Page 40 of Time to Shine

“An appointment? For shopping?”

Casey grinned at him. “Yeah, dude. This is classy shit. I tell Samir what I’m looking for, and he brings a bunch of amazing clothes to a private fitting room.”

That actually did sound extremely appealing. And expensive. Most of Landon’s clothes growing up were from thrift stores.

“You’re in the big leagues now, baby,” Casey said. “Time to live the life.”

Landon still didn’t feel like he was in the big leagues, but maybe he could indulge a little while he was still in Calgary. Just a tiny bit.

Chapter Fifteen

The following morning, Landon was awoken by his dad calling.

“Hey,” Landon croaked. “What’s up?”

“I woke you up, didn’t I?”

Landon sat up, blinking into the darkness. “It’s okay. I should be up by now anyway.” It was only seven thirty, and he absolutely did not have to be up yet, but he wasn’t going to tell Dad that.

“Sorry,” Dad said anyway. “I was just thinking about you. Is it cold there?”

Landon smiled, and he desperately wished he could hug his father right now. “Probably.”

“It’s not too bad here, for late November.”

“Good.”

A silence passed that was long enough to make Landon start worrying.

“Is everything okay?” he said at the same moment Dad said, “So, Battle of Alberta tonight.”

Landon exhaled. “Yeah. Should be interesting.”

“I’ll say. What a thing to be a part of. You must be excited.”

“Sure, yeah. It’ll be cool. I mean, I won’t be playing, obviously, unless...” He didn’t finish the sentence because he was superstitious enough to not mention the possibility of Antton getting hurt out loud.

“But still,” Dad said cheerfully, “front-row seats.”

“Yep.”

Another silence passed, then Dad said, “Sorry about your game the other night there.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“That must have been rough.”

“It was, but the team has been supportive. I haven’t been sent back to Saskatoon or anything and, y’know, everyone has bad games. Sucks that this was my first one. But the team’s been nice about it.”

“I’m glad. Good to know that you’re doing okay there.”

“I am. The team is great.”

“So you’re liking Calgary?”

“Yeah. It’s been good.” Because Landon knew the question Dad was really asking, he said, “I’m doing well.”

“And Dougie Hicks’s son has been treating you okay?”

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