Page 113 of Home of the Brave

After we crossed the first street, he took my hand. “I got a call from my manager earlier today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, seems I’m trending right now on a few social media platforms.”

I laughed. “From being such a good goalie?”

“You’d think that, but no.” He shot me a teasing smirk. “Apparently, certain videos have gone viral, and my name is being brought up in the comments.”

“How interesting.” I swung our hands between us while waiting for the light to change.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

I pretended to think about it. “You know, that sounds vaguely familiar.”

We were about to pass through the main doors, a young voice called out, “Josh Henson?”

He immediately turned with a bright smile. I caught the boy, about nine or ten, running from his parents toward us with a tournament shirt on. “It’s you!”

“Hey,” Josh held up his hand for a high five. “What’s your name?”

“Alex.” His head was all the way back, looking up at Josh with wonder. “You’re huge.”

“I’m pretty average for a goalie,” Josh played it off. “So are you a Stars fan?”

Alex aggressively nodded. “We’re from Denver.” He pointed back to his parents, nearly on the opposite side of the block.

“Oh no, do you wish Jason Dexter was the goalie?” Josh asked.

“Nah, I like you.”

Josh laughed. “Thanks. Have you been to any of the games?”

“We were there this morning.” He was jumping on his toes, and his parents finally caught up.

“Sorry, he saw you and ran,” his mom apologized, but Josh brushed it off.

“No problem, I’m always glad to meet fans in the wild.”

“You won the game!” Alex declared as if it was Josh alone on the ice.

“The boys played really well, huh?”

“You had the most saves, though. Like so many, I lost count.”

“Twenty-four,” his dad supplied and offered his hand. “I’m Tyler, nice to meet you.”

Josh shook his hand. “You too. Thanks for coming all the way out to support us.”

“Oh, we’ve been looking forward to this since they announced it. Then, when they posted the teams…” Tyler whistled. “It’s a dream come true.”

“Would you mind if we got a picture?” the woman asked, holding up her phone.

“Here, let me,” I offered, and she handed it over. I moved back to get them all in the frame. Tyler and Alex were on either side of Josh, while the woman stood by the boy. “Say Go Stars!”

“Go Stars!” they echoed, and I took a few for them to choose from.

“Thank you so much,” they each gushed several times.