Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Asher nods. “He’s almost as vicious as the Reddit group members.”
“That’s what you want? Someone to fight you on baseball trivia?”
“Course. I’m a hockey player,” he says. “I live to fight.”
“As long as you’re not fighting online from your burner account anymore.”
“I can learn, Everly,” he says.
“I appreciate it and you so much,” I say, then continue down the hall. I’m pretty sure Max is watching me as I go. And I shouldn’t check, but I can’t resist. I turn my head, and yep. He’s shooting me a final curious look before he heads into the locker room, like he isn’t sure what to make of me.
I’m not sure either, especially since I’m looking forward to Thursday more than I should. I have no idea what he has planned, but I want to know him better.
On Thursday afternoon, Max leads me past dimly lit empty locker rooms and out toward a community ice rink, pointing to the stands. This place is nothing like the Sea Dogs state-of-the-art arena, with its high-backed vegan leather seats in every row. This run-down rink on the outskirts of Oakland has bleachers only. “Front row seats,” he says with a wry grin. “Unless you want to help me coach today?”
It’s asked with a challenge in his tone. A tease. “I’ll watch, thanks.”
“You do that,” he says as I take a spot in the first row. A smattering of parents and caregivers are here, bundled up in hoodies, hunched over phones or books. Others are simply watching the action on the ice as their six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds lace up.
Max trots down to the bench where he quickly laces up too. He’s wearing a warm-up suit, like the coaches usually wear for morning skate with the players since, well, it turns out he coaches young players. I had no idea. Of course I had no idea. But now he’s showing me, and I’m a little gobsmacked.
A woman with long, dark hair sits next to him, striking up an easy conversation I can’t hear. She wears a similar outfit and is lacing her skates.
I don’t want to miss a second, so I lean forward, perched on the uncomfortable, metal seat as Max gets right into it on the ice with about a dozen or so kids.
“Who brought their A game today?” he asks in a not-so-scary voice.
A young boy waves his hockey stick, shouting, “Me!”
A girl about the same age weighs in with, “Me too.”
More kids shout their me too.
The woman glides onto the ice. “That’s what Coach Lambert and I like to hear. And you know the drill.”
“Time for warm-ups,” Max says, then pushes backward on his skates. It’s an effortless move—one I’ve seen him do thousands of times on the ice. Except now he’s not doing it in a professional rink, in front of twenty or thirty thousand fans who pay top dollar. He’s doing it for kids. “Skating backward has to be as easy as skating forward.”
“But it’s so much easier to skate forward,” one of the boys says, not quite whining but getting very close.
“Of course it is. That’s because your brain wants to go that way,” Max says, tapping the side of his head, talking to them so easily, like he spoke to his nephew the other week. “But the more you do it, the more your brain treats backward the same till you can do it just as well.”
“I don’t think my brain thinks like that, Coach Lambert,” a girl with red curls flying out from under her helmet says.
Coach Lambert. That is too adorable. I’m smiling too big.
“You’ll train it to, Hannah,” he says. “And your body as well. You ready?”
They spin around, some awkwardly, some smoothly, and work on drills with Max and the woman as they skate backward. He’s patient with each kid but also tough. He doesn’t sugarcoat how hard the game is. He does talk up the rewards though—teamwork, fun, accomplishment.
“Don’t worry. You’ll all get the hang of it,” he says, spinning around and quickly shifting into crossovers, then stops. When they’re done with the basic skating drills, Max moves them into relay races to warm them up.
He didn’t even tell me where he was taking me this afternoon. He just said he’d pick me up at work, to expect a thirty-minute drive, and to wear a hoodie. But Max coaching kids the tricks of his trade in a rundown skating rink? Nope. Never had this on my radar screen. I don’t want to take my eyes off the ice as they work on puck-handling drills, maneuvering past cones with their sticks.
Who knew?
I’m shaking my head, a little awed, a lot shocked. He’s not the Max he is with me, teasing, goading, pushing. He’s a different guy here—direct, encouraging, totally approachable.
I’m clutching my phone in my hands, feeling a little giddy, a little fizzy even. It would go such a long way if people knew he did this. How can he hide this? Why doesn’t he tell his agent? Or Thrive? Or the team?