by R J Scott
And then I raised my gaze, and Ten was smirking. Honest-to-God smirking at me. What did that mean? Was it because he knew he looked good and he was appreciating the fact that someone had looked? Or was it because Brady had told Ten about the threesome incident and he was hoping to push my buttons? Either way, Ten was a bastard who was happy flaunting all his shit, and I couldn’t be interested. I should just come out with it and call him on the smirk, tell him I might be bi but I wouldn’t be fucked around with. But what if the smirk was because of something else, like a family joke that was about me?
So, I didn’t say a thing. I changed the subject and chalked up the reason for the smirk as nothing at all.
“Great. He actually emailed me,” I said, referring back to Brady, because I wasn’t going to smile back or rise to anything Ten was implying with that smirk.
At that statement, Ten’s expression changed. From confident and happy, he became guarded. “Don’t tell me,” he began with a heavy sigh. “Big Brother wanted to warn you that I need to try harder on the breakaway, or that my forecheck isn’t as fast as we need, or hell, maybe I’m not in the right place for the tip in.”
“No,” I answered, because the words Ten spoke were filled with derision, and I didn’t like him saying any of it. “Your brother is proud of you.”
All the tension left Ten, and he visibly slumped. “Yeah, I know he is. I’m proud of him and Jamie.” He looked right at me. “Don’t think for one minute we’re not one big happy family.”
Ouch. Something really hard underscored those words, and I wanted to fix whatever had stolen away happy, teasing Ten and left this shuttered man in front of me.
“He wanted to meet up one day for a beer,” I lied. Because whatever I tell my son about lying not being a good thing, lying is sometimes exactly what needs to happen.
“Oh.” Ten looked surprised. Then he smiled again, this time less confident smirk and more fond. “How’s Ryker?”
“Seventeen, hormonal, a pretty good left wing.” That was how I summed Ryker up in public. But Ryker was much more than my moody seventeen-year-old son who had a wicked slap shot. He was my life, and the reason I got up every day.
When I’d sat in that doctor’s office and listened, hearing words that meant very little to me, I’d interrupted him and asked him the one thing any hockey player would ask. Will I play again?
Only having my son in my life had stopped me from losing myself in pills and alcohol after the doctor had shaken his head and put the final nail in my hockey coffin.
You won’t be able to play professional hockey again.
So, yeah, Ryker was more than how I’d described him there, but I wasn’t ready to share that with anyone, let alone Ten, who I didn’t really know very well anymore.
“I friended him on Facebook,” Ten announced.
I wasn’t even Ryker’s Facebook friend. I needed to talk to him about that, because I should be, right? Isn’t that, like, number one on the list for parental responsibility or something? It was my turn to have him this weekend, and I added Facebook to my mental list of things to talk about.
“Good,” I finally answered. Probably with too much of a gap for it to be socially acceptable. Whatever I did wrong was enough for Ten to clamber off the crate and straighten up. He held out his hand.
“I’m going to like it here,” he said.
I took his hand. A man’s hand now. Not the same grip he’d had as a kid. I shook it firmly, and he had that same smile. Was I supposed to hug him now? Was that what a “bro” would do? He tugged away and slipped past me.
“Later,” he said.
And all I could think was that Ten had surely grown up fine.
Three
Tennant
I was firing off a text to Brady as soon as I rounded the corner, leaving Mr. Jared “Sultry Blue Eyes” Madsen behind. It was short and to the point.
Stay the fuck out of my life.
I hit send. Then thought of something else to tell Brady.
I mean it. No more emails to Mads. EVER. About anything regarding me.
I glanced up, danced around a dude I assumed was an equipment manager, given the skates dangling over both shoulders, then sent off text three to make sure my older brother really got it. Sometimes he didn’t. Like, all the time he didn’t.
Seriously. No more. I’ll tell Mom.
I paused, staring at the text, then erased the part about Mom. That was my ace in the hole. Didn’t want to play it too soon.
Seriously. No more. It’s my life. Stop trying to run it. U suck.
There. That sounded good. Should I send him the smiling pile of shit emoji just to drive home what I thought he was? Walking and texting. Probably dangerous. Okay, totally dangerous. A soccer ball bounced off my skull. I dropped my phone and yelped.
A voice broke into my pain. “Bouncing big balls,” it announced.
I crouched down to pick up my phone, then stood, my gaze traveling up and up and up to reach the face of the man who’d been kicking the ball off the concrete walls. The tone of the words, heavily accented, conveyed apology.
“It’s cool,” I said immediately. “My mother always says that texting and walking will be the death of me.” I pocketed my cell and held out my hand. “Tennant Rowe.”
The behemoth took my hand and shook. “Stanislav Lyamin. Stan.”
“Right. I watched your tapes.”
The dude was huge. It was like shaking hands with Groot. He topped out at six nine or ten easily, and probably weighed two fifty if not more. His hair was dark and buzzed to his scalp. He had stormy gray eyes and a long, aristocratic nose. The Railers had picked him up from the KHL for a song. Stan had size and grit in spades. He filled the net, but lacked speed and agility. Once they trimmed him down a bit, he’d move faster and seal that net up tight.
“You like soccer, huh?” I asked.
“Silly rabbit.”
I gaped dully at the big man. “Oh-kay, yeah. Well, I was just heading off to dinner, so…”
“Big Mac.”
Stan rubbed his belly and then followed me for a few steps. I stopped walking and looked up at him. He stared down at me. Shit, but the man was intimidating. Glad I didn’t have to go up against him.
“Yeah, right, food, so… I’m leaving to go eat.” I waved at the nearest exit and smiled broadly, inching away from the tender. “Nice to meet you.”
“I am a Pepper.”
“Dude, are you saying you want to hit Mickey D’s or something?” I looked around for someone—anyone—to save me, but it was just me and the Russian in shorts and sneakers.
“They’re great!”
“Stan, you have been watching way too much American TV,” I chuckled.
Twenty minutes later, we were shoving burgers and fries into our faces while drawing all kinds of odd looks. It had to be Stan pulling all the gawks. He kind of stood out, but he was funny. His gray eyes never settled. Like never. They darted around constantly. I wondered if he was just working on tracking exercises while he ate. I’d seen a video of the goalie down in D.C. doing the same thing in preparation for a game. Although, since we weren’t getting ready to play, maybe he was just trying to absorb all this America.
“Lip-smacking good,” he said after polishing off his fourth burger. I’d made do with one and some fries. Empty calories. Not on my healthy eating plan, but man was the grease tasty.
“It sure is. Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m new to this town. Like, I don’t know anyone.” I sat back and took a sip of my milkshake. Man, I’d be running to Chicago tomorrow to work off this meal. “Well, I mean, I know Mads, but he’s like this weird thing, right?”
Stan’s smoky eyes landed on me and stayed glued there. My gaze roamed over the menu above the cashiers’ heads.
“Weird like he’s so much sexier than I remembered.”
I drifted a bit, the prices getting blurry as I pulled up an image of the Railers defensive coach in my mind. Fuck, but he was hot. Those sky-blue
eyes and that mouth… He smelled good too. His cologne was brisk, kind of nautical. A kid a couple of booths over screamed, jarring me from the memory of his hand in mine. Mads had a strong grip.
“Shit, uh, yeah, so I know no one here aside from Mads and his grip.” Stan watched me, and I sought some kind of common ground we could talk about that wasn’t hockey. My cell chimed to let me know I had a notification on my Pokémon game. “You ever play games on your phone?” I shook the phone. “Pokémon?”
He chewed and stared. I opened up my current game and waved it under his nose. He shrugged and then his eyes lit up. “Pikachu,” he announced. Seems like Pokémon was a cross-borders kind of thing.
“Okay, well, I think we should start our own academy for Pokémon trainers on the team.” I showed him the screen again.
He nodded while sucking down half a super-sized Coke. I kid you not. One huge pull and half the soda gone. It was incredible.
“It’ll be like this bonding thing, right?”
Stan smiled.
“Cool! So, you’re in then?”
Some lady ran past chasing a ketchup-coated toddler. Stan kept smiling as he opened the first of five tiny apple pies stacked on his tray.
“We should have a team name. I mean besides the Railers, although I guess that would work.”
“Tumbling minions.”
“Yep, for sure. Hey! You know what we could do now?”
Stan took a bite of his pie and shook his buzzed head.
“I want to go find an ink shop and get my favorite Pokémon. Do you have any tattoos?” I pointed at my arm, and then his.
He frowned and then pulled back the sleeve of his jersey, exposing some pretty fucking sweet Cyrillic. I wondered what it said, but guessed I wouldn’t be getting much of an explanation from Stan.
I held up my hand for a high five and got one that nearly dislocated my shoulder. Life in Harrisburg was picking up. I had a new team to bedazzle, a tall buddy who was easy to talk to, and a secret little crush on my older brother’s friend. That night, I also had a brand-new tattoo on the back of my neck and a string of texts from Brady. Each one was him talking down to me, so each reply from me was the smiling pile of shit emoji. Finally, Brady sent me his last text for the night.
Grow the fuck up.
I carried a smirk with me all the way to Rutherford and the practice facility the following morning. Stan met me at the player’s entrance, ducking until he was nearly bent in half to clear the doorframe. We exchanged a meaty knuckle bump.
“How’s the ink?” I asked, pointing to the biceps that carried his new tat of Pikachu. I don’t know why he decided to get that done, but he had been so excited. Even though I explained that this wasn’t something that the team had to have to be considered ‘team’.
“Po-Kee-Mon rocks.” His face split into a grin.
I threw back my head and laughed. “Damn straight,” I replied, and slapped his broad back.
We entered the dressing room, and I took a second to scope it out. The Railers logo stood out on the dark blue rug in the center of the semi-circular room. Everyone was careful not to step on it. Doing so was sacrilegious, and would bring down the nastiest juju on the team.
I eyed the logo critically. The old style steam train was in gray on the dusky-blue background, an echo back to the time when Harrisburg was the center for rail track production. I thought it was pretty badass actually; better than some random animal or bird. The room was packed with players, most just now stripping off their suits and gearing up for our first day as a team.
“Hey, Tennant, I didn’t get to introduce myself yesterday. Media day this year was beyond crazy, then my wife insisted I hit the kids’ parent-teacher conference, since I’ll be scarce from here on out. Connor Hurleigh, captain of the Railers.”
I shook hands with the older man. Connor was mid-thirties and had always been a damn fine center. Was he as good as me? We’d see, since he played on the first line and I wanted that spot bad. He’d come to the team last year in the expansion draft, and because of his years of experience on the ice, the team had chosen him to wear the “C” on his sweater. Rumor was he was a fine captain, if not the most demonstrative in the locker room. A lead by example kind of guy.
“It was crazy for sure,” I said, then released his big hand. He was a normal-looking man. Brown hair and brown eyes. Wicked scar on his chin from a skate blade back when he played for Arizona. “I’m hoping to be able to really contribute to the team.”
“That’s what we like to hear.”
Connor moved off to talk to some of the older players. Stan had wandered off to the corner, where he now stood staring at the cinderblocks. No one would touch or bother him. It was goalie shit. Zoning in or something. Hell, maybe that was how all Russian tendies started the routine of mental prep. What did I know? I threw myself into a meet and greet with the rest of the team, picking out the guys under thirty and inviting them to join the Pokémon fun. By the time I sat down to remove my dress shoes, I had ten guys added to the roster. Stan was still in the corner doing his oddball goalie stuff. Knowing it was time to hit the ice and make this team mine fired me up. I changed quickly and was taping my socks to help secure the shin pads when I paused and looked at the dressing room door.
This is going to sound stupid, but I sensed the coaching staff entering the dressing room way before they arrived. It was like fingerlings of static electricity snaked out ahead of Mads stepping into the room and ran up my arms, prickling the hairs at the tender nape of my neck. His gaze flickered to me. I met his look. He glanced away quickly. I sat there, half-naked, brand new yellow Railers training sweater draped over the bench beside me, staring at his profile while Coach Benning gave us the usual speech about teamwork, dedication, diligence, and so on.
We had a short video presentation, followed by the coaches splitting apart to talk to the men under them. Goalie coaches with goalies, defensive coach with the D-men, and we forwards got to listen to Associate Coach Colin Pike laying out what the organization wanted from us over the upcoming season. Like we needed to be told? Every hockey player has one goal, and that’s to hoist the Cup over his head. Everything we do from the time we first lace up those tiny skates as kids is geared toward reaching that goal. We all dream the same dream. So, sure, I got it that the coaches were all about the pep talks, but I for one didn’t need them. And if anyone on this team didn’t have that goal as his number one priority, his ass needed to be sent off to the ECHL or something. I was done with coming in second.
We were split into four groups for this first session on the ice. Part one of the testing was skating from goal line to goal line at top speed for three minutes straight. No stopping. We wore straps under our sweaters next to our chests to measure heart rate, breathing frequency, body temperature, acceleration and deceleration. This was all done to see where we could improve our performance. I was part of the second group. Coach Madsen and Coach Pike were running the show. The head coach was reading the information as it fed into his laptop over at the timekeeper’s table.
“On my mark,” Mads shouted, his voice echoing off the steel girders of the training rink. I bent down slightly, stick on the ice, and set my sights on the far end of the rink. The sharp trill of a whistle, and the four of us were off. The trick was to power into a good lead before you were tanked, because three minutes on ice is a killer. It doesn’t sound like a long time, but hockey is about quick bursts of speed. Typical TOI, or time on ice, is forty-five to sixty seconds for forwards. Defensemen can go longer, but it varies per player or depending on the situation. That’s why a good team rolls four solid lines one after the other. It gives us time to catch our breath and rehydrate.
I hit the goal line first, spraying ice, and spun. Both coaches on the ice were shouting encouragement to the men skating. Four times back and forth had us all winded, legs and lungs burning. Mads and Pike continued yelling at us, pushing us to keep going. When the whistle to stop finally came, my thighs and calves
felt like pudding. I was sucking air like a Hoover, and sweat ran into my eyes and down the crack of my ass, but I had smoked the three others in my group, one being our captain.
“Good job,” Mads said as I passed.
I gave him a nod, since speaking was not happening quite yet. I felt his gaze on me as I hit the boards in front of the home bench and draped the upper half of my body over them.
“That… sucked,” I gasped to the guys waiting to take their turn.
Ten minutes later, the four of us who had the fastest times were back out for another three minutes of hell. Yay. Playing hockey was so much fun. It was close, but I eked past Troy Hanson, the first line left-winger. He was smaller than me, and lighter, but I managed to smoke him by a full two-tenths of a second. Then, after we caught our breath, it was more testing. Forty-meter sprints forward and backward, slalom pylon tests, and another round of endurance laps. When my skates hit rubber, I was spent. There was not one little puff of energy for me to pull up from deep within.
I desperately wanted some chocolate milk. I wobbled down the hall outside the Railers dressing room and rounded a corner to find Mads trying to feed a dollar bill into the coffee machine. He glanced over his shoulder. Our gazes met and held. The machine spat his buck back out, and he cussed as he bent over to pick it up.
“Need a little zip?” I asked as I padded up to the cold drinks machine.
“Something like that.” He turned the bill around and tried again.
“Got a buck I can borrow?”
Mads looked at me as if I’d asked him to loan me a kidney.
I patted the back of my sweaty hockey pants. “No wallet on me.”
“Oh, sure. Here, use this one. Maybe that machine will like it better.”
“Thanks.”
I took the wrinkled bill and tried flattening it on the side of the soda machine. Mads dug into his wallet and pulled out a less tattered bill.
“So, what did you think of the runs?” I asked to make conversation. Standing beside him, his elbow bumping mine, and not talking seemed weird and awkward.