by RJ Scott
When blade touched ice, the tension centered in my chest eased. I skated to my crease, the blue in front of the net unspoiled. I dropped to one knee, ran my hand over it, felt the cold seep into my fingertips, and closed my eyes.
“I’ll treat you well, pretty ice. Make you stronger, but in return, I ask you to take care of me as I care for you.” My pathetic poem to the ice had been the same since I was ten. I lifted my fingers to my lips, kissed them, and then placed the kiss to the ice. The hum of the air-conditioners and two men working floated over me. “Know that when I do this, I’m working to make us both more powerful.”
I stood up, pulled out my small bottle of water from Quebec, and squirted it over the blue. Then, with a soft apology, I began working the ice, using my blades to chew it up into fine powder, mixing the better ice—from my home lake—into the Minnesota ice. I scraped and I patted until I felt it was perfect. Then I turned to caress the pipes, which I felt lacked the magic of ice but were still my friends. The pipes were like Ryker, a buddy, but the ice was like a lover and required tenderness.
When I was done, I stood off to the side of my net, admiring the marriage of American and Canadian ice, then went off to find the Zamboni driver to let him know that my crease was not to be touched by him or his machine until after our first team practice. He nodded but looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles. Whatever. Only another goalie would understand. That ice was now mine, and I’d protect it passionately, just as I would a sweetheart. I’d caress it and coo to it, stroke it until it trembled with need and begged me to…
“Right, off to meditate.”
Two
Ethan
“Oh wow, Mr. Girard, it’s your birthday,” Perky-nurse Two said with a smile.
“Yep, it is.” I’d been in the hospital an hour, and in that time I’d been reliably informed it was my birthday on six separate occasions. I’d actually run out of ways to say that yes, it was my birthday, yes, it was a shame I’d broken a leg on said birthday, and no, I didn’t have anything planned for when I got out of the hospital. So now, I was just sticking to a simple yep because I was tired, grumpy, and never thought I’d turn thirty-two stuck in a bed in the emergency room of Owatonna Hospital.
“Not a good place to spend the day,” she added.
“You’re telling me,” I said and rolled my eyes theatrically before staring back at my leg in an effort to discourage more talking. The last nurse had remonstrated at length about how if only Boston had tightened their D-Corp in game four… blah, blah. I’d heard it all before, and I didn’t want to hear it again.
“I’m here to take blood.” She pulled a cloth from a container, and I knew it held needles and vials, but I sure as hell wasn’t looking. I’m a defenseman in the freaking NHL. I can get hit by a puck, have a tooth hanging by a thread that I’ll yank out, and still go back out on next shift. I work through pain. I deal with blood. That is who I am. But needles freak me the hell out.
“You’ll feel a pinch,” she advised.
“Just a small prick,” I offered because that was my default when I was anxious; I joked, messed around, got very unserious. “Said the intern to the President,” I added and made myself smile. If I can’t be amused at my own stupid jokes, then who can?
“There, all done.”
And now I waited for the next part. Most of the staff I’d seen, medical and admin, had known who I was. Living in Minnesota equaled hockey in the blood, but playing for Boston meant, in most Owatonna residents’ eyes, I was playing for the wrong team. The admin assistant who’d booked me in politely informed me, in a very nice way, that Boston sucked, I sucked, and worse of all, Brady Rowe sucked.
Of course, she also asked what it was like playing with that sexy Brady Rowe, and did I know his brother Tennant Rowe, and wasn’t Ten cute? I was used to it.
My doctor, whose name was Doctor De’ath, I kid you not, joked that he’d sell the news of my lower body injury to the Minnesota team. I had to point out it was unlikely he’d make any money from news about a lowly third line D-Man. I’d been flippant with him, but there was truth in every word.
Me aged eighteen seemed a long time ago, but having been drafted at that age directly into the Boston farm program, working my way into the NHL team, I’d never known anything but hockey. Now fourteen years later, thirty-two was past it, old, over the hill, tired, and worst of all I was a player without a contract.
Which is why I’d run the car into a post.
Not deliberately, of course. My agent, Eli Craven, had informed me that a possible contract might not be happening, maybe, and that I’d find myself on the open market. There were so many translations of the word possible in that sentence that it was obvious he was telling me I was done with Boston.
He didn’t have to tell me; I kind of knew. Fourteen years, and I was finding it harder and harder to keep up with the young guys. Not to the point where I couldn’t do my job; I was still one of the top fifty D-Men in the NHL or at least top seventy-five. But just enough so that my bones ached, and I was exhausted, particularly as Boston had made it to the third round of the playoffs, which meant a longer playing season.
But yeah, I’d been listening to Eli telling me all of this news about my contracts, on speakerphone in my sleek and sexy Maserati, and I’d pulled off the highway in order to hear him better. I’d taken a parking space outside Aldi, not realizing it wasn’t a space at all and that a post was right there. Unfortunately, I didn’t break my leg by hitting the post. At least if I had done, then I could exaggerate, call it injury after a car accident. But it wasn’t the smash that had taken me down and fractured my leg.
No, that was me falling up a curb after the accident. Maybe I’d been shaken, possibly I hadn’t seen the height of the curb, or it could have been that my right knee gave way as it sometimes did.
Whatever it was, I’d face-planted in front of a group of concerned moms pushing carts and with my leg twisted in that freak way that had never happened to me on ice.
“Ethan, what the fuck did you do to your car?”
Great, who called Robbie? The last thing I needed was my little brother up in my face and causing chaos. That was another problem with sitting here in the same hospital I’d been born in, for God’s sake. News of me being in here would eventually have reached my family. An hour—that was all it had taken.
“Who told you I was here?” I grumped, the pain meds not quite taking the edge off the constant throb of pain.
He counted off on his fingers. “Chief told me that Sevvy called him to say that Amber called him to say you were carted off in an ambo, and to tell me that Yan and Iris saw your car, and that you’d totaled it.”
I closed my eyes. “I didn’t total my car.”
“Amber told Sevvy that Iris said it looked totaled to her.”
“Iris is exaggerating. I scraped a bumper on a post, is all.”
“Well, the chief said Sevvy heard the whole front was gone. Jeez, Ethan, I can’t believe you broke your car,” he said and sat heavily on the side of the bed, the whole mattress dipping and causing me to slide sideways, which freaking hurt.
“Get off me, you moron,” I blurted, but he didn’t budge. If anything, he bounced a little because Robbie Girard is a giant pain-in-the-ass brother who needs me to pummel him into the ground.
“What the hell is this?” He pointed at my beard, the wild bushy affair that I couldn’t be bothered to tame.
“Well, you see, when a boy becomes a man, they can grow beards, and one day, Robbie, you’ll be able to grow one too.”
He bounced again. “You look like a fucking hippy.”
“And you stink,” I observed as the scent of smoke and grease overwhelmed me.
He sniffed himself and wiped a black smudge from his arm. “House fire on Third, cake pan. It’s okay though. I heroically and single-handedly, extinguished the fire.”
“Heroically my ass. I bet you were the one at the back holding a bucket.”
He smoot
hed his hand down his T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Owatonna Fire Department and then kissed each of his flexed biceps.
“It’s a big bucket,” he announced, “and not to change the subject, but you’ll be pleased to know Mom’s on her way.” He grinned at me so wide it must have hurt.
I fell back on the pillow and groaned. “Why?”
“Well, Sevvy and Amber called her. Then Iris and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I twisted my head to glance left at the chair next to the bed where my cut-up jeans and scuffed boots sat. I’d skated with worse than a fractured leg. Maybe I should just get my stuff and leave before Momma Girard descended on the hospital, with my poor dad in tow.
“I was just the first Girard to get here,” Robbie said, and distracted by checking out a passing nurse, he shifted forward on the bed, which made the mattress move again.
“Jesus, asshole, get off my bed.”
He smirked at me because that was what brothers did to each other, and then he grew more serious and pulled the chair over to the side of the bed, shoving my possessions to the floor before settling in for the long haul.
“Seriously though, Eeth, are you okay?”
I narrowed my eyes at him; we messed around, we wound each other up, we fought and sniped and loved each other unconditionally, but Robbie being sincere was a red flag.
“Why?” I asked.
He leaned forward and took my hand, held it tight. “As your only sibling, if you die, can I have your car?”
I shook off his hold and punched at him, missing, rolling, and catching my damn leg, pain radiating up to my thigh.
“Wait until I can goddamn walk,” I breathed through the worst of it. He was just far enough away to know that I couldn’t reach him, sitting there grinning at me.
Two could play at that game. “How’s Gabby?” I asked the question as if I didn’t know for absolutely sure that our childhood neighbor Gabby, the focus of Robbie’s unrequited love, had moved out of town two months back.
Robbie grabbed at his chest. “That’s low,” he muttered, “but she texted me.” He pulled out his cell phone, scrolling through his messages and then thrusting the phone under my nose. “See, what do you think that means?”
I read the text and nodded. “She misses you,” I announced.
He appeared hopeful, and for a moment I felt sorry for him. Then I recalled that there was no room for pity in sibling get-back.
“You think?” he asked with optimism.
“Nothing says a girl is missing you like texting you a picture of her eating a hot dog in New York,” I summed up and couldn’t help the laugh tweaking at my lips. I desperately tried to hold it in, but it came out as a sudden snort.
Indignant, he pocketed the cell. “I don’t care what you think. I take it that she’s subliminally suggesting a blow job.”
“Robert Justin Girard, what in the blazes are you talking about!” The voice was strident, and I sank into the bed at the same rate as Robbie subsided in his chair. He didn’t look like a rough-and-tough firefighter now. If anything, he was just a little boy caught out by his mom.
“Hi, Mom,” he offered weakly.
She cuffed him around the head, then hurried to my side, pressing a hand to my forehead as all the best moms do.
“You’re not hot,” she announced as she used to when we were kids attempting to get off school. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said with just the right amount of stoic bravery. I saw Robbie making gagging motions in my peripheral vision.
She picked up my notes and tutted. Never let it be said that Margaret Girard didn’t try to understand everything that touched her kids, but I doubt the chart made any sense to her.
“Your dad was worried,” she announced, and behind her, Dad sketched a wave.
“Hey, son.”
“Hey, Dad.”
That was my dad, a man of few words, mostly because he never got a word in edgeways.
“Where is Doctor De’ath?” Mom peered around us like a meerkat protecting us from eagles.
“He was called away on an emergency—”
“Doesn’t he realize how much of an emergency this is? Does he not remember who you are?” she snapped. Cue Robbie with more gagging motions, and me sinking into the bed hoping it would swallow me whole. “This is your entire career on the line. Have you called the team? Can they not fly you to Boston? What about that nice Brady Rowe? He must have a jet by now, or he could pay for one. The team could as well. I only want the best for my son. And you need to shave your beard now. How will you train with all that hair, and will you be able to train with a broken leg?”
I was lost for words, and I didn’t even try to form a coherent sentence in reply to anything she said, and thank fuck Dr. De’ath appeared behind them and threw me one of those looks, the kind I’d grown up seeing whenever my mom was around. She was notorious for not holding back, but she was also fiercely protective of her boys, and I’m sure Dr. De’ath was aware of just how bumpy things could get. He closed the door behind him and then slid past Mom, who shot him a glare that would have quelled a lesser man.
“Can we talk?” he asked and side-eyed my mom.
“It’s okay. They can stay. Means I don’t have to explain it all again later.”
“Okay, well, I’ve looked at the X-rays,” he placed them on the lightbox and stood back. “You have a clean break in the tibia, which is good news. You’re not looking at surgery, in my opinion, just a cast, and then therapy, which I assume you’ll be undertaking with the team. I can certainly talk to the team physician and send on X-rays to him.”
“I guess,” I said in my best noncommittal way, ignoring the narrow-eyed glare from Mom. “We can just do it all here if it’s a simple break.”
“What about medical concerns with the team?” Robbie asked, and I hated that the only time he was going to be serious was asking me leading questions. I ignored him.
Dr. De’ath interjected in his best diplomatic tone. “We’ll get your brother sorted and on his way home.”
That was somewhat of an issue. I didn’t actually have my own place in Owatonna. After all, I was only supposed to be there for two weeks. After that, there was the Bahamas with Lester Lemmy LeMan, a fellow Boston D-Man, for fishing, diving, and food. Not to mention I needed to be in Boston with my agent and the team management, in case negotiations were required.
I was staying for the two weeks in the one-bedroom, half-bath extension over Mom and Dad’s garage, much to Robbie’s amusement, who never failed to comment on the millions he said I was hoarding. I missed my loft, with its feet of space, and the huge carved-oak bed, and the privacy, but the two weeks in the summer with my parents and idiot brother grounded me.
Could I last more than two weeks within spitting distance of Mom?
I need to rent a house. Stat.
The doctor was talking, and I was listening, at least I was trying. Mom was mumbling about experts, Dad was soothing her, and Robbie was tapping the arm of his chair to some unheard rhythm in his head.
“Guys, let’s clear the room,” Dr. De’ath announced, and thank fuck for small mercies, they left.
I love my family before even hockey, but sometimes…
“Wait, Robbie?” I called, and he turned to face me. I tossed him the keys to the Maserati. “She’s outside the Aldi. Not a scratch, okay, and don’t go over thirty.”
He caught the keys with a wide grin and winked at me.
“I mean it, not a scratch.”
He gave me the finger and smirked. “Says the man who nearly wrote the car off.”
“I scraped a post!” Too late. He’d pulled the door shut behind him, and I shook my head, then turned my attention back to the doc who had cleared his throat pointedly.
“I’ll type this up,” he began. “Then I can talk to the team and forward the X-rays.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to.” I leveled him with a look that I hoped
conveyed that he didn’t need to talk to the team. I don’t know if he thought I was hiding this or if he could see the thoughts of retirement that sometimes sat in my head.
“Of course,” he murmured.
“Thank you.”
Retirement was an option. If I was done, if I didn’t have a contract, was I willing to work hard on getting a contract in Europe? Or go down to AHL level? Shouldn’t I quit while I was ahead: two championship rings, two-time winner of the Norris Trophy, and three times an All-Star? Retiring now meant I would go out on a high, and I could find something else to define my life. I had so much money I didn’t know what to do with it, cars, my loft, vacations, but I was ready for something else.
And what will I do with my life now?
Fear gripped me as I lay there waiting for the nurse. What would I do? Coach maybe? TV commentator? Become an insurance salesman? Live off my millions and never work another day again? Take up veteran tenpin bowling?
I’m so scared.
The house was extensive, a huge warren of wide-open rooms, light spilling through skylights, a covered pool, a game room, a cinema room, and the rent wasn’t much more than my loft had been in the city.
“I’ll take it,” I said, impulsively deciding this was exactly the place I needed to be right now. I crutched into the kitchen, resting against the counter, and marveled at the size of the fridge. An entire hockey team could fit in there.
“I do have other properties to show you,” Sevvy said and placed details on the side. Sevvy was Robbie’s best friend, and just like my brother, he hadn’t quite gotten over the damage I’d done to my car. At least, he didn’t keep stealing my keys and driving each and every firefighter at Station Six to the market and back, though. I needed to hide the damn keys. Only I wasn’t really as bothered as I liked to make out. Robbie loved that damn car as if it was his, and I’d already decided he could have it. Cars like that need to be loved, and for me it was just a way of getting from A to B. I wanted to get something more practical, for when I was okay to drive.