Cold Day in the Sun Read online

  “And so cool that you get to be interviewed.”

  I blink. Lumberjack’s lived in town about three years, and I don’t know him as well as some of the other guys. I’m not sure where he’s going with this. “And?”

  “And,” he says, winking. “And I thought we could go out after the pasta feed Friday night.”

  And that’s where he’s going with this. “What?”

  “Go out? To the movies, maybe, or—”

  I move my lips into something resembling a tight smile. “Wow, thanks, Jack, but I can’t.”

  I make a point of not saying I can’t go out with him on Friday night, because that would leave the door open for another night. And this door is definitely not open.

  “That’s OK,” he says. “How about Saturday after the game?”

  My smile fades. “No, thank you.”

  Jack’s brow furrows. “Next weekend?”

  Even if I would consider dating a teammate, which I would not, my tolerance level for Lumberjack’s cockiness is basically zero. “I appreciate the offer. But the answer is no.”

  He takes a step toward me and I take one backward. “Why not?”

  He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. I try not to sigh. “I don’t really go out with hockey players.”

  He grins. “I heard that about you. Maybe you just haven’t met the right hockey player.”

  Arrogant ass. “You’re a great teammate, Jack, but anything more could create a really weird dynamic for the team, you know? Fishing off the company dock and all that?”

  “Oh, come on, babe.”

  Babe? Babe?

  Behind me, Molly sucks in a breath.

  “Uh-oh,” Darla mutters.

  “‘Babe,’ Lumberjack? Really? I am not your babe. Do you have any idea how derogatory and demeaning that is?”

  Lumberjack puts his hands up in front of his chest and steps back. “Chill already,” he says. “You always seemed so cool, Holland.”

  He turns, hauls his bag over his shoulder, and is out the door before I can think of a response other than fuck you. I gape after him, my hand tight and burning around the hot cup of coffee.

  Someone takes the cup from me and sets it on the counter. Hot Sauce. Of course. Exactly what I need right now. I’d actually forgotten about him.

  “You’re going to crush that cup if you’re not careful, Dutch,” he says. His eyes land on my T-shirt for a few seconds, then snap back up to my face. “What’s the matter? You don’t like being compared to a big blue ox?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Babe? The big blue ox? Lumberjack? Paul Bunyan? Surely this is ringing a bell. You’ve lived up north your whole life.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

  Carter blows into the lobby and jangles his keys in my direction. “Holls, let’s move,” he calls, and I’m more than happy to leave Hot Sauce Millard and his stupid Paul Bunyan references behind.

  Except he follows me through the lobby, out the door, into the frosty January night, and across the parking lot.

  Right up to Carter’s Suburban.

  I whirl around. “What are you doing?” I spit. “Why are you following me?”

  “I call shotgun.” He laughs and grabs my duffel to throw it into the back. “Truck’s in the shop. I’m catching a ride.”

  And I cannot catch a break.

  Chapter Three

  I grumble under my breath as I yank open the back door and slide across the ass-biting cold seat. It’s about as cold in the truck as it is outdoors. Carter and Hot Sauce carry on a conversation up front as though I’m not even here.

  “HockeyFest. Shit,” Carter says. “Can you believe it?”

  He flips the radio to his favorite station—the Power Loon, the Brainerd Lakes Home for the BEST in Classic Rock—and the song playing is “Babe” by Styx. You’ve got to be kidding me.

  “Right?” Hot Sauce says. He must not notice the song, or he would surely give me more shit about the blue ox.

  “It’s so awesome,” Carter says. “Senior year, maybe a shot at state, and now statewide coverage with HockeyFest.”

  “Statewide if Holland can nail that interview and we get enough votes,” Hot Sauce adds.

  Oh, I’ll nail that interview. I am going to rock that interview and get us the broadcast.

  “Hello,” I say. “I’m right here.”

  The guys ignore me. The song on the radio ends and another begins: Poison, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” Ah, one of my all-time favorite songs of any style or decade. I lean forward.

  “Can you turn this up?” I ask.

  Carter groans. “You and your glam bands,” he says. He’s always been more of a late-’70s/early-’80s classic rock guy. Journey, Boston, Supertramp, the Eagles. Oh Lord, how he loves the Eagles.

  Hot Sauce turns to look at me, disbelief on his face. “You like Poison?”

  Carter barks out a laugh. “She loves Poison. She’s single-handedly trying to revive the hair metal movement.”

  “You cannot revive what never died,” I snap. “Yes, I like Poison. Is there something wrong with that?”

  Hot Sauce laughs. “Oh, no, Dutch, everything about that is right.”

  He turns back around and I’m about to request, for the nine hundredth time, that he not call me Dutch when he starts to sing.

  Sing.

  Hot Sauce Millard, singing along to “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”

  His voice is gravelly and smooth at the same time and, not going to lie here, a little bit sexy, and that annoys the hell out of me.

  He is ruining this song for me forever with his beautiful voice–slash–arrogant, intolerable personality. A personality that, quite frankly, we didn’t need on our team.

  I’ve played with the same guys my whole life—my brothers, Showbiz, Luke, T.J. MacMillan, Slacks and his brothers. So, when you throw a new guy into the mix—one from a state champion team, no less—things go a little offkilter. Especially when he’s elected co-captain after only one year on the team. No one was surprised when Carter got it, but we all figured the other one would be T.J. or Showbiz. Not the new guy.

  I met Hot Sauce the week before school started my sophomore year, right after he’d moved to Halcyon Lake. I’d ridden my bike into town to meet Morgan and our other best friend, Cora, at Little Dipper’s, the ice cream shop where Morgan works. Hot Sauce was there, too, with T.J.

  “Hey, ladies,” T.J. had said in his smarmy way. He’s tall, with blond surfer hair and blue eyes so dark they’re almost black. He reeks of Ralph Lauren Polo Blue and insincerity. “Meet the new sniper.”

  New sniper? I’d tilted my head and scrutinized the boy in the booth. Taller than T.J., with deep brown hair that stuck up in every direction, he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I figured I’d probably played against him at some point over the years.

  “Meet the ladies,” T.J. continued. “Cora Delmar and Holland Delviss.”

  “Delviss?” Hot Sauce had said. “This is the girl?”

  Cora put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth, but he spoke again before she could unload. “I heard you’re not bad. Maybe you think you’re good enough for varsity, but don’t think anyone is going to give you a free pass because you’re a girl. You have to earn it.”

  T.J. snorted.

  My mouth dropped open. “Who the hell are you?”

  “He,” T.J. said as he tried to contain his laughter, “is Wes Millard. He scored the game-winning overtime goal in the semifinals to take the Great River Thunder to the state championship tourney as a sophomore—which they won— and now he plays for us. So, show some respect, Holland.”

  “I’ll show some respect when he does,” I’d said, jabbing my thumb in his direction. “Don’t think anyone is going to give you a free pass because you’re a . . . a . . . Thunder. Scratch that. Former Thunder. Now you’re a Hawk. You have to earn my respect.”

  “Yeah, girl!” Cora said, giving me a high five.

/>   Hot Sauce went on to set a school record for goals scored in one season, earned co-captain, and has had it out for me ever since.

  Thank God he lives so close to the arena. The song ends as we pull into the driveway of a blue rambler on Third Street up the hill from downtown. The house is kind of plain, but there’s a fence with a cool mural of the four seasons of Halcyon Lake, including a group of kids playing pond hockey.

  “Thanks for the ride, Six,” he says to Carter as he opens the passenger side door. “Hey, Dutch.”

  I snap my head up. “Don’t call me—”

  He waves a hand and cuts me off. “Whatever. I heard what those guys said about you tonight.”

  “What guys?”

  “Pete and George. Don’t let that shit bother you.”

  He heard. At least I don’t have to wonder anymore. “I don’t—”

  He cuts me off again. “Look, George is a friend of mine. I’ll talk to him. He shouldn’t be shooting off his mouth like that.”

  “George is a friend of yours? He’s, like, sixty.

  “Don’t let them get to you,” he says again. “You’re good. You skate hard. You hold your own against a bunch of guys who are bigger and stronger. So don’t let a couple of old guys stop you from getting out there and playing your heart out.”

  Well, this is unusual. Is he being nice to me?

  “I always play my heart out,” I say in a low, steady voice.

  He shrugs. “Yeah, well, I’m not just talking about games. I’m talking about practice, too. And that starts with being on time. No more bullshit about staying late to talk to a teacher.”

  Nope. Not being nice.

  “That wasn’t bullshit,” I hiss.

  He raises an eyebrow. The one with the little scar cutting through it, a still-pink half-moon indentation from when he took a high stick from T.J. during a pickup game with a few of the guys over winter break. A game I wasn’t invited to.

  “’Night, Dutch,” he says and waits a beat for me to return the sentiment. I don’t.

  And then, finally, he looks away. He gets out of the truck without another word.

  Chapter Four

  Mom is beside herself at the HockeyFest news and can talk of nothing else. She even video calls Dad while we eat dinner. He’s a landscape architect for a nursery and landscaping company and is at a big industry expo in Minneapolis. He beams with pride like we’re going to the state tournament or something. Jesse and Carter talk over themselves in their excitement.

  “The chair of the HockeyFest committee called me today to see if I could cater a sponsor dinner,” Mom says.

  “Catering?” Dad asks from Mom’s phone. “Is that even in the plan?”

  Mom is a well-known food blogger with a special angle—how to feed growing, hungry hockey players. She’s been writing her blog—Top Shelf Pantry, a nod to when you shoot high on the net—for about ten years. She needed to figure out ways to keep four growing hockey players fed, healthy, and satisfied—for cheap—while at the same time driving us to practices and games. She started a blog to keep track of her attempts. She was a huge hit with the online hockey mom community, and it all began with a recipe for cheesy shredded chicken and broccoli with rice. The slow cooker and pressure cooker companies love her, sending her new products to feature, and she brings in a ton of money from advertisers.

  That cheesy chicken is still one of my favorites.

  “Might be fun to try it,” Mom says. “This would be for about fifty people, the night before the game. I was thinking about doing a Hotdish Feed. I’d need volunteers to help serve.” She points at the three of us.

  They chat for another minute or two before Dad says good night.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Holland,” Mom says as she scoops more au gratin potatoes onto my plate. At least today’s news hasn’t affected my appetite. “Aren’t you excited for HockeyFest?”

  “Yeah, I’m excited,” I say and shovel a forkful of potatoes into my mouth. Mom has a strict rule about not talking with food in our mouths, so I hope that answer will be good enough for her.

  “She’s nervous,” Carter says helpfully. “About the interview.”

  Gee, thanks, Carter.

  “Plus, Pete and George were shooting off their mouths at the arena tonight and she heard them,” he continues.

  “Carter!” I swallow the mouthful of potatoes.

  “Why do you care what those guys think, anyway?” he asks.

  “How do you even know about that? You were still in the locker room!”

  He shrugs. “I heard Wes say something about it to you in the truck, so I called him when we got home.”

  I stare at him, wide-eyed, and shake my head. Nosy bastard.

  Carter scrapes his fork across his plate and shoves the last of his dinner into his mouth. “Your turn for dishes, Holls.” He scoots his chair back from the table and stands up. “Me and Jess got a little playoff football to attend to downstairs.”

  Jesse shoves his plate back. “You’re going down, Six.”

  “Homework!” Mom calls as they pound down the stairs. Jesse grunts in response. “Those two would play video games twenty-four seven if I let them.” She sighs.

  I stand up to clear the table. “I think it’s good stress relief for them.” Too bad I’m not into video games.

  “I’m sorry you’re stressed about the interview,” Mom says. “Even when you were a little girl, you never were much for the spotlight.”

  “That’s part of it,” I say slowly. I keep a lot to myself, but Mom has this way of drawing things out of me.

  “What’s the other part of it?”

  I stack plates and utensils and take them to the sink. “So many people are counting on me. Like, the whole town.”

  “Hmm,” she says as she brings over the leftover potatoes.

  “Now that we know we’re one of the HockeyFest towns, it’s a matter of pulling everything together. The broadcast is one piece of the puzzle. But remember, just like when you’re on the ice, this is a team effort. You’re not the only person they’ll interview.”

  “Yeah, but I’m kinda the reason, right? That we got picked in the first place?”

  “Maybe. Grandpa Delviss might have something to say about that.”

  My grandfather is a founding member and past president of the Rotary Club. The organization donated money to renovate the rink and the stone warming house at Hole in the Moon. Yes, the renovation has historical significance, and no, I’m not the only girl in the State of Hockey to play on a boys’ team, but let’s be honest: I’m the reason.

  “Still. Why can’t I just be a hockey player, instead of the girl?”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Mom says. “Just be yourself and you can’t go wrong.”

  Sounds super easy.

  Once I’ve loaded and started the dishwasher, I grab a few of Mom’s famous organic chewy coconut oatmeal cookies. (Seriously, they are famous. She made them on the Katy Bakes Live! show in October and that post has about two million hits. Not an exaggeration.) I pound up the stairs to my room and pull my textbooks and notebooks out of my backpack. I set them in a neat stack on my desk, but I don’t open any. Instead, I stare at the items on the corkboard on the wall next to my window. Memories and milestones. The roster from my first varsity game. A laminated, autographed Zach Parise rookie card that my brother Hunter had found at a garage sale for an unbelievable ten bucks. A photo of me and my brothers and my dad, all in hockey gear, posing in front of the goal on the frozen lake behind our house. A picture of me and Morgan and Cora at Little Dipper’s.

  And a newspaper clipping, curling at the one corner that’s not tacked down.

  It’s a letter to the editor, a letter I’ve committed to memory, written by a Halcyon Lake resident named Don O’Rourke. Big Donnie, I call him. An old-timer whose granddaughter played for the girls’ team and graduated last year. Don had plenty of things to say after I played my first varsity game. A lot of bullshit concerns about my safety
and well-being, for one. The same old song and dance that allowing a girl to play on the boys’ team is a travesty, a disservice to me and to whoever’s spot I took on the team. An embarrassment to the sanctity of the sport, blah blah blah. And then this:

  Allowing Ms. Delviss to play with the boys at this advanced age introduces a concern that coaches hadn’t worried about when the players were younger, that a female on the ice and in the locker room with teenage boys will cause a significant distraction, at the very least affecting the quality of their play. As much as I’d like to state otherwise, boys will be boys, and I, for one, will feel no sympathy for Ms. Delviss should something unfortunate occur because of her presence on the team.

  More than anything else in the letter, those words—his unfounded assumptions—pierced me.

  I’ve collected Don O’Rourke’s phrases like stones. I carry them with me every day. I take them out and turn them over, reminders of what I’m up against. Reminders of what I can do.

  A travesty and a disservice.

  An embarrassment to the sanctity of the sport.

  Significant distraction.

  Boys will be boys.

  I reach out and touch the words, remember the anger that curled into me when I first read them, anger that fuels me most days, motivates me to prove him wrong. Him and Pete and George and anyone else who believes those things.

  Tonight, the weight of the stones exhausts me.

  Wasting Light: A Blog About Music, Hockey, and Life

  January 11 12:04 a.m.

  By HardRock_Hockey

  The Power of the Power Ballad

  Now Spinning: Poison, Open Up and Say . . . Ahh!

  Hello, Hard Rockers.

  I’m not a sappy love song kind of girl. I’m not swoony or romantic. I don’t cry at happy endings, or sad ones, for that matter. I don’t even need a happy ending. Give me a five-gallon bucket of battered pucks for sniper practice over roses and a box of chocolates any day of the week.

  But there’s one thing I cannot resist, and that’s a romantic power ballad. Power ballads have been around a long time, but the ’80s, kids . . . That’s my favorite power ballad era—hair bands and glam metal.