Page 66 of Cherry Picking

“Yeah, well—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever is rattling around in your skull can wait until the final horn.”

It can’t, but I give him the nod anyway. Then I go out and cross-check their winger in the numbers three seconds after the whistle, which is the kind of thing a kid in juniors does. They score on the ensuing power play. It’s entirely my fault, but the guys on the bench are gracious enough to let the silence do the talking.

We escape with the win anyway. Fozzy manages to bury a pair in the final frame, and Augie salts it away with an empty-netter to make it 4–2. The locker room afterward is loose and loud. Fozzy is already relitigating both his goals, adding more detail with every telling.

I sit at my stall with a victory over the team I despise, in the valley that raised me, with my father in the building, and I feel like a ghost. The entire night is happening to someone else.

“Podium wants you,” a staffer says, leaning into the room.

I turn in six minutes of professional dialogue. Homecoming, emotional night, great to have family here. The performance deploys and holds. Nobody asks the hard questions, and I’m grateful for the mercy.

Afterward, showered and back in my suit, I take the back hallway toward the family room, where my dad and Danny are waiting to say goodbye before we bus to the terminal.

Ophelia is rooted in the center of the corridor.

She’s clutching a small purse in both hands, positioned directly in front of the door. The hallway is empty except for an arena kid in a gold polo coiling cable thirty feet down the line.

“You played well,” she says. “The first period especially.”

“Move, Ophelia.”

“Two minutes. That’s all I’m asking.” She stays put, arms crossed over her chest. “I saw your dad out there, and I thought—he looks good, Briggs. He looks strong. And I know you don’t want to hear it from me, but Zig would’ve lost his mind tonight. You, scoring in this building. He would’ve—”

“Stop.”

“—he would have loved it, and somebody should get to say that to you, because you won’t let anybody—”

“You don’t get to talk about him,” I rasp. “Not to me. Don’t say his name or what he would’ve loved. You don’t get to stand in a hallway and grieve my brother at me.”

Her chin lifts. “I cared about him, too.”

“You were fucking him.” It lands flat and enormous in the empty hallway. “While you were with me. The two of you, back here, all those months I was in Charlotte. So no, Ophelia, you have no room to speak.”

She goes white. “Briggs—”

“I found out from his goddamn phone.” My hands have gone still at my sides. “Two years I’ve kept this to myself. My dad doesn’t know. I let him think Zig and I fell out over money, because the truth would’ve broken his damn heart.”

“I never wanted—”

“I don’t care what you wanted.” I’m tired, suddenly, all the fight draining out through the floor. “He died before I forgave him. I have to live with my half of that. You go live with yours somewhere I’m not.”

I make it a single step past her before she says, “He was going to tell you. He made me promise that I’d—”

I keep walking, and her voice dies out. Down the hall, the guy in the gold polo has stopped coiling cable, mouth ajar.

In the family room, my dad’s parked by the snack table with a soda. I cross over, hugging him hard enough that his hand comes up and pats my back twice.

“Who died?” he asks against my shoulder. Then, retreating an inch, “Ah, hell. Poor choice of words.”

I huff a laugh, even though it shouldn’t be funny.

“Good game, son.” He grips my forearm with his good hand, his fingers steady. “That first one was a masterpiece. The whole section behind us went dead quiet. I made sure every soul in that row knew exactly whose kid you are.”

“I’m sure they loved the commentary.”

He studies me, his gaze sharpening. “Are you eating? You look gray.”