Page 32 of Power Play with My Brother's Irish Friends

17

PATRICK

The excitement of a new season sat heavy as concrete in my gut. I rolled the hockey stick back and forth between my palms, causing it to spin over my head and almost crack Duncan in the temple.

He grumbled and ducked but kept his cool. We stood in a huddle near the gate that led onto the ice. Behind us, hundreds of people filled the stadium. The roar from them did nothing for me. It used to. A year ago, that sound would have sent me spinning around to encourage the noise. Instead, the first game of the season mattered less and less with every passing second without Miranda. Misery made me terrible company, and I’d been on this train since we sent Miranda back to New York. We might have shipped her off in style, but I didn’t have to like it.

Coach joined us, making his way around the edge of the group. “Let’s go, guys. Last practice was on point. Let’s keep that momentum going and we’re sure to win.”

I didn’t have the heart to let him in on the secret Charlie, Duncan, and I shared. We were nowhere near our peak performance.

Shouts burst out from around us. People cheered, they stomped, they booed when the opposing team skated onto the ice.

“That’s our cue.” Austin raised his stick and clacked it against mine. “Let’s show them how it’s done.”

One look at Duncan confirmed I wasn’t alone in my lack of confidence. With Miranda halfway across the country, I’d lost the drive that pushed me to be my best in every single game. Winning suddenly didn’t mean as much. I’d never admit it to my team, and I gave Duncan a slow shake of my head, encouraging him to try even though we already felt defeated.

I joined Duncan on the ice. Charlie came out behind me, skating past and pumping up the crowd with upraised fists. To the casual observer, he looked the same as always, but I’d seen the haggardness in his face, the downturned mouth, and haunted defeat in his eyes. It was the same look Duncan and I wore before we tugged on the mask of indifference and joined our team.

I hunkered into place and skated my hockey stick back and forth over the glassy surface. My mind tipped backward toward time I’d spent with Miranda. The whistle sounded, an attempt to jolt me from the past and into the game.

Austin tore past me, a flash of color passing in a blur.

We played worse than six year olds who’d never handled a hockey stick. I missed my first slapshot, bungled the second, sending it careening into the wall, and shook my head at Austin when he tried to set me up for the third. My heart wasn’t in the game, and everyone knew it.

Charlie skated past me, his head tucked low in his helmet. We rode the disappointment together as we failed our team. I expected Coach to pull our asses off the ice any second but we kept going, kept skating despite the constant foul ups.

Duncan shoulder checked an opponent, but his heart wasn’t in it. The move barely jostled the other man, and even from several feet away, I saw the man’s eyebrows go up when he recognized Duncan.

“What the hell is wrong?” Austin skated a circle around the three of us. “Get your heads out of your asses and in the game.”

Duncan muttered under his breath, the words lost in the roar from the stands when Austin smacked the puck hard enough to blast it into the goal. The scoreboard clicked, and the crowd cheered again when Austin fist pumped the air.

Ten seconds left until intermission. We’d blown the entire first quarter. The second the buzzer sounded, I raced for the edge of the rink and tore off my helmet. “Sorry, Coach.”

“Sorry?” Red bloomed on his face and spread all the way to his forehead. A vein bulged in his neck. “Get to the locker room.”

We all filed past, heads bent. Shame slowed me down until I was at the back of the line, the last one to enter the locker room and find a seat.

Austin paced in front of the group. His skates made steady clacking noises we’d all grown familiar with over the years, but I’d never heard them quite this loud and obnoxious.

“What the hell has gotten into you three?” Coach pointed out Duncan, Charlie, and then me. “You’re playing like this is some kind of worst of the worst game.”

He stopped and planted his hands on his hips. The red in his face darkened to crimson when silence settled over the room with the weight of a soaked blanket.

Duncan side-eyed me before he lifted his head. “We miss Miranda. It doesn’t feel right since she left. We’re not whole anymore.”

Nods swept the group. Even Murphy, Scott, and the others who’d only known her in the business sense agreed. “How come she had to leave?” Murphy asked.

Others offered a chorus of agreement that cemented the longing in my chest as more than missing Miranda. I played better, became better, when she was around. Without her, nothing mattered as much.

Coach blew out a long, slow breath, the kind we’d seen from him when he was working to control his temper and be a good coach who talked us through shit instead of screaming and demanding better without context. “Miranda is not our mascot. She came to do her job, and now that she’s finished, she had to go home.”

“I miss her too.” Austin spoke up from the side of the room where he’d stopped his pacing and crossed his arms. “But that’s no excuse for disappointing her. She’s not here with us, but she’ll watch the game. How do you think she’ll feel when she sees all of you missing shots?” He stared hard at me, the cold, calculating look threatening to pierce the armor protecting my secret.

I bent my head and rubbed the back of my neck to break the heat of his stare. The need to speak up for Miranda almost broke me, but I held it back. I’d lost the strength to keep hiding my feelings and knew better than to unleash any sound until I found my control again.

Charlie dangled his hands between his knees. He’d scraped his knuckles raw, turning the skin red and angry. He picked at the roughened pieces, peeling them off and scratching at the welts.

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