“I’m not surprised he doesn’t get it,” Odette chimes in. “He wouldn’t know fun if it ran him into the boards.”
“I know fun,” I argue like a moody teenager, ignoring the way her words ring a little too true, all things considered.
My hand goes to my hip, and I press on the dull ache that always seems to be there, rubbing at the spot where Ididcollide with the boards, effectively ending my professional career.
Odette snorts disbelievingly. “Name one fun thing you’ve ever done.”
“I played in the NHL.”
She tosses her arms in the air. “That’s a cop-out answer, and you know it!”
“I don’t know, Odie. It’s pretty damn fun,” Noah says, and I’m not sure if she can hear it, but I certainly don’t miss the longing in his voice.
In addition to running the Stick Taps cidery, Noah and I launched the Stick Taps Community Iceplex six months ago because we craved the game so much. Once it’s part of you, it never truly goes away, and considering I started playing twenty-five years ago, it’s damn sure a part of me.
While my answer might seem like a cop-out to Odette, she has no idea what it feels like to step out on two hundred feet of ice in front of a roaring crowd and get to play the greatest game on earth. There’s nothing else like it, and I miss it more than I’d ever admit.
As if my body aches for it as much as my heart does, my hip throbs even more. I suppress the pain like I have so many times before and continue staring down Noah’s fiancée.
“Fine,” she relents. “But you still don’t know fun. You never come out with us when we invite you.”
Yes, because I want to spend my time hanging with my friend, his girl, and his family, acting like the ... well, I’m not even sure what number wheel I’d be at that point, but I’m not doing it. I have better things to do with my time.
“Is ‘fun’ your only selling point?” I ask.
“Well, yes. Sort of. But also, it would be great for business. Help bring evenmorecustomers here. Imagine little Timmy running around the arcade, feeding quarter after quarter into the machine because his parents keep handing them to him so they can have a few blissful child-free moments.”
“If you think bringingmorekids into here is a selling point, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“You love children, and you know it. You wouldn’t have started the iceplex if you didn’t.”
“I started the iceplex for a free place to skate, and that’s it,” I argue, though that’s a lie.
I did start the iceplex for the kids. Hockey saved me when I was small, and I wanted to give that back in any way I could.
“Come on, Ezra,” Odette whines, saving me before the memories of my childhood start rushing in and put me in a crappy mood. It’s not that it was a bad childhood, but it isn’t exactly something I want to reminisce about either. “Just sayyesand stop torturing me. You know you’re going to eventually.”
“Oh, am I, now?”
She gives me a look that repeats herCome on.
And fuck me, she’s probably right.
I’m fully capable of saying no—I do it all the time to my employees when they ask for extra days off—but saying no to Odette? It’s a bit harder. Just about everyone is wrapped around her finger, including Noah, who is looking at her like she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, and that’saftershe’s been rolling in the dirt with the goats for the last thirty minutes.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to love someone like that. Then I remember that it’s not something I’m capable of. I’m more equipped for flings or one-night stands. I could never give myself to someone fully when I hate what I see in the mirror every day. That wouldn’t be fair to them, and the last thing I want is to waste someone’s time.
“No,” I tell her again.
She growls—actually fucking growls—then points to Noah. “You deal with him. I’m going to find Tootsie, who has somehow managed to escape her pen.”
“Again? That’s the third time just this week. I swear, that fucking chicken is going to end up as a nugget.”
When we bought the property for the cidery, it came with a bunch of animals already, including Tootsie, our resident escape artist chicken, who we can’t seem to keep locked away, no matter what we try. The number of times wedding photographers have had to photoshop her out of pictures is almost comical at this point.
Odette ignores me. “And tell him he has to have a plus-one to the wedding too!”
He presses his lips together, smothering a laugh as she walks away, muttering to herself about what an ass I am.