Page 41 of Hockey Heart

“We’ll take my car!” She said with a burst of excitement.

There was a moment as we looked at each other, making sure we were both on the same page. Then we jumped to our feet.

Out on the highway, my stomach felt sick. Not because of what I was about to do, but because Kensy was swerving like a maniac through traffic, like we were racing toward the emergency room.

“Kensy, slow down! Jeez!”

The excitement might have got the better of her, but I was still unsure about all this.

“I don’t know, Kensy,” I really didn’t. I felt sick with nerves. “I can just text him.”

“No! You gotta do it face to face.” She yelled as she careered between cars again, smashing her horn at them.Yeah, if we even make it there, I thought.

Hayden

I put the car in drive and took off for Tommy’s. A cold beer and a dark spot were exactly what I needed right now. Anything but pining and feeling like this. I didn’t take rejection well, but Sarah had made it perfectly clear how she felt, andfuck, if it didn’t hurt like hell. That woman had wounded me and, as much as I tried to put it out of my mind, I couldn’t.

Jimmy was already there, lounging in a booth and leafing through the sports section of the paper.

“Hayden, you look like shit.”

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t smell like it.”

“Except, you do.”

We slapped each other on the back with a grin and I eyed the half-empty pitcher of beer waiting on the table. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”

Jimmy sighed as he sat back down - One of those long,fuck my lifekind of sighs - and I filled a glass for myself.

“I’m tired, Hay,” he told me, rubbing his face. “I hardly see my kids or Gina, and the attitude on these young wannabe stars, they think they know it all. Like, they tellmewhat to do! Used to be the other way round, but no one listens anymore.”

“Like this kid,” he stabbed his finger at a photo in the paper of Logan Hunter, America’s latest loud-mouthed track athlete, “We’re in a meeting with K-Sports, and I swear to God, right in the middle of it, he turns to me and tells me to go get him a cup of coffee.”

“Damn Jimmy, I’m sorry, that sounds rough. Hey, you ever want to get out and come to Merryville, maybe open an antiques store, do some fishing, eat and drink ourselves fat, I’m right behind you.”

“Few more years to go yet. Then I’m out, Hay.”

“Same for me Jimmy, except I don’t think I have much choice in the matter. It gets harder every year.”

“You remember in college, that girl, Betty?”

“Bet-sy,” I corrected him, while nodding as the memory flooded back.

“Yeah, she was sweet on you, and you sent her my way.”

“Yup, got bored with giving her the pork sandwich and needed somewhere else for her to go.”

“You… What?” Jimmy looked incredulous.

“Relax, I’m fucking kidding Jimmy! Never touched the girl. I swear I didn’t.”

“Uh-huh. ‘Course you didn’t!” He laughed. “Sometimes I think that maybe if I’d got with Betsy and taken a job in her dad’s hardware store, all this would be different.”

“You know she’s in jail, right?”

“Really? I did not know that.”

“Tried to stab her husband with a screwdriver, if I recall rightly.”

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