Page 11 of Where It Begins

But I have looked up her accounting firm and found her under the list of employees. Skye Hall is a senior accountant at Freeman Financials, and she’s been with the firm for nearly fifteen years.

Next, I searched for her on social media. Mostly her feed consists of lactose intolerance memes, a few pictures with her friends during various holidays, a couple of work parties and many pictures of her with her daughter, who looks like a younger, smaller version of her mom.

“Hey dad, you ready to go?” My son, Miller—his hockey friends call him Buck—is standing at the kitchen door, jacket and shoes on, a baseball cap covering his mop of blond hair.

“Yup, ready to roll.” I slide my phone in my pocket and grab the keys from the counter, following him outside. “You want to drive to the arena?”

His eyes light up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, sure, just watch your speed.” I toss him the keys and he grins widely, the gap where his front teeth should be a black hole in his otherwise nearly perfect smile.

He lost them when he took a puck to the face last year, which was unfortunate since we were closing in on the end of his battle with braces. He has temporaries for now, but he always takes them out when he’s on the ice. Next year, when his jaw stops growing, he’ll get implants. He doesn’t seem to care much about the missing teeth, and it sure doesn’t stop the girls from calling him.

I climb into the passenger seat and Miller gets behind the wheel, still grinning. He buckles up, then checks the mirrors before he punches the directions in the GPS.

“You feeling good about the game on Saturday?” I ask as he pulls out of the driveway.

“Yeah.” He grips the wheel at ten and two. “The Cougars haven't been winning much and the last time we played them, we kicked their asses five-one, so we have the advantage. But they got that new kid from out west who shows a lot of promise. I hope it takes him a bit to get comfortable with the team. From what I’ve seen, he’s got speed, but his accuracy isn’t the best and I can use that to my advantage.”

“Good, good. Sounds like you have a handle on it. We can watch a game and plan strategy tomorrow.”

“I have tutoring after school.” He drums on the wheel.

“How’s that going? How was the English test? You took it in the resource room and they gave you extra time?” Miller was diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid, so reading has always been a challenge, but his school is good about giving him extra time and the assistive devices he needs to be successful.

“Yeah, I took it in the resource room and yeah, I got double time for that. I think it went okay, or as okay as English tests ever go, anyway.” He shrugs.

“You want me to pick you up after tutoring and take you to practice?”

“Nah, you don’t need to do that. Her house is a couple blocks from the arena, so you can meet me there.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye.

“I thought your tutor was that Anthony kid?”

“Uh yeah, but his schedule and mine didn’t work so good, so I got reassigned to this girl named Samantha. She’s a senior, and she wants to work with kids who have language exceptionalities or something, so it’s a good fit.” His cheeks flush and the steering wheel tapping amps up a few notches.

“Is she cute?”

His cheek tics. “I guess. She’s nice, and she’s patient, and she doesn’t mind explaining things more than once. She’s got that nerdy library girl look going on.”

I make a sound. “Is that your type? The nerdy library girls?”

“Eh, I don’t really know if I have a type yet.”

“Will her parents be home?”

That flush of his deepens. “Dunno.”

My phone buzzes so I slide it out of my pocket and check the message. It’s from a number I don’t recognize. I key in my passcode and tap on the message.

I’d like to retract my statement about you not wanting to date me.

This is Skye btw.

Skye: We had coffee at The Coffee Emporium, and I stuck my foot in my mouth and then I stuck my tongue in yours.

Skye: :/

Skye: Why isn’t there an unsend feature on text messages? That needs to be an option.

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