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I watched them disappear into the crowd.
Milwaukee had given me everything I asked hockey to provide. A contract. A team willing to develop me instead of treating me as a temporary weapon. Coaches who understood the difference between aggression and stupidity. Fans wearing my number. Sports reporters arguing over whether I deserved rookie awards I pretended not to care about.
I played the best hockey of my life.
Some nights, I stepped off the ice with the crowd shouting my name and felt untouchable. Other nights, I returned to an apartment filled with expensive furniture I hadn’t chosen and stood in the kitchen wondering how success could make so much noise while leaving the rest of my life silent.
Hockey didn’t fail me, it simply couldn’t be everything the way it was before.
I found Cade near the north doors leaning against the side of a black Range Rover. He wore jeans, a KFU hoodie, and a baseball cap pulled low enough to suggest he had reached the same conclusion about public recognition.
He pushed away from the vehicle when I approached.
“You took long enough.”
“I stopped to create a childhood memory.”
“That sounds unlike you.”
“I charged him fifty dollars.”
“Better.”
Cade clasped my hand and pulled me into a brief embrace, striking my shoulder before stepping back. His gaze moved over my face with the same careful inspection Bliss performed every time she saw me.
I opened the rear door and threw my duffel inside. “If you ask whether I’m okay, I’ll get back on the plane.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“You’ve been looking at me for eleven seconds.”
“I haven’t seen you in two months.”
“You saw me after the Detroit game.”
“That was two months ago.”
“Then we’ve established you understand time.”
Cade shut the door after me. “Still an asshole.”
“Therapy couldn’t cure everything.”
He moved around the vehicle, smiling while he climbed behind the wheel. I took the passenger seat and adjusted it away from the position Bliss left it in, close enough to the dashboard that my knees nearly touched.
“How does your wife sit like this let alone drive like this?”
“She doesn’t drive. She launches herself toward the steering wheel and hopes the car understands her intentions.”
The engine started. Warm air pushed through the vents while rain threatened against the windshield without fully committing. Cade pulled into airport traffic, checking the mirrors before glancing toward me again.
“Bliss wanted to come.”
“I figured.”
“She had a final meeting with the florist.”
“Probably safer for everyone that she went.”
