by April Fire
I dragged myself back to my feet and let out a sigh. Part of me- most of me- wished that I’d never gotten this chance in the first place, that coach had just dismissed the agent and told him to forget it, I never would have had to make this decision. Yeah, I would have missed out on the chance to get out of here- but I would have been able to avoid everything that came with the choice.
I made my way back over to the car, climbed in, and sat behind the wheel for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure how long I was sitting there; I didn’t really care. It was the first time that I had really given the decision any thought. Up until then, I had been hiding it from people, keeping it to myself, ignoring the fact that it even existed. But now that it was out there- now that Emily knew about it- I had people to be accountable to. And that was…off-putting. I could feel the pressure pushing down on my shoulders, so hard that it ached. Because there was no way to ignore this- and I honestly had no idea what I was meant to do.
As I began to drive, I thought back to when I made a decision about going to college- or not, in my case. And, well, how it hadn’t felt like a decision at all, because there was only one answer to that question for me. It was easy, obvious. But what were you meant to do when you had pros and cons on both sides of the equation? Why wasn’t there an answer that revealed itself to me? I felt like, by now, I should know either way, but I still had one foot in the Crows and one foot in the Soars.
I arrived back at my apartment and headed up to my bedroom, going slow so I didn’t wake anyone up. It was late by the time I crawled into bed, too late, but I didn’t care. I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight anyway.
Chapter Eleven
It had been a full week since that night at my apartment, and Sam had barely made eye contact with me this entire time. I sat in the stands, holding my Dictaphone, and sighed as I watched the team run drills. I just didn’t understand what I’d done.
I’d managed to get the rest of the team in for interviews, and all of them had given me a little something to work off of- Jeremy had a wife and kid he kept hidden from everyone else because he didn’t want them to see him as uncool or out of touch, but he was happy for me to write about them, because he wanted the world to know about them. When I asked if he knew the story would be available to the team as well, he shrugged.
“Like they’ll read it,” he replied with a small grin then glanced around the room. “Is it okay if I go now?”
“Sure,” I nodded, and watched him walk out the door. His words were ringing in my ears- would none of the team be interested in this at all? Surely, this would be a break for them- a chance for them to get their message out to the world, a chance for them to share themselves with the rest of the hockey-playing community. But, if Jeremy was right, then that gave me a way in to Sam’s story. Because I was pretty sure most his panic came from the possibility that people might judge him for the choice he did or didn’t make-especially his teammates.
I had been hounding him for another interview since we slept together last, but he had turned me down every time. Told me that he would let me know when he was free next. But I knew he was brushing me off, knew he was just getting rid of me the best way he knew how. Johnson frowned with dissatisfaction every time Sam turned me down, and mouthed an apology at me- I knew he was having trouble figuring out why he was being such a dick. I guessed that he didn’t know what I knew about the situation- and that if he did, he might be a bit less accommodating.
I couldn’t get Sam out of my head- but the reasons why were all messed up in my head. I wanted to get the story, and I knew I didn’t have enough for it yet. And I felt for him on a personal level, because he was making a seriously hard decision that had no real easy answer. Plus, of course, I couldn’t deny that I was kind of falling for him.
Yeah, it was high school, but I found myself attracted to him the more he avoided me. We’d only hooked up twice, but each incidence had been fucking incredible and I was desperately trying to come up with ways to get him back into my bed. I knew that wouldn’t happen any time soon, but I found myself plotting ways that I could both get my hands on the story and on him a few more times before I left.
Leaving. That was something I’d rather not think about if I had the choice. I had only been here about ten days, but I found myself growing comfortable in Kingstown. It was a strange little place, odd and tiny- even now, after only a few days, I found myself getting cheerfully greeted in the coffee shop down the street from me and chatted to by the regulars. I was a novelty to them, and they were a novelty to me- it had been a long time since I’d lived anywhere but a city, and I had to admit I could get used to the camaraderie and community in a place like this. And not just because Sam was in it.
As the training drew to a close, I got to my feet and hurried around to intercept the team before they could all vanish into their lockers.
“Sam!” I called after him, pushing my way through the other players. Even in the armour and under the helmet, I recognized him- he stopped dead in his tracks, and raised his head to make eye contact with Johnson. Johnson was leaned up on the edge of the lockers, and he nodded, raising his eyebrows- it was obvious that he was silently communicating how much he wanted Sam to talk to me. Johnson, being the coach, was certainly the most conscious about how his team came across- and the last thing he wanted was for his star player to come across like a giant asshole. Sam’s shoulders sagged, and he turned and pulled off his helmet, making his way towards me.
“What is it?” he asked with a sigh. He didn’t make eye contact with me, and I could tell he wanted to be anywhere but here.
“I want to get a proper interview done,” I replied brusquely. “We haven’t had a proper sit-down conversation since I got here, and I needed your story to slot into the rest of them.”
“Is that it?” he asked suspiciously, raising his head and eyeing me.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “So, when’s good for you?”
“Now,” he shrugged. “Let’s get it out of the way.”
“You can use my office,” Johnson commented- I hadn’t realized how close he’d been hovering to our conversation, and jumped as he spoke.
“Uh, thanks,” I nodded with a small smile. “Shall we?”
We headed down the corridor, opened the door, and took our seats opposite each other; I noted that Sam took the seat at the player side of the table, out of habit. I smiled to myself as I took Johnson’s seat, wondering how much of a sacriligeous moment this would be for many of the players. I set up the Dictaphone, and pressed record.
“So,” I began, and Sam looked up at me- he had been staring at the floor since we came in, legs parted, elbows balanced on his knees.
“How did you become a part of the Crows?”
For the next ten minutes, we ran through Sam’s history with the team- how he ended up there, how he felt when they started winning, how his newfound local fame had affected him. His answers started out pretty mechanical, but he began to loosen up as he spoke about things that obviously made him happy- by the time we finished up the first part of the interview, he had grown quite animated, waving his hands around as he pontificated on how it had felt when they first moved up the leagues. I couldn’t help but smile as I checked my notebook, figuring out what to ask him next- you could feel his passion, feel his drive. I knew he’d do so well at a bigger team with this kind of attitude, but it wasn’t like I could just come out and blurt it all to him- that was the reason he’d stormed out last time, because he’d been avoiding my questions and was pissed that I pushed him for an answer.
I hesitated before I asked the next question- it was a leading one, but I hoped that he would give me the answer I wanted.
“Do you have any plans to move to a bigger team?” I asked carefully, playing stupid, pretending that I hadn’t got a scrap of knowledge about his offer. He stared at me, the only sound in the room the air conditioning humming away.
“I don’t know,” Sam responded, picking his words slowly.
“What if an opportunity came about that offered you that chance?” I continued. He wrinkled his brow at me- I knew he thought I was being crazy, but this was the only way I could think of to get through to him. Give him the chance to deliver me the information himself as opposed to having me overhear it and take it from him. He was so defensive about everything to do with the Soar’s offer, so I figured taking it nice and slow was probably my best bet.
“What are you talking about?” He demanded. It was clear I’d thrown him.
“What if an opportunity came about that offered you that chance?” I repeated myself. Instead of a look of realization passing across his face, he shut down- I could see something behind his eyes board up and shut down and desperately want me gone.
“Well, that’s not relevant,” he growled. “That’s a decision I’d make without the help of anyone else.”
“Wouldn’t you want your family to know?” I pressed, knowing I was already pushing my luck. “Or your teammates? To help you with the decision?”
“I wouldn’t need any help,” He snapped. “Because that decision would only be mine.”
“Wouldn’t you want their help? The accountability that might give you?” I urged, fully understanding that I was dancing over the line so far that I probably wouldn’t be able to go back- but I couldn’t stop.
“Nope,” he replied firmly, getting his voice under control. “Why, would you?”
It took me off-guard; I hadn’t had one of my questions turned back on me in a long time, and I felt as though the ground had lurched sideways beneath me. I paused for a moment. Okay, maybe this would be my chance to get through to him, to let him know that I knew what he was going through because I’d been through it too.
“I did,” I nodded, my voice cool. He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh yeah?”
“When I got the offer to come out here, I had to decided whether I wanted to leave the life I’d built back home behind and do this or stay there,” I began.
“But you’re not out here for long, are you?” He cocked his head to the side, confused.
“A few months, maximum,” I agreed. “But…my partner. He said he’d leave me if I came out here, said it was clear that we weren’t in the same place if I wanted to leave.”
I found myself slightly choked up, and took a deep, heaving breath as I tried to centre myself again. I had to get this out- I was getting through to him, I could see it in his eyes, and it was the only way I would find a way to parallel my situation with his own. He felt alone? I could offer him an ally.
“And you went anyway?” He asked, his voice quieter now, less defensive. I could sense that his hackles were still up, making sure that I wasn’t taking him for a ride, but he must have been able to see in my face that I wasn’t bullshitting. I still felt an ache in my heart when I thought of everything that I left behind when I came out here- though the sting was beginning to recede with every time I thought of them.
“I did,” I nodded. “I knew it would be an amazing opportunity for me, and I wasn’t about to turn it down, you know?”
He paused for a moment, leaning back from the table and stared at his hands for a couple of seconds. I wondered why he always did that- whenever he was thinking, or uncomfortable, or feeling attacked, he would look at his hands. Maybe because they were his tools? I would have to find some way to work that into the article. Well, that’s what I kept telling myself-I found myself noticing these little things about Sam, and promising myself that I would investigate them for the sake of the article- but knowing that more than a little bit of it had to do with the fact that I was crushing on him, hard.
“Was it hard?” He asked, finally breaking the silence. I nodded.
“I spent a lot of time going back and forth about the decision,” I continued slowly, realizing that this was the first time I’d really spoking to anyone in Kingstown about how I had ended up here. “But I knew it was the right one. It had always been nagging away at the back of my mind, the knowledge that that’s what I should have been doing. It sucked, but…I had to. Because I wasn’t going to grow sticking with everything that I already knew.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when I was done, and reached over and turned off the Dictaphone. I knew that anything we were going to get now would be about me, and I had no interest in transcribing all of that bullshit when I got back to my hotel room. He looked up at me, and I could tell what I’d said had shaken him slightly. He had that look in his eyes, that distant look that I had seen so many times in my own, that told me he was lost in thought about something bigger than both of us.
He got to his feet suddenly, making me jump- our eyes met, and I felt that jolt of attraction once again, the reminder that yes, this chemistry we had wasn’t going to go away. For a second there I’d felt like his career counsellor, but now I was firmly back in the camp of feeling like a teenager with a crush on the biggest jock in school.
“I should probably get going,” he muttered, making for the door- I didn’t stop him. I had plenty to work with off the interview he’d given me, and besides, it seemed like he needed some time to think about what I’d just dumped on him.
“See you tomorrow,” I replied, watching as he made his way out into the corridor- and that mesh of emotions sprang up in my head once again. Jesus, what was I meant to do about this guy? I felt like he needed my push into something he couldn’t do himself, but then, I wanted him to stick around here as long as I was; the thought of him leaving me here without….without, well, him, was too much to bear.
I shook my head to myself as I flipped my notebook closed and grabbed my recorder. I barely knew this guy. I was acting insane, and I knew it. All that I needed to do now was focus in on the story, and make sure I got out of here with my heart intact- because two heartbreaks were more than I could handle right now.
Chapter Twelve
I drove out of town again- this time, further than I’d been in months, maybe even years. I didn’t make much of an effort to leave Kingstown- why would I, when everything I’d ever wanted was right here where I needed it? But I needed to escape. I needed to remind myself that there was an existence beyond the corners of this place- just like Emily had done.
Her words were pulsing around my brain. How could she just up and leave like that? Even though it scared her? Even though it met her boyfriend would dump her? The thought of leaving coach was hard enough, let alone dumping all my friends, my family, my partner just to pursue some dream.
A dream. There was a word I hadn’t used yet- but I knew it was an accurate one. The chance to go play with the Soars, that was the kind of thing I would lie in bed and fantasise about when I was a teenager- well, that and Kate Upton, but you get the idea. I thought about triumphantly leaving Kingstown, about proving my parents wrong, about going all the way to Philadelphia and making a new life there, one that I could be proud of. And it had all seemed so obvious back then. I hadn’t considered what it would take for me to get to that point. I guessed I would just be handed everything I wanted without building any kind of friendship, any kind of fondness for this place, and then skip out without a second thought. In reality, though, it wasn’t that easy.
What was it Emily had said? She had told me that she wasn’t going to get anywhere by sitting around in what she was comfortable with. And I knew what she meant. Every time I had grown up by another little increment, it had been because I’d forced myself to do something I didn’t want to do. Leaving my parent’s house, finding my own place, fighting for my spot on the team- none of these things I would have chosen if I’d had the choice, but, as it turned out, they helped toughen me up. Harden me. Turn me into the kind of person that I was today.
The roads were clear- it was early enough in the day that the rush-hour traffic hadn’t really begun yet, and I was enjoying the peace and the solitude the miles of empty freeway were offering me. If I left here, it would be all go, all the time- I’d visited a few cities in my day, passing through on my way to s
ee friends in other towns, and the sheer speed of everything there was intimidating. Emily must have found life in Kingstown so utterly boring in comparison to what she’d known before- maybe she thought of me in the same breath, a small-town boy from a small-town team who refused to take the chance to go anywhere or do anything that wasn’t guaranteed for him.
That stung- I didn’t like to think of her considering me like that, as part of this little, back-end town, a go-nowhere, do-nothing jerk. Maybe I was nothing more than a rebound bit of fun to her, a way to get over her ex. I stared out at the road, half-blank, and wondered if she was thinking at me at that very moment. And if she wasn’t…why was I thinking about her?
It was just that she was different. That was the main thing. She was so far removed from every other person in this town- not just the women I’d hooked up with over the years, but everyone. She did what she wanted, was rebellious, got out when she wanted to and refused to look back or regret her decision. She was chasing a story, and nothing was going to keep her from getting it- not me, not the pain etched on her face when she talked about the past, nothing. And I couldn’t help but I respect her for that- and wonder if she was the person I should be listening to when it came to making a decision like this one.
I spotted a sign for a diner at the next exit, and I felt my stomach rumble- fuck, I was starving. I took the turning and pulled to a halt in the parking lot, stepping out of the car and heading inside to grab something to eat.
I had a vague memory of being here before. Maybe on the way back from a family visit, when I was a kid? I seemed to remember the counters being higher, and my Dad being there, ordering some food for us before we climbed back into the car and headed home. God, was there anywhere I hadn’t been around Kingstown?