She stuck her chin up in the air. “I never told him to come over and practice.”
He looked into the variegated blue in her eyes. “Not about that.”
“About what?”
He lowered his attention to her mouth. “About what happened before Derek rang the doorbell.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.” Although he really didn’t know what there was to say about that. Other than he was sorry and it wouldn’t happen again.
He tore his gaze from his assistant’s mouth and followed the kid down the hall. Derek’s socks slid down his skinny shins as he walked. “Are you in hockey camp this year?”
Derek shook his head. “My mom said we don’t got the money this year.”
Mark knew that a lot of kids got their hockey camp fee paid for through one of the Chinooks’ various organizations. He was fairly sure Derek had been one of those kids last year. “Didn’t you get a scholarship?”
“Not this year.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know.”
Mark walked beside Derek into the kitchen. The light bounced off the kid’s red hair, glasses, and the white, white skin between all those freckles.
“What name did we pick out for you last year?” he asked as he moved to the refrigerator and opened it.
Derek set his skates on the floor beside his feet. “The Hackster.”
“That’s right.” At camp, each kid got a hockey name. Derek was the Hackster for the way he hacked at the puck. Mark pulled out a bottle of green Gatorade and opened it with the palm of his right hand.
“Does it hurt?”
Mark looked up. “What?”
“Your hand.”
He tossed the cap on the granite island and flexed his fingers. The middle one stayed perfectly stiff. “It kind of aches sometimes. Not as much as it used to.” He handed Derek the bottle.
“Does your middle finger bend?”
Mark held up his hand and showed the kid. “Nope. It stays like this no matter what.”
“That’s cool.”
He laughed. “You think so?”
“Yep. You can flip people off and not get in trouble.” Derek took a long drink until he ran out of breath and lowered the bottle. “The school can’t call your mom,” he said between gasps, “’cause it’s not your fault.”
True. In his case, the school would have called his grandmother, who would have told his father, who wo
uld have skinned his behind.
“Are you going to play hockey again?”
Mark shook his head and looked down at the cap on the granite island. His agent had called him earlier that afternoon about possibly commentating for ESPN. “Afraid not.” While he wasn’t ruling it out, he’d wait for a solid offer. He wasn’t all that excited about sitting in a studio and talking about the game rather than being on the ice where the action took place. But as his agent had pointed out, job offers for Mark Bressler were drying up as fast as endorsement deals.
“My mom took me to a playoffs game against Detroit. We won three to one.” Derek took another drink, then pushed his glasses up. “Ty Savage put a hit on McCarty in retaliation for the hit McCarty put on Savage in game four. It was a good game, but it would have been better if you’d been there.” Derek looked up. His eyes glazed with hero worship. “You’re the best player ever. Better than Savage.”