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"—and he scores! What a move at the line, just undresses the defender⁠—"

The living room went up. Colin was on his feet. One of the neighborhood dads slapped the armrest of his chair and pointed at the screen. Holly and Jordan were screaming. Hazel was standing on the couch cushion next to Janine, both fists in the air.

"How do you stop that?" Colin said, pointing at the replay.

"Alex used to skate like that." Erin was on the floor with Peyton in her lap. She said it to the room, but she was looking at me. "He was in the Bruins organization."

The room turned toward me.

"You played for the Bruins?" one of the dads asked.

"A few years. A long time ago."

"Why'd you stop?"

"I liked playing for the game." I took a drink. "Making it a career would have ruined it for me."

I'd been giving that answer for years. It came out clean by now. The real reason had nothing to do with career paths, and I wasn't going to talk about it in Erin's living room.

Hazel dropped off the couch cushion and appeared at my knee. "Can you do crossovers? Because I keep trying and I can't get them. The tournament is really soon."

"I haven't skated in a long time, Hazel."

"But do you remember how?"

The honest answer was that I remembered everything. The crossovers, the stops, the transitions, the feel of the ice giving way under an edge, the sound of a puck hitting the boards, the cold tearing past my face on a breakaway. I remembered all of it. I'd packed it into a box, taped it shut, and moved it three times without opening it.

"I remember," I said.

"Then can you come to practice?"

Janine put her hand on Hazel's shoulder. "Bug, Alex might be busy. You don't have to⁠—"

"I'll come."

Both of them looked at me. Janine with surprise. Hazel with the immediate, nuclear joy of a child who had just gotten exactly what she asked for.

"You will?"

"I'll come to your next practice. I'll see if I can help with the crossovers."

Hazel threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. I sat very still in Erin's living room with a six-year-old attached to me and the full, terrifying weight of what I'd just agreed to still catching up to me.

The Bruins won 4-2. Erin had dinner on the table before the final horn, and the rest of the evening folded into the kind of Sunday that doesn't end until the kids are falling asleep on the couch. By nine, the house was clearing out. Janine carried Hazel to the car with her head on her shoulder. I was looking for my jacket when Erin caught my arm.

"Come here for a second."

She pulled me down the hall into Colin's office and closed the door.

"I need to apologize." She crossed her arms. "I put you on that stage. I guilted you into it, and then someone filmed it and it ended up everywhere."

"That wasn't your fault."

She was quiet for a second. Then she looked at me.

"I'm happy you're here, Alex. You know that, right? You've been different lately. You laugh a little more. And I see how you look at Janine."

I didn't say anything.