“Well, one.” My mouth starts to open, but my mother interrupts me. “I kind of figured out that you had feelings for him,” she shares, and it’s my turn to be shocked. She looks at my face and laughs. “Oh, honey, I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure everyone suspects it.” I gasp. “Well, all the women at least.” She laughs. “The men can be a bit. Well, slow to see things that are right in front of their noses.”
“Wait, how do the women know?” I ask, confused now.
“Alex,” she says, sitting back now. “Every time he’s upset, he calls you, and you drop whatever it is you are doing to rush to him. You even know when he’s going to call. When we were together, you guys were attached at the hip. It’s like a magnet with you two. No matter where you are you find each other.”
“I didn’t think it was that evident,” I murmur, my voice low, almost whisper-like.
“Alex.” My mother says my name, and I look at her. She has her own tears in her eyes now. “This isn’t something that you just do lightly.” She wrings her hands together nervously. “And I know that you have these feelings for him, but it’s not just something that you can just declare.” I watch her as she struggles with coming up with the words. “What I’m trying to say is that this can’t be erased.” I listen to her and the words. “Once you go down this road, it can go either one of two ways.” I don’t say anything because the lump in my throat blocks me from saying anything. “Good or bad, there is no middle ground here.”
“Mom,” I finally interject. “I tried not to love him.” The one tear escapes, and I catch it with my thumb. “I tried everything, and I mean everything, but at the end of the day … Not talking to him, talking to him. Ignoring him, not ignoring him. Everything.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” she says. I want to laugh at the stupidness of the words, but it’s so fucking true.
“I told him.” Her mouth opens again. “And he loves me back.”
“Well, then,” she responds, smiling. “Now here is another question. Who is going to be the one who tells the boys?”
Chapter 23
Dylan
“When you go around the cones,” I tell Maddox, “you need to keep your stick in front so you can get the puck if they send it to you. Also, it actually makes you go faster when you move your hands.” He looks at me and nods, his head taking everything in like a sponge. The only time his eyes come alive is when he’s on the ice. And fuck do I know that feeling. It was the only time in my life that I felt I controlled something. I’ve been on the ice with him for three days, and unlike the other eight-year-olds who lose focus halfway, Maddox just pushes through. He’s scrappy also, his eyes following the puck like a hawk.
“He’s a good one,” my father says, standing beside me. “Reminds me of you.” He laughs as he blows the whistle as the kids come to the middle of the ice. We’ve been on the ice together, teaching the kids all day. He has experience from when he used to do it for his own hockey school. Luckily, the Edmonton team took it over from him when he left the city to go play in New York.
The kids skate off the ice, and I watch Maddox take off his helmet and grab the bottle of water. He doesn’t mingle with the other kids and stays mostly by himself, and fuck if it doesn’t make me go back to the same time when I was younger. But hockey came into my life, and everything changed. “Are you guys staying on the ice?” Wilson asks as he skates on the ice. “You guys want to play a game? Matthew and Max are busy picking teams like we’re in high school.” And I laugh, shaking my head.
“I swear if they aren’t fighting or picking on each other,” Michael says, skating on the ice while tying his helmet. “It’s like they get hives and itch.”
We all laugh. “Where were you this morning?” I ask him, leaning on the board, waiting for everyone to come on the ice.
“Do you know what it’s like to have twins?” he asks me, and I look at him.
“Yeah, my sisters are twins,” I remind him. “You’ve met them, right?”
“Fuck off,” he snarks. “I swear, if one cries, the other has to cry even louder. It’s always a fun time.”
“That’s the worst.” I laugh. “I remember I moved in with you guys for six months until they stopped doing that.”
“I forgot about that,” Michael says, shaking his head.