“What’s another word for hot mess?” Ally asked Clarissa, phone pinned between her shoulder and ear as she tried to fan the black smoke of a ruined dinner out the kitchen window. “Like, a hotter, messier word?”

Clarissa laughed. “Searching for a crossword clue?”

“More like a personal power word. It can really set the tone for the day,” she said, doing her best impersonation of Savannah Hart, a shiny, happy, eternal optimist.

“God, we need to find you some new podcasts. You’re doing New Age wrong, Ally. ”

“I’m doing everything wrong.”

It was the day after the hockey debacle, and she’d taken a sick day from work to spend time with Reggie—risky, considering she’d taken yesterday afternoon off and she was still the newbie at the office—but the kid refused to speak to her. She hadn’t uttered a single word in more than twenty-four hours. Ally had planned to serve up Reggie’s favorite dinner tonight as a peace offering, but somehow she’d ruined the baked chicken enchiladas, too, nearly burning down the kitchen in the process.

“What’s going on?” Clarissa asked.

She filled Clarissa in about Reggie’s hockey shenanigans, leaving out the part about falling into the arms of Roscoe LeGrand, the memory of which sent a weird little jolt into her belly.

She also left out the part about how she’d since thought of a hundred more intelligent and charming things she could’ve said instead, and how she was secretly wishing they’d met under circumstances that didn’t involve her daughter careening around on the ice at lightning speeds, and she especially left out the part about last night’s not-so-G-rated dream about him, leaving her aching and unfulfilled and still half-dreaming about his impossibly strong arms…

But anyway.

“Reggie’s been locked in her room ever since,” Ally finished up. “Slamming things around and blasting that horrible emo music. I swear she’s trying to put me in an early grave.”

Clarissa stifled a laugh—Ally could totally hear that through the phone, like it was a real struggle to keep it stuffed down inside. “Holy shit, Als. You sound like such a mom right now, it’s scary.”

“I am a mom. Just not a good one. Hence the hot mess.”

“Why didn’t you call me sooner? I must’ve just missed you guys yesterday—I was there for the photo shoot. No one mentioned anything about Reg.”

“It’s not your job to clean up our disasters.”

“Ally. Come on.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Ally said. It was a huge deal, actually, but she didn’t want Clarissa to worry. Her best friend had already done so much for her—Reggie too—and she didn’t want Clarissa to let this interfere with her PR work. “I handled it, brought her home, forbid her from playing. From leaving the house at all, actually.”

“Hence the emo music and the slamming.”

“Now you’re all caught up.”

“I can’t believe she went out there on her own,” Clarissa said. Ally swore there was a hint of admiration in Clarissa’s voice.

“That makes two of us. Well, three, if you count the hockey guy.”

“Which one?”

“The cute one with the clipboard. I think he’s the captain?” Ally’s heart did a weird little jump. Annoying.

“Ah. Roscoe LeGrand.”

“Right. Anyway, she had everyone fooled pretty good. Roscoe says she’s super talented.”

“She always was,” Clarissa said.

“No kidding.” Ally opened the fridge, trying to find a way to salvage dinner. She hadn’t had time to do a proper grocery shopping this week, and the pickings were pretty slim. She’d pinned all her hopes on those enchiladas.

Ally tried not to look at it as a sign.

“She didn’t even ask me about it, Clar,” she said. “Didn’t even give me a chance to consider it.”

After a long pause, Clarissa asked, “Would you have said yes?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Okay. I get that you’re pissed about the lying and sneaking around—you have every right.”

“Spit it out, sister. I can hear that ‘but’ coming a mile away.”

“But,” Clarissa said, “it takes a lot of guts to get out there on the ice with a bunch of NHL players and boys twice her size, and she was obviously serious about it, considering everything she did to get there. Sounds to me like it’s pretty important to her.”

“Hey. Who’s side are you on?”

“Ally…” Another sigh and an extra long pause, and Ally knew what was coming next. She braced herself for it, but no matter how many times Clarissa brought it up—no matter how gently and carefully she stepped around the land mines of Ally’s heart—Ally was never quite prepared to hear the sound of her husband’s name.

“She misses Dan,” Clarissa said, and Ally winced, her eyes blurring with tears.

“So do I,” Ally whispered.

“I realize that, hon. I just think this hockey thing could be a way for Reggie to connect with her dad in a more—I don’t know—joyful way? To honor the good memories instead of focusing on the sad ones. Does that make sense?”

Ally shut the fridge door and rested her forehead against the stainless steel. No, it didn’t make sense. Nothing in her life made sense anymore.

But deep down she knew Clarissa was right.

Rather than honoring her husband’s life, Ally had spent the last few years obsessing over his death, over all the things she might have done to prevent it. What if she’d cooked breakfast that morning, making him five minutes later for work? What if she’d gotten him up and out the door five minutes earlier? What if she’d asked him to take the day off? Or to stop and pick up her prescription first? In any of those scenarios, he would’ve arrived at work at a different time. He wouldn’t have gone down to the plant floor at that precise moment, wouldn’t have been there right when the rigging for one of the conveyor systems broke loose. Wouldn’t have noticed the man standing beneath it. Wouldn’t have leapt to shove that man out of the way, saving the man’s life while sacrificing his own.

Now Ally worried that all of their happy memories of Dan—family fishing trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, watching the snow fall outside their big bay window on Christmas mornings as Reggie tore open her presents, laughing at his horrible cooking, planning surprises together for Reggie’s birthdays, helping him match his suits and ties—would eventually be tainted by this immense grief, the sharp pain of loss seeping into the past and poisoning it until all she could remember about him was the black hole he’d left behind. She wanted Reggie to be able to remember her father with a smile on her face, not with a broken heart. Ally hadn’t been able to find anything in her life that reminded her of Dan without squeezing the air out of her lungs, but maybe Reggie still had that chance. Maybe hockey was supposed to be that thing for her.

And maybe Ally had no right to get in the way of that. Of her daughter’s chance at peace and acceptance. At happiness.

“If anything happened to her,” Ally choked out, “that’s it. I would stop existing.”

“You can’t keep her in a bubble, though. She’ll end up resenting you, and you’ll lose her anyway.”

What could Ally say to that? Once again, Clarissa was right on the money. Ally already felt it happening—the way Reggie spent so much time in her room, even when they weren’t arguing. The noncommittal shrugs and mumbles whenever Ally tried to engage her in conversation. The compulsive attachment to her phone. Sure, part of that was normal teen stuff. A few little potholes on the long and winding road of mother-daughter relationships.

But the rest of it wasn’t normal. It was the aftermath of the terrible storm that had ripped through their lives three years ago, and all the mistakes Ally had made since.

The mistakes she kept making.

“But hockey, though?” she asked. “Why does it have to be hockey? Or anything with ice, for that matter?”

“You know you’re going to give in,” Clarissa teased gently. “When have you ever said no to that girl?”

“Hmm. When she asked me to paint her new room black?”

“Ally. You bought the paint. It’s sitting out in your garage.”

“So? I haven’t put it on the walls yet. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind once she makes a few friends in town and sees that none of them have morbidly depressing black bedrooms.”

Clarissa laughed, and Ally imitated her, forcing the sound through her lips. She wanted to laugh, too—wanted to make jokes and let stuff go and focus on the positive and find the joy in the small moments, just like all the podcasts preached. But every time she tried to let go, to let the light back in, she felt like a big, fat fraud. Who was she to make jokes? To forget her troubles? Her husband had been robbed of his life before he’d even hit forty, her daughter was miserable and lonely… Ally had no business being happy, no matter what the gurus and experts claimed.

“I still can’t believe she showed up at the rink,” Clarissa said, her voice taking on that same admiring tone. “How’d she like meeting the guys?”

Ally laughed, and this time it almost felt genuine. “They didn’t even know she was a girl. You should’ve seen the look on their faces when she took off her helmet. They were totally speechless, especially that Roscoe guy. The captain, right?”

“Yep. Also the Tempest’s most eligible bachelor, which you obviously noticed.”

Bachelor? Good to know…

“He’s an attractive man,” Ally admitted, rummaging through the junk on the counter for the Pasquale’s menu Clarissa had left for her. Then, as casually as if she were asking about the price of a large pepperoni with extra cheese, she said, “What’s his story, anyway?”

“Don’t even start with that tone, Ally.”

“There’s no tone. I’m just curious. What kind of star athlete bachelor signs up to entertain a bunch of rowdy kids all summer?”

“The kind that needs to look good on TV after a playoffs loss and a compromising video involving a can of whipped cream and some overeager bachelorettes.”

“Oh.” Ally’s heart sank. It shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did. He’d seemed like such a nice guy, down to earth, sweet.

No matter. Daydreaming about the hockey hunk was pointless anyway. Reggie wasn’t going back to the youth clinic, and even if Ally wanted to start dating again—which she absolutely did not—the timing was all off. She needed to focus on making the right impression at her new job, on getting them settled into the house. And most importantly, on making sure Reggie survived the transition to a new school and new town with as little friction as possible.

A wave of emotion rose inside her, squeezing her throat.

“Am I doing the right thing, Clar?” Her voice cracked again, all thoughts of Roscoe LeGrand gone. “Keeping her away from this?”

“Oh, hon. I can’t answer that for you. I know you’re doing what you believe is right to keep Reggie safe. You’re her mom.”

“What would you do?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I can’t imagine being in that situation, and I think you’re an amazing mother and the strongest woman I know, hands down.”

“Okay, I’m so not either of those things. And I know there’s another ‘but’ in there.”

Clarissa laughed. “Here’s your but, babe. You’re strong, but… Reggie’s pretty damn strong, too. Maybe you should give her a chance to show you.”

* * *

Reggie didn’t come down for dinner—wouldn’t even open her door when Ally knocked with a plate of food for her.

Hours later, her own pizza cold and untouched on the kitchen counter, Ally finally mustered the courage to go to Reggie’s room and check on her.

She opened the door a crack, careful not to let the light from the hallway spill onto Reggie’s face. She was sound asleep, feet sticking out from under the sheet, a faded unicorn T-shirt twisted around her body, the dinner plate Ally had left outside the door sitting on the edge of her desk, littered with pizza crust.

In the corner across from her bed, her hockey gear was stacked up against the wall.

The scene was so normal, so Reggie, that for a minute Ally lost all sense of time and place. Suddenly she was back in Denver, waking Reggie up early one morning so she and her dad could head up to Montana.

The two of them had been planning their father-daughter camping trip all year, and they’d had the time of their lives. Reggie had talked about it for weeks after, telling Ally and anyone else who’d listen story after story. They’d had so much fun that they’d forgotten to take pictures.

It was the last big, special memory she’d ever make with her father.

The following month, Ally had been working in the garden behind their house when she’d gotten the call from Dan’s boss. Her husband had been in an accident. No, they didn’t have details, but maybe she could ask a neighbor to drive her there? Urgently?

She’d driven herself, doing close to ninety miles an hour the whole way.

It hadn’t been fast enough.

By the time she pulled into the lot, Dan was already gone. She’d felt it—felt his soul leaving this life, leaving her heart, passing over her body like water she just couldn’t grab hold of—even before she opened her car door, before she noticed his assistant and another staff person running toward her, their faces grim, mouths pulled tight to hold in the words no human being should ever have to say to another.

Your husband is dead.

A fresh wave of grief crashed over Ally now, the loss hitting her all over again. Dan’s death had nearly destroyed her, had all but shredded her heart. In the three years since, the sharpness of that shocking pain had dulled to a constant but bearable ache, allowing her to get out of bed, to function again even when she really didn’t want to. But when she thought about that camping trip again, the ear-to-ear grin Reggie had worn for days after, her heart nearly cracked in two. Her pain was for Reggie, for all the time she lost with her dad. For all of the things Ally couldn’t do for her. For all of the promises she could never make to her daughter, could never hope to keep, because they should’ve been Dan’s promises instead.

Ally blinked back her tears and looked around the bedroom again. Reggie had hung an old hockey poster on the wall above her dresser, an autographed one she and Dan had picked up at a Colorado Wolves game. Skate hard, Reggie! the inscription read. It was another reminder of what Ally had seen on the ice yesterday. Reggie was so passionate about the game, so intense. She really did love hockey.

Reggie’s pretty damn strong, too.

Clarissa’s words echoed. Yes, Reggie was strong. Stubborn, too—just like her father. Ally knew that even if she forbade Reggie from playing at the Tempest clinic, the kid would find another way to get back on the ice.

Ally sighed, dashing away the last of her tears.

Like it or not, there was only one right answer.

She just hoped Roscoe LeGrand had meant what he said.