1. Tate

Ibarely have my gloves off when my phone buzzes from the pocket of my suit jacket hanging behind me in my locker. I rush to grab it, but it’s Conner and not my dad so I send it to voicemail and continue undressing. Nash Westwood is grinning at me from across the dressing room.

“What?” I ask, a smile playing on my mouth. “It’s no big deal.”

“You liar. It’s the biggest deal for guys like us,” Nash replies as he brushes his dirty blond hair, damp with sweat, off his forehead.

I smirk and shrug. He”s right, of course. Our eyes meet and he knows I appreciate his understanding. Being the son, or daughter, of a famous athlete is a club we both belong to. Being the only son of arguably the best hockey player in the last two decades is an honor and a curse, Nash shares with his twin brother Crew. Their dad, Avery Westwood, was the league”s number-one golden boy when he played. He set a lot of records that still stand today but not the record for the most short-handed goals in a season. That”s held by my dad, Jordan Garrison. And, after tonight, I”m so close to beating it, I can taste it.

My phone is beeping and buzzing like it’s having a software meltdown. I ignore all of it, not even glancing at it. Nash’s eyes keep darting to it, though, as it bounces and buzzes on the bench beside me and I shrug. “Family group text. They’re brutal when you have eight cousins, three aunts, three uncles, and two grandparents.”

“And all of them know or play hockey and all of them have big opinions,” Nash adds.

I grin. “Big, well-meaning but annoying opinions.”

”Remind me to thank my Uncle Seb and Aunt Shayne for having puppies instead of children,” Nash quips.

My phone rings again. The name on the screen is ”The ”Rents”. I pick up this time and fight like hell to sound as nonchalant as possible. ”Hey.”

“Hey my ass,” Dad says, and I fucking love the sound of his voice. I always like talking to my dad. We’ve never even had a rough patch in our relationship. Not even when I was a cocky, brash, hormonal teenager. But now, listening to his voice thick with pride, it’s the best sound in the entire world. “You are just three goals away from not just matching my record, but breaking it. You little, amazing shit. I am so proud of you.”

”Three is a lot when there”s only ten games left in the regular season,” I remind him. I can get three goals in seven games with one arm tied behind my back, blindfolded. But this isn’t about just getting goals. It’s short-handed goals. We need to be on a power play, down one person, on the defensive, for me to score a goal that will count against my dad’s record. Short-handed goals are this magical clusterfuck of circumstances, talent and luck.

“Well, if you don’t score three shorties in that time, you’ll have to focus your energy on getting your name on that Cup,” Dad replies with a chuckle. “There are worse problems to have, Tater Tot.”

“Yeah, like getting called Tater Tot at twenty-freaking-two,” I complain, but I’m smiling and I know he can hear that in my voice.

”Oh to be twenty-two again and think I”m an actual grown-up.” Dad laughs like I”m a toddler asking if I can drive the car. He doesn”t mean it in a patronizing way. It”s more whimsical like he misses being young.

“Those were the days, old man?” I ask, snarky as usual. Dad’s not exactly geriatric. He’s in his fifties.

“Hell no,” Dad replies. “I was a disaster at your age. Ask your mother. But I was in the process of making the history you’re trying to re-write.”

Dad got his first short-handed goal record, tying the previous record-holder, when he was twenty-one, and then, seven years later, after being traded from the Seattle Winterhawks to the Brooklyn Barons, he beat that record by two goals and no one has beaten it since. But I”m going to.

Fifteen goals is all I need. I’m at twelve.

“What are you up to after the game?”

“Beers with the guys and food, I think,” I tell him. “We have a local spot by the beach we love. They have pool tables and great wings.”

“Cool. Mom was hoping you’d have a date.” We both groan a little and he adds, “She means well.”

“You just pointed out that’s not even old enough to stop being called infantile nicknames,” I say and grin. “Tell Mom to cool her jets.”

“Will do,” Dad says. “I’ll let you go sow your oats. Just wanted to say if someone has to wipe away my legendary record, I’m happy it might be you.”

“Will be me. And thanks Dad,” I refrain from adding ‘I love you’ because Nash and now his brother Crew are staring at me as they peel out of the last of their gear and get ready for the showers.

“Night Tater Tot.”

“Argh! Night.”

I hang up and shove my phone in my jacket pocket. Nash smiles at me as he wraps a towel around his waist and walks by on his way to the shower. “I hope my dad is that big a supporter when I eventually crush his records.”

”I”ll let you know how he reacts when I do it first,” Crew adds. They”re not identical twins, although they look similar with dirty blond hair and matching brown eyes, but Crew is stockier, and Nash is taller. Crew has a wider jaw and nose and Nash has a narrow nose and he can barely grow a playoff beard whereas Crew looks like Grizzly Adams by the end of the first game. The most glaring difference is their personalities. Crew is brash and cocky and aggressive. Nash is quiet and mellow and almost shy. Crew is covered in tattoos, recently getting two full sleeves, and Nash doesn”t have one. On the ice, though, they”re exactly the same—skilled, fast, with an incredible slap shot, and face-off wins that always lead the league. But they haven”t beat their dad”s face-off record. Yet.

Nash gives Crew the finger for that comment as they proceed to the showers, and I strip out of the last of my gear and join them. A few other guys congratulate me on inching closer to the short-handed goals record and I just nod and change the subject to who wants to go out for beers and food. I don’t want to jinx this by making everyone hyper-focused on it. Or acting like I care about it. Even though I do care. A lot. I scored my first short-handed goal in the first game of the season and it was somehow the easiest goal I ever scored. It just felt so simple. And then I scored another in the next game. By the mid-point in the season the media was buzzing. I was more than halfway to my dad’s record. The second half of this season hasn’t been so easy, but I’m still managing to score the shorties.

“What was your dad ribbing you about?” Crew asks as he turns on his shower and I step into the stall beside him.

“My mom wants me to go on dates instead of out with you goons after the games,” I tell him.

Crew groans. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m lucky because my mom was relieved when things ended with Anne-Marie and me. She never let me know it when we were together but she thought I was too young to settle down.”

“You were. You are.” Crew is one year older than me. He got married at nineteen for crying out loud. No wonder it didn’t last. “I don’t want to settle down until my late thirties, at the earliest, if at all.”

Mom might want me to settle down and fall in love and have something outside of hockey, but that sounds like a living nightmare to me. I just want to live, breathe, and be hockey. Inside and out. Sure, I have needs and urges and I meet them with very lovely, fun, willing bed buddies, which bugs Mom too. But it”s archaic and misogynistic to think that women can”t also want to have a primal, no-strings friend. I told her that last summer when she lectured me about Diana”s potential feelings.

Diana Hutchens had no issue having a little naked fun with me. She had ambitions and priorities that were bigger than a relationship too. We got each other. We could also make each other come pretty easily. It was a great arrangement for a while. Diana never once hinted at making it more than it was. I was actually kind of bummed when her dream of moving to England panned out for her because the arrangement we had stopped. And because I never got the chance to smooth things over with Mallory Echolls, who also went to England.

Mal and Di and I were inseparable until they came to visit me in Los Angeles and Mal and I fucked around. It got awkward fast after that, even though Diana didn’t care. I never got to see them again because they haven’t been back to America since. Last I heard Diana was working in London for some social media marketing firm and was in an actual relationship with some guy. And Mallory was putting her early education degree to work as a nanny. I felt their absence last summer. I had emailed them both, but never heard back from either of them, so I made the best of it with a random hookup here and there.

“What are you thinking about. You look… weird,” Nash notes.

“Some old friends,” I mutter as I turn off the water and grab my towel. “You coming for wings or you gonna be your usual party-pooper self and go home and read a book or something ridiculous.”

“Reading is life, bro,” Nash says without a hint of mocking in his tone. Man, how is this guy a star forward like me? He’d be better suited to a job in a basement sorting files or, like, working at a library. If I was into setting up my relatives, I’d set him up with my cousin Mae, who we all call Mayhem. She reads all the time too and is as anti-social as him.

“Wings and beer and bonding with your teammates beats any book, bro,” I say and give him a friendly shove.

“Can we order teriyaki wings?”

“Yeah. Gross but yeah.”

Nash grins at me. “I’m in.”

* * *

Two hours later we”ve consumed our weight in various wing flavors. Crew is still sweating from the Inferno sauce on his. We”re ordering our fourth draft beers and Collingwood, our goalie, is trying to beat Nash at pool. Two women at the bar have noticed us and aren”t even being subtle about it. Crew and I are deciding which one of us will buy them a round first.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I”ve been getting a lot of group chat notifications with the family chat and the male cousins” WhatsApp group. Everyone is psyched about me inching up on my dad’s record. Also, the fact that if my team, the L.A. Quake, win just half the remaining games they clinch top spot in the division going into the playoffs. This is the shit that gets my family riled up and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I glance at the messages between pool rounds but never respond because it drives some of them nuts that I don’t and I love pushing familial buttons.

TENLEY: What are you too cool to talk to us now?

GRADY: You know my team is gonna make the playoffs too. You ain’t special.

THEO: He’s special. A special kind of egomaniac. FYI I’ll break your record next year kid.

I add a laughing face to Theo”s comment. He”s the second youngest cousin and he”s been in the league for all of seven months. He”s scored three goals, none of them shorties. I am so not worried.

And as I”m waiting for his response, which will likely be a ”fuck you”, which will send his mom, my Aunt Rose, into a rant about language, I get another message. This one is from some weird number I don”t know. It”s not even American. It doesn”t have a three-digit area code. I figure it”s some kind of spam or something but I open it anyway.

Tate? It’s Mallory.

I blink and re-read it three times. I was just thinking about her earlier tonight and she’s messaging me? My heart starts galloping because fuck, I’ve missed her. If she’s contacting me, then she’s no longer angry at me for that night in the hotel room, right?

Echolls.

Echolls? Does she think I wouldn’t remember her? That I have a long list of Mallorys in my life? I type back quickly.

‘I don’t need a last name, baby girl’ is what I type out but then I erase it. Too much, too soon. Mallory is like a skittish deer on a good day and this, after what we did, probably isn’t her feeling super comfortable or confident.

I don’t need your last name Mal. I’ve missed you! How are things? Is this a UK number?

Yeah. I’m in London.

Cool. With Di? You guys must like it a lot. :( Missed you guys here though.

It feels like a normal thing to say right? Small talk between old friends. But it also feels ridiculously awkward because we haven’t spoken a word in so long that small talk isn’t normal. I furrow my brow as I look at the message. Should I have said ‘you guys’? She knows I’m referring to Diana, right? Does she think I want Diana again?

Heard Di‘s got a BF. That’s great!

There. That helps, right?

There are a few typing bubbles. Then nothing. Then Typing bubbles. Nothing. Typing bubbles.

I am coming to Los Angeles.

What? I’m immediately excited but also equally apprehensive.

Cool! Let’s get together. Do you need a place to stay?

Yes. That would be good. Thanks.

Holy shit. I just went from not knowing if I would ever see Mallory again to inviting her to stay with me. Wait… for how long? And why? Why does she suddenly want to see me, but her texts are almost cold and distant like she doesn’t actually want to see me.

Everything alright?

Bubbles. Nothing. Bubbles. Nothing. Bubbles. Nothing. Bubbles.

I’m fine. I have a flight booked for Thursday.

Shit. That’s in forty-eight hours.

I have a home game that night and leave the next day for a road trip.

Bubbles. Nothing. Bubbles. Nothing.

“Dude! More family texts or something good?” Crew asks, grinning. “You making plans for later? What’s her name? Christine again or you finally gonna score with that neighbor of yours?”

“An old friend is coming to visit,” I mutter and turn my back to the boys to continue the conversation with Mallory in private.

I have to come Thursday. And I have to see you.

My stomach lurches and drops, like a kid on a swing who jumps off on the upswing.

K. Will make it work. Something wrong?

See you Thursday. Thanks.

Mallory… can you call me? Let’s talk.

Can’t. Will talk Thursday.

“Fuck this,” I mutter and I immediately hit the call button on my WhatsApp. The phone goes straight to voicemail without even ringing. She’s turned it off.

That’s fucking weird. What person under the age of thirty ever turns off their phone? I get an uneasy feeling in my gut as I turn back to the guys. Nash is eyeing me thoughtfully. “You try one of my brother’s taste bud-destroying wings or something? You’re making a face.”

“Did your booty call deny you?” Crew jokes.

“Nah that was an old friend who is coming to visit,” I explain, shoving my phone into my pocket. “But she was weird about it. And we didn’t exactly leave things on great terms the last time we saw each other.”

“Wait. This is a female friend?” Crew’s eyebrows lift. “With benefits?”

“Does Garrison have any other kind of female friends?” Collingwood quips and the Westwood twins snicker.

“Fuck off and get me a beer,” I mutter and Collingwood trots off toward the bar.

Crew follows. “Let’s see if those girls are thirsty too.”

Nash starts racking the balls for another game. I can’t get the texts with Mallory out of my head so I grab my jacket and turn to Nash. “I’m gonna head.”

“Seriously? You’re the one that bullied me into coming out and you’re ghosting me?”

I smirk. “That’s not what ghosting is, dude. And I didn’t bully you, you pussy. Besides, you’ve got your brother and Collingwood.”

I point to the bar, where Crew and Collingwood are buying drinks for the two women. “And now you’ve got some women too.”

”Ah fuck.” Nash drops his pool cue on the table and grabs his own jacket off the chair at the high-top table. ”I”m out too.”

I don’t argue with him. I just head to the door and he follows. “Text your brother and let him know we bailed.”

He nods. “I will when I get home. Trust me, he probably won’t even notice. All he cares about since Anne-Marie left is getting laid.”

“I guess that’s to be expected after a life-changing break-up,” I surmise but honestly, I have no fucking idea.

We walk together up Abbott Kinney Boulevard because Nash lives just off it, and I live on it and we’ve both had too many beers to drive. The owner of our wing bar will always let us leave our cars overnight. Nash looks over at me. “So why did you want to bail? You’re usually Crew’s wingman.”

“The friend who is coming to visit,” I explain. “Her text was weird. Something is up and I don’t know what but, I don’t know, I just lost the mood.”

“She a friend with benefits like Collingwood said?” Nash asks.

“No. Yeah. I mean… once.” Nash rolls his eyes and I shake my head. “I know. It was a bad decision and that’s why I haven’t talked to her since.”

”This that tall blonde who came to visit from your hometown? The one with the short blonde friend?” Nash asks.

“It’s the short blonde. Not the tall blonde.”

He stops on the sidewalk, a foot from the crosswalk where he’ll turn left and I will continue straight up Abbott Kinney. His brown eyes are so wide you can’t see the whites at all. “Wait… you messed around with the short blonde? While you were also messing around with the tall blonde? Aren’t they best friends?”

”Yes, they”re friends. And no, not at the same time or anything, but Diana—the tall blonde—wasn”t, like my girlfriend, and she not only didn”t care she urged me to mess around with Mallory. The short blonde.” I know defending myself to him is futile because no matter how I word it, it sounds bad.

“Shit, dude.” Nash shakes his head and starts walking again. “You are reaffirming my decision to stay home and read instead of dating. So thanks for that.”

”I wasn”t dating!” I remind him. ”I was in a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Nash stops as he reaches the crosswalk and turns to stare at me, his face growing serious. “Could she be pregnant?”

“Fuck no!” I snap confidently. “Not a possibility. At all.”

”No birth control is foolproof, fool.”

”Not putting your dick in someone is pretty foolproof,” I reply flatly, and Nash just shakes his head and keeps walking away.

“See you at practice tomorrow, you non-penetration stud.”

I make it home a few minutes later and get ready for bed. Once I’m under the covers I stare at my phone, scrolling Instagram. My account is run by an assistant who works for my agent but I also have the password. I send her photos that I think are cool and she posts things she thinks fit my brand. I just can’t be bothered to do it myself. Also, I don’t know what the fuck my brand is, and have no inclination to learn.

I don”t follow anyone except hockey and sponsorship-related accounts, so like ESPN, Trader Joe”s who I did a paid partnership with, Bauer, Under Armour, the league, and my team of course. But I know the socials of some of my Silver Bay friends and of course, my relatives who dare to be online. I scroll to those first. I don”t know why, or what I”m looking for, but I feel like there”s a missing piece with Mallory and this visit, and for some reason, checking in with other Silver Bay people feels appropriate.

I see nothing overly interesting from most of my relatives. Tenley posted a work shot of her behind the camera and a bunch of professional lights on some school project. My cousin Liv posted a picture of some meal she ate. Grady posted his legs bulging as he did a leg press.

“Thirst trap,” I mutter and punch in Diana’s account. She still hasn’t posted since the day she left for England. Her last photo was sixteen months ago and it was a picture through the window of a plane, with Portland, Maine, below in the distance. The caption was “Leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.”

Why she dropped Insta as soon as she got to England is beyond me. Maybe Mallory can enlighten me when she’s here. I scroll to her account and see nothing has changed. She stopped using it the weekend they came to visit. Her last post is the three of us at that Mexican restaurant we got drunk at in Beverly Hills. Right before we rented the hotel room. It’s just a picture of our three hands clinking our margarita glasses together. No caption.

I drop my phone on the charger turn off my light and try to push down the uneasy feeling in my gut. Does Mallory want to tell me how hurt she was by what we did? Does she regret it? Or worse does she not and she”s coming here to confess feelings or something insane? I mean, she”s great. I miss her in my life, but I don”t want to date anyone right now. I have one responsibility. Hockey. And that”s exactly the way I want it.