Holiday Hockey Tale The Icebreaker's Impasse (By Ivory Row) novel Chapter 3

Easton–His Graduation Day

(two months before their wedding)

“Daddy, I like your hat.” Cole says as I make sure it fits. I should have done that when I picked it up, but life got in the way.

“Well it can be yours when I’m done wearing it today.” I offer, zipping up the robe.

“Ok. Mommy and I will be cheering for you today. Barrett’s here.” He hugs my leg and takes off for the kitchen. I can hear Barrett laughing as Cole opens the door. He will be sitting with Luci and our families. Banning had to finish a job this morning though and needed Luci to watch Barrett for a few hours.

She walks in holding her phone. “Did you make dinner reservations for 5 or 6?” Her eyes look up at me and she smiles. “You look very scholarly.” She turns it quickly, taking my picture.

I frown playfully at her. “I’m much more comfortable in a hockey jersey.” I take the robe and cap off and run my fingers through my hair.

“That proves the universe isn’t fair because you look equally good in that too. But maybe it is fair because I get to stare at you in both.” She grins and moves close enough for me to grab her.

“Long as you still like to stare at me, sweetness.”

“I do.” She leans her chin on my chest to stare up at me.

“Now those might be my two new favorite future words you need to be practicing.” I kiss her slowly.

“Baker has brunch ready since you guys have to leave in about an hour per the school instructions.”

“Let’s go check on the rascals then.”

When we each cross the stage, Cole is hopping up and down on his chair along with Barrett. Luci has her arms around both of them for balance. Once the program is all over, we begin making our way through the crowd to find our family. I spy Cole racing toward me. Luci cautions him to be careful. I pick him up and put him on my shoulders to keep him away from the crowd pressing in. Luci and I talked about whether or not I want to keep him away today with cameras and eyes going off. Since Lorelei came back and then Vivienne’s case going public during the trial, Cole is not as hidden as he once was. While I don’t want him to become media fodder, I also don’t want to never hug my son in public. Considering he will be a frequent guest at the hockey arena this fall, I was fine with him being with me today. They’ve found plenty of pictures of Luci to talk about our upcoming wedding.

She waves to us and then I see someone tap her on the shoulder. She turns and smiles before reaching out to hug them. His face comes into view….Julian. I shake my head slightly and make my way to her faster. Becker laughs softly as he sees where I’m headed. I’m not worried about her at all, but I don’t like her hugging him no matter what.

“Congratulations.” She’s saying as I reach her side. It’s then I see Edward Soames there too.

“I hear you’ll be graduating in a few months, Luci.” The elder Soames speaks to her with a kind smile.

“Yes sir. I will.”

“Getting married right after that too, Dad. Easton made sure he locked her down.” Julian says with a big grin.

“Can you blame me?” I interject and she turns to smile up at me. “Mr. Soames, Julian.” I hold my hand out and shake theirs. “Congratulations on the draft by the way.” I wrap my hand around her waist and Mr. Soames waves to Cole on my shoulders.

“Backup quarterback close to home. I guess I could have done worse.” He shrugs his shoulders. He was drafted by a team about three hours away. Not Marshall’s old team. They cut him when he was convicted and sent to prison. He was already demoted down to their third string after he attacked Luci and the video of his ceremony went live. I had almost wished it was his old team. More humiliation for that asshole. When I expressed my less than kind thoughts to my sweetness, she’d pointed out that would be hard on Julian. The team might treat him like he was Marshall.

“Umm, Luci, could I talk to you for a minute?” Julian rubs the back of his neck and motions to the side.

“Yes.” She gives my hand a squeeze and I release her. They step a few feet away and he looks pretty nervous as he talks to her. When he finishes, she places a hand on his arm and smiles softly at him.

“You know, I’m not sure everything she said to him, but she did a lot to help change him and the path he was on. I knew my oldest son wasn’t the most honorable but had no idea everything he’d done until Julian told me.” Edward shakes his head with remorse. “I wish I’d known sooner.”

“I think we all feel that way Mr. Soames. She is special that’s for sure.”

Julian looks relieved, nodding his head as they rejoin us. “Ready to go eat, Dad?”

“I am. It was nice to see you again Luci. We’ll be at the wedding. Jason was kind enough to invite me.” Edward waves to Cole again with a smile and leaves us.

Julian lingers for only a minute. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Easton. Luci, if anything ever happens and he can’t protect you, please let me know if you need someone taken care of. See you at the wedding.”

“Thank you, I think.” Luci says with a laugh.

Once they are out of sight, I raise one eyebrow at her curiously. “Outside. Not in here.” She

adds before stretching on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Cole can use your hat as his snack table up there next time we go to the tree lighting or a parade.” She laughs and I shake my head slowly.

Dad wanted to take some pictures of us, so we go find him. I’m impatiently dying to know what Julian needed to talk to her privately about. Cole decides to ride to the restaurant with Grandpappy, Baker, and Barrett. Baker now goes by Papa B most of the time too.

I lift her into her seat and stare intently at her. I’m reaching for her seatbelt when she stops me. “Hurry and get in so I can tell you. I can do that. You’re about to explode wanting to know what he said.” She’s right, but I fasten it anyway.

The minute the door shuts, she turns to me. “He wanted to ask if he could bring a date to the wedding. He’s been seeing someone for about four months and needed to know if it was alright.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I know there’s more to it.

“It’s Elizabeth, Mike’s sister that Marshall harassed when she refused to date him. He wasn’t sure if her being there would remind me of Marshall too much. I told him to please bring her.

Happy people do not remind me of Marshall Soames in any way. He wanted to make sure since we invited him directly, but not her. They met a few months ago at the victim meeting Mr. Edward had. They hit it off and have been seeing each other. He’s in deep; talked about her with that gone look on his face. Plus she’s a smart girl. She stayed away from his brother unlike me.”

“Sweetness, you are more than smart. You are wise and brilliant. You just had no experience with assholes like him.” I reach over and turn her face to mine. “Life lesson and you showed you have more tenacity and grace in your pinky finger than half the people in this world. If I could go back and save you from him, I would. Even though I was a total train wreck at that time.”

“It’s ok, Easton. I’m fine with how things worked. Maybe he was what needed to happen to me while you were struggling. We learned how to survive separately so we could help each other later on. And we each dealt with being emotionally manipulated and harmed. I learned how hard that can be to recognize. Learned even more how to see all facets of a person. Made sure I would search for every piece of you when we started dating. I like to pretend we were always meant to be, but weren’t ready to heal each other at that time.” She holds my hand to her cheek.

“I fully believe that. My soulmate….you have to be that as perfectly as we fit together. And honestly, Cole is so much like you in his heart. Meant to be with you and no one can convince me otherwise. I think maybe you should write down all your words of wisdom into a book for me.”

She laughs. “No one wants to read that.”

“They should.”

Nick Humphries

“Franklin!” I call out loudly as I stomp into the athletic building. Or what they call the athletic building of this little community college he managed to get a coaching job in. “FRANKLIN!”

A tall, thin boy sticks his head around a doorway probably to their locker room. “He’s in his office probably passed out.”

I snort and roll my eyes before stomping there. Sure enough, he’s in his chair with his feet on his desk drinking a beer. About ten cans of it overflowing out of his trash can onto the floor.

Franklin!” I slam the door behind me in case I end up punching him. The less witnesses the better for this.

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