Page 5 of The Puck Player

“Don’t you babe me, you asshole, you were supposed to be here over an hour ago,” she shouts back, and only a few seconds pass before a tall, muscular frame fills the entrance to the kitchen.

“Sorry, Evs, practice with the guys went longer than I expected, you know what Cap is like,” the guy pleads, his eyes only on her, and it isn’t hard to tell that he must be her boyfriend.

“Did Nova call you lazy?” Evie asks, pointing a half-eaten pickle at him, and he nods.

“And stupid,” he adds, smiling proudly, confusing me completely, but my new roommate finally lets her shoulders drop and her anger go.

“Well, okay then, I’ll allow it” she sighs, before focusing back on me, as if only now just remembering I’m here. “Shit, sorry, I have terrible manners, this is my boyfriend, Jake Harper. Jake, this is my new roommate.”

Jake flicks his eyes to where I am standing, pausing slightly before recognition flows through him. “Oh yeah, you're Coach's daughter, right? Aubree Locke?”

I cringe slightly as he automatically presumes I have my dad’s last name, before I politely respond, “It’s Aubree Callows, actually, but my friends all call me Bree.” Friends that I have left behind and have no clue when I will see again, and are nothing like the people standing before me.

“Bree,” he corrects with a smile, before holding out his hand for me to shake. “Well it’s nice to meet you.” I shake his hand, as Evie shoves the remainder of a pickle in her mouth before pushing the jar aside.

“Well don’t just stand there, get your ass down to Bree’s car and bring up her stuff,” she demands of him with another roll of her eyes.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I start to protest, but she is already cutting me off with a wave of her hand.

“Bree, what’s the use of a boyfriend if you’re not going to force them to do hard labor for you for free?” she asks, linking her arm with mine. “Besides, how am I supposed to get to know you if you’re too busy lugging boxes up four flights of stairs?” she adds, and when I don’t argue, she smiles in triumph, as I have no choice but to give Jake my keys and tell him which car is mine.

Three hours later my boxes are taking up half of the apartment, none of them yet unpacked, and Evie and I are lounging on the sofa eating Chinese food. She threw Jake outafter he helped get all my stuff from my car, and I hate to say it, but it’s actually been a really great afternoon so far. We get to know one another, and I give her the cliff notes about my mom and grandma, and thankfully she is happy to breeze right past my trauma, before I dive into the tales of my best friend Malorie, and how long Ben and I have been together. She listens intently and pours out just as much information about herself, until I feel like I have known her forever.

“I can’t believe your dad is Coach Locke,” she eventually says, and I take a subtle deep breath at her question, only to realize that this isn’t like being back at home.

No one here knows that I don’t have a close relationship with my dad, they don’t know my parents were high school sweethearts who got pregnant too young, and only broke up because they couldn’t make long distance work for them. My dad got a scholarship across the country that my mom wouldn’t let him turn down, while she stayed home and went to community college. My grandma helped her take care of me, and my dad always came to visit when I was young, but it wasn’t enough. Not that I ever felt his absence, he would always call and be there for the holidays, but we never managed to completely solidify our relationship.

Maybe now that it’s just us, things might be different?

“Jake plays for the Flyers, right?” I say in response, turning the attention back from me to her, and she nods.

In the last few hours I have learned that unlike me, she isn’t a freshman, and that she and Jake have been dating for almost three years. He loves her, hockey, and horror films, and she loves him, musicals, and watching him play hockey, and I kind of get the vibe that they are perfect for one another.

“Yes, he wants to coach one day so he practically idolizes your dad,” she replies wistfully, and I smile even though my chest aches.

It’s always the same. Every boy I grew up with would ooh and ahh when they found out my dad was an NHL player-turned-coach, and they were always more interested in him than me. On the flip side of that, I’m sure my dad wishes he was blessed with a son instead of a daughter, someone he could have shared his passion with. Unlike me, who despite attending many games over the years, doesn’t have a clue about most of the rules, or cares about anything hockey entails.

“At least I have someone to attend games with now,” she adds, cutting into my inner self pity party. “I’ve recently been joined by a couple of the players' girlfriends, but you wouldn’t believe how many I had to attend alone until Maddie and Hallie came along. Bree, it was a total nightmare.”

“Oh, well, actually I don’t really like hockey to be honest,” I reply sheepishly, and she almost drops her fork as she turns to stare at me in shock.

“Tell me you're kidding?” she gasps, and when I shake my head I swear her jaw drops even more. “But, what’s not to like? There are hot guys, uniforms, big sticks, fights, did I mention hot guys? And don’t even get me started on the stretching.”

I snort a laugh, more than immune to everything she has just described thanks to growing up around plenty of teams due to my dad. “They’re not that hot, it’s the uniforms,” I toss back with a roll of my eyes, and she shakes her head again.

“Then clearly you’ve never been to a Flyers game. All of them are like underwear models on skates,” she blurts, shoving some noodles into her mouth, and I snort a laugh.

She’s right of course, I have never been to a Fairfield U game.

When my dad got a job here a few years ago, I only came here for a few weeks in the summer, and by that time Fairfield University was done with classes. It’s the only time my dad has managed a team where I haven’t seen them play, or met some of the players at some point or another, but it feels weird to admitthat. The rest of my downtime was always spent with Ben, and he is as far from a jock as you can get. He graduated a year ago, instantly becoming a youth pastor at our local church, and at one point I understood the vision he had for his life, but now I’m not so sure.

Evie and I talk back and forth some more as we finish dinner, but then much to her dismay, I pull myself away from the sofa so I can start unpacking. My room is bigger than expected, with a queen bed against one wall and a small walk-in closet on another, and once I start filling it with my belongings it starts to feel a little more like mine. By the time the sun sets, I have most of my boxes collapsed and on a shelf in my closet, and nearly all of my things are settled neatly in my new home. It feels kind of weird considering I spent most of my life in the same bedroom, and when that familiar constant burn in my chest threatens to turn into a full-blown inferno, I quickly grab my phone to distract myself.

I have text messages from my dad asking how I settled in and inviting me to dinner tomorrow night, and a couple from Ben and Malorie, who both send some form of the same picture as they enjoy our usual ritual of Saturday night dinner together. The pain in my chest intensifies as I take in their wide smiles, as if my absence isn’t even notable to them, and I quickly shut off my phone and open my laptop instead.

My new schedule was sent to me last week, and it’s pretty intense compared to what I’m used to. It will be hard to keep up, but I know I can’t let my dad down. He pulled so many strings to get me in here as a mid-term freshman transfer, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t fail him. Evie and I have already discovered we share a business class twice a week, and though according to her she isn’t great at the class, she offered to help me if I need it, which I probably will.

The rest of my night is spent reading overviews of the topics that are going to be covered in all my classes, in an attempt to get a grip on them, and ignoring Ben’s multiple texts, especially when he starts sending me Bible passages that he thinks will ‘help me’. By the time I fall asleep I am feeling more out of sorts than ever, with only one thought in my mind.

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