Our Overtime: Ice League Book 1 (The Ice League Series)

When it came to morning practices, I was probably in the minority of athletes, but I always loved them. Waking up fresh and feeling so powerful being the first to mark up the clean ice was an unbeatable feeling.

I was happy Canyon was getting to experience it.

I hoped he loved them as much as I had. I selfishly planned on trying to foster a little love of them in him by restarting a tradition of mine this Saturday. I was going to take him to the Tim Horton’s across the street for some donuts after finishing up here at the rink.

The other unbeatable feeling that came with morning practices- leaving the rink at 8 or 9am with a weird feeling in your limbs from leaving the cold rink and going into warmer weather, and already having accomplished so much in the day- that definitely deserved a celebratory donut. Grey used to feel the same way.

I was finding it was just as fun to do the morning run as a parent and experiencing it again through his little eyes.

I marched up the bleachers to my usual spot and wrapped my Griffins blankets around myself before taking my seat on the metal bleachers.

I sipped my coffee and waved to a couple other moms dotting the bleachers.

I was already a fan of this team. It seemed like everyone was enjoying their own little peace and they were only interested in their own kid. I’d been around the rink long enough to know that in a month or two the screamer or obnoxious bragger or ice time complainer would come through the woodworks. I would enjoy the peace for now though.

As soon as the zam left the ice, the rink’s peaceful hum was the only sound that could be heard.

Our little guys finally started to appear through the locker room doors. A couple rugrats were struggling to open the door.

Smitty bobbled over to them, play shoving them out of the way, and got the job done.

I had to smile to myself. It was really unbelievable that these troublemakers, the ones who were once written up by rink management for running a locker boxing tournament complete with a by-in and winning jackpot, were the ones running a team of little kids.

Canyon zoomed onto the ice then, being chased by Troy. I wondered if Canyon would become a little troublemaker one day. He was so innocent right now, my little angel. I supposed that all troublemaker’s moms thought their children were angels as well though.

Greyson, the last to exit the locker room, dumped a bucket of pucks onto the ice, and stepped out, closing the rink’s door behind him.

It became pretty clear that Grey had taken the head coach role and Smitty fell into assisting.

Grey took command of the practices. He’d have all the boys kneeling in front of him talking, while Smitty would demonstrate what he was saying to do.

After watching Canyon’s turn at running a drill, I found my eyes glued to Grey.

I noticed he looked curious and a bit awkward holding his stick only with his left hand. I’d watched enough games to pretty much memorize his stance, stride, and shot. I could pick him out of a lineup any day. He was 100% a righty.

A couple drills later he bent down to pick up a water bottle and had to drop the stick from his left hand in order to do it.

He was definitely babying his right side.

“How goes it, girly?”

I jumped.

I was so focused on watching I didn’t notice Paige approach, which was stupid of me- I knew better than to be ignorant of my surroundings. On the other hand, it felt like the rink was healing me, allowing me to feel so comfortable that I wasn’t as worried anymore.

“Good morning,” I smiled. Friendship with Paige had always come so easily.

“Mind if I sip some morning coffee with you?” She smiled brightly and pushed her Beanie out of her eyes.

“I would love the company,” I scootched over so she could have some of my blanket.

“Wow, this feels like old times,” she laughed. “But now our guys are old geezers.”

I grimaced. Greyson wasn’t mine. Not by a long shot. I hadn’t been as lucky to have my first love work out.

She obviously didn’t realize her mistake, or didn’t think it was a mistake, and she kept talking.

“Hey, remember when the old rink manager Craig made ‘Wanted dead or alive’ signs of the boys?” She cackled. The memory made me chuckle as well. Their roughhousing and stealing of beers from Benny’s would get out of hand. I felt bad for Craig a lot of times growing up.

“Poor Craig,” I mused, smoothing out the blanket on my lap.

Paige shook her head in agreement.

“So, what number’s your little babe?” she asked.

“Right there along the boards in line for the next drill, with the blue penny- he’s number 77.”

Canyon and Troy chose that moment to brawl with each other and fall to the ice.

Paige got a kick out of it, “Well, looks like history might be repeating here.”

Max made an appearance then. He always looked wrinkled and scruffy. He walked along the side of the boards and made his way into the team box. He ushered Grey over.

“Is something wrong with Grey’s right side?” I didn’t want it to seem like I cared, but I wanted to know.

“What makes you think that?” her eyebrows shot up, totally giving away that she did know something.

“Uh.. never mind.” I didn’t want to come off like I’d been watching him, even though I had. The whole kitchen argument was still fresh in my mind and I didn’t want to unpack it all just yet. He was Canyon’s coach, and friend now apparently, and I didn’t want to complicate the now with the past.

“You’re right though, there is something wrong. Those boys have a hard time managing their emotions, I swear,” She rolled her eyes.

I snapped my neck back towards her, “Huh?”

She balked at me, “Girl! He left your place torn up the other day, couldn’t you tell?” She held her hands up to say she was innocent. “I’m not blaming anyone. No one’s fault. The stars’ fault maybe,” she said curiously. “You guys are star-crossed lovers if I’ve ever seen a pair.”

She shook her head. I still didn’t understand what she was saying.

“Paige… what?”

She sighed and turned to face me and put her hands on my shoulders. She smudged her glossy lips together.

“Both of you are so dumb- no offense- when it comes to each other. He gave himself a panic attack after leaving your place because he was so upset over how you thought he had dumped you and left you alone for all these years. He had it in his head that you were the bad guy who dumped him. So he had all this resentment towards you for years and he just then realized it was misplaced. He was so angry and panicked that he proceeded to punch his brick house and shatter his hand.”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“And then he came to me crying thinking I could fix his little broken wing because of his hospital scaries- but that part’s kind of cute actually in his sad puppy dog kinda way that he gets, ya know?”

I was stunned.

I felt my jaw drop. He really did think that I had dumped him…?

I replayed her entire rant in my head.

Then a giggle erupted.

I clamped my hand over my mouth.

But then Paige laughed too.

We were both losing it.

“This is so mean; we have to stop!” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes and holding my stomach.

“You’re going to make me pee, girl!” Paige struggled to say between laughs.

I took some deep breaths and calmed myself down.

“I am the worst. Please don’t say I laughed at him about this. It’s actually really sweet in a messed-up way. I am not laughing at him hurting himself, I just lost it because I know exactly the kind of sad puppy-look he gets,” I explained. “Like what were you going to do with a broken hand?! Remember when he had me butterfly his one eyebrow together because he wouldn’t go in? There’s still a hole there! It’s been like over ten years!”

“Girl, you do not have to explain to me, and I totally know,” she said, shaking her head.

“Jesus, that’s the first time I’ve laughed like that in a long time,” I told her, trying to make sure no black smudges were left on my face from runny mascara.

She patted me on the knee, “never leave me again, girl.”

Grey was still talking to Max over by the team box, so I could really look at him. Now that she’s said it, his right hockey glove did look weird, like it wasn’t on all the way.

“Is it a bad break?” I asked her, internally cringing and wishing I could give him a hug.

She shrugged, “if he does what the doctor says it’ll heal up fine, but if he moves it, like breaking the cast with a hammer as he threatened, then he’ll probably need surgery.”

“Jeez,” I paused then. “So, he really didn’t dump me?” I mulled over this question all night. The breakup texts were there on my phone.

“Jules,” she looked at me sternly. “He did not dump you. He was a wreck. I think he’s been a wreck ever since that summer. Hockey was his anger outlet. The real and raw emotions he’s shown over the last couple weeks have been more than he’s shown in the past decade.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that information. Shock that a strange miscommunication seemed to stray both of our fates away from each other. And sadness, that he’d felt so empty the past nine years. He was such a happy guy, always the one to look on the bright side of things. I knew in my heart that if he had felt the same way after the breakup as I had, he had the worse end of it because Canyon had brightened my life.

“I still feel like I’m missing something,” I told her. “We were in that accident together?”

Paige grimaced, “Yes, 100%. That’s how he got that scar, Jules,” she traced a finger down her jawline where Grey’s skin was affected.

“Girl,” Paige looked at me seriously, “that boy would still walk through fire for you.”

I turned my attention back to the ice. That was a lot to take in. Could it be true? All these years I told myself that part of my life was done. He had thrown away what we had. I held a grudge against him because I still couldn’t look at other guys. I compared everyone to him and how I felt with him, and no one could ever match up to that. A lot of times I wondered if the passing of time and the way Kevin treated me had just made me romanticize what I had with Greyson; That I had put him on some kind of misplaced pedestal in my mind and the love we shared had actually just been all me and one-sided. But sifting through my memories, I knew that wasn’t true. He had wanted and loved me too.

I caught his eye then. He was looking up in the stands directly at me. There was no guessing about it. Neither of us showed emotion. We just studied each other in the new light.