Dan looked away from the window and the stranger’s truck and focused on the task at hand. Whoever was showing up at his doorstep would have to wait.
“I know that you and my father would like to see me play another season, and I’m sorry if I led you to believe I’d take a tryout. I only said I’d consider it.”
Scott swore, a long and vicious streak of curse after curse, probably imagining money just falling into the toilet. But that wasn’t Dan’s problem, certainly not when Scott had other clients who made him plenty.
“You can’t be this stupid.”
“Stupid is as stupid does?”
More cursing, and Dan winced because, fair enough, joking was not the way to go here. “Scott, I’m sorry. I was mostly sure earlier—now I am entirely sure. I’m not coming back. I’m done.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“So be it.”
“You know this is it, right? Your last chance. You say no now, I wash my hands of you. No team will touch you.”
“I don’t want any teams. I don’t want hockey. I’m done. I’m going to retire.” The words didn’t even fill him with dread. Sure, there was a little bittersweet ache, but it was the same ache he’d felt outgrowing anything. He was moving on to bigger and better, sad to leave hockey behind, but not bereft. Not less.
“To play farmer.”
“Llama rancher, thank you very much,” he said, even knowing joking wasn’t going to ease Scott’s anger. He thought it was rather humorous. Dan Sharpe. Llama rancher in Montana. He liked it.
The line went dead, and Dan couldn’t feel bad about it. For starters, Scott was just pissed he was missing out on a paycheck, and Dan couldn’t blame him. But he couldn’t go play for another year or two just because a few people wanted him to for their own gains.
Dad would survive with a little familial blemish, whether he deserved that blemish or not, and Scott had other clients. He was leaving no one heartbroken or destitute.
The screen door creaked open and Dan turned, surprised, to face Mel.
“Hey, what’s…” There was a look on her face he’d never seen, and even as he tried to figure out what it could mean, she let the screen door slam behind her.
“I hope I misheard,” she said evenly.
Dan carefully placed the phone on the table, never breaking eye contact. Something was going to happen. He wasn’t sure what, but it crackled in the air. “No, I doubt you did.”
Pieces of her expression stitched together, and it made no sense to him that she was angry, but fury emanated off of her.
“Call him back immediately and take it back.”
“Are you joking right now?”
“Are you?” she demanded, flinging her arms in the air. “You must be. You’re throwing away your life. For what?”
He swallowed down the answer he wanted to give, the answer he wanted to shout. You! I’m giving it all away because none of it compares to you and this.
Because if he said those words, she’d be gone. He had to find some better way of saying it. Some way of proving himself that navigated all her anger and all the ways she didn’t want to believe him. All that fear she kept buried so low she didn’t know how to deal with it.
He had to play this right, not choke, because this place gave him the strength to do that. He just had to find the right words.
Where were they?
“You can’t not try out,” she bit out, each word punctuated with some kind of surety he didn’t understand. What the hell was she so sure about? “You can’t retire.”
“Why not?”
“Because!” Again with the hands going up in the air. This should be a reaction for him leaving, not staying.
“What are you so pissed about? I weighed the options and I decided that I like it here better than I like the idea of trying to suck up my way back onto some skates for a year or two. I don’t for the life of me understand what you have to be mad about.”
“I-I’m not mad.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m frustrated with you for giving up on something you love. You…those aren’t the options. Hockey and leaving is the only option.”
Strike when afraid—he wasn’t always quick on the uptake, but he saw it now. He escaped his feelings, and she fought them like they didn’t exist. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t about me?”
“Of course it’s about you! I saw you on the ice, Dan. I saw you skate with those kids and you glowed. I care about you too much to let you just throw that away.”
“Well, maybe I fucking glow here too,” he grumbled, hating the way she was using her feelings like a weapon.
“You don’t.”
“Well, so the hell what? This is where I want to be.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“What is with you?” He wanted to shake her, and quite honestly, if he thought he could touch her without the L word slipping out and over everything, he probably would.