Page 29 of Conrad

Oh, right.“Yeah. Um, actually, Coach Jace asked me to help. I’m sitting out a couple road games?—”

“Sitting out a couple road games?Holy cats, Conrad.Why?”

He didn’t want to smile, but her concern felt . . . genuine. So maybe they were friends. He could do friends. “I was a little . . . grumpy, let’s call it, during the last game.”

“Oh, you mean the brawl with the Colorado left winger? The penalty call?”

And now,really? “You saw the game?”

“It was on while I was making dinner.”

“Late dinner.”

“Sometimes. Research. I get sort of wrapped up in it, and it drags me down, holds me captive. I can even forget to eat.”

“Yeah. Me too. Only, my addiction is sailing shows on YouTube.”

She gave him a look.

“Right? Crazy. But once upon a time, my grandfather had a little daysailer on the lake, and he taught me how to sail. Someday.” He lifted a shoulder.

“I didn’t see you as a sailor.”

“It’s very quiet. Sometimes . . . I like quiet.”

Why had he said that? But maybe friends were honest with each other, right?

He found himself tracing her smile, then trying to figure out the exact color of her eyes.

She nodded. “I like quiet too,” she said. “But what I’d really like is peace.”

“Don’t you have peace?”

“I have questions,” she said.

He blinked at her, the candor undoing him a little. But before he could chase down her comment, the pizza arrived.

And that’s when trouble showed up in the form of Tyler Bouchard, the center he’d been helping with strategy today. “Dare you to a pizza contest, Coach.”

Conrad’s stupid mouth, and maybe a little ego, said yes.

Forty minutes later, he stared at a pile of crusts, his stomach hurting as he went toe to toe with Tardis-for-a-Stomach Tyler.

The kid had him by four slices, easy.

For her part, Penelope stood at the end of the table, watching, her arms folded.

“You tapping out, Coach C?”

Coach C.He could live with that.

He held up his hands, and behind him, people clapped. He hadn’t realized they’d gathered an audience.

Tyler’s father, Steve, came up and shook his hand. “Didn’t think you could get beat by a kid, right, King Con?”

The guy was a little paunchy, wore beer on his breath. Conrad smiled, kept it easy. “He’s a champ, for sure.”

Steve grinned, threw an arm around his wife, plump, wearing an Ice Hawks jersey. Conrad had noticed a few other parents in the bleachers. Some had followed him to the pizza joint.

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