tape-watching before throwing together a speech for the boys hadn’t had its usual effect. It had been one of those games where they played down to the opposition; for whatever reason, the Beacons had never played well against Detroit.

When it was all over, they were the last two men in the rink, which was how it ended sometimes. Ryan was an incurable romantic who sometimes liked to stay behind and look out at the ice, pristine again after the Zamboni had finished with it, at the empty arena rising above them. Eric, it turned out, had not even realized he’d had a part of him who could appreciate something like that until Ryan had woken it in him. It was funny. He’d been doing this so long, as a player and as a coach, and he’d never actually justlookedat it that way. In a way, it almost felt like being in the sanctuary at synagogue. The same kind of religious awe.

“Hey,” Eric said.

“Hmm?” Ryan asked. He looked over his shoulder with a smile.

“You’re gonna have to stay at your apartment on Friday.”

Ryan blinked. His eyes didn’t narrow, exactly, but the smile faded. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s nothing about you, I just have some business to take care of, and I might not be home at a reasonable hour, depending on how things go.”

Ryan’s eyebrows went up. And up again. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Eric thought about justtellinghim, but there wasn’t any need to rock the boat if it wasn’t an absolutely sure thing that he was going to get the job anyway. So he smiled, and said, “I’ll tell you as soon as I get everything settled. Trust me, okay?”

“You know I trust you,” Ryan said, “I just wish... I don’t know. This seems like something pretty big. You know I’m not going to get weird about whatever it is, right? You can trust me too, you know that?”

“I do trust you,” Eric said. Even to his own ears, it sounded lame and toothless. “This is just something I need to take care of on my own. I promise I’ll talk to you as soon as I have more information.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. His eyes looked a little darker in the shadows of the tunnel.

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