Rites of Passage

by Catherine Gayle

  But Drew seemed resigned to it, like it was simply how things were going to be. “That’s what guys do in this league. Anything you can do to get under someone’s skin on the other team, you do it. Well, they’ve figured out that they can take jabs at me because now they know I’ve got HIV, and not only will they get to me but they’ll get my entire team off our game. Because my teammates want to protect me or some shit. The guy Huggy Bear lined up was probably the worst tonight. So Bear decided to make a statement.”

  “He fought because of you?” I asked.

  “Only because of me. The guy’s been in the league for over a decade, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fight. He usually makes his point in other ways.”

  No wonder it’d seemed like Drew was embarrassed. I doubted anyone else had noticed, other than maybe his family if they were watching at home—everyone was focused on the two men who’d been fighting and not on him. Plus, I got the impression that Drew was pretty good at hiding these things.

  But he didn’t want his teammates to have to stand up for him. He felt like he was putting them in a bad position.

  “He obviously thinks a lot of you, to stick up for you like that,” I said.

  For a long time, Drew didn’t say anything. He focused on the road, changing lanes so he could exit. Once he came to a stop at an intersection on the service road, he looked at me again. I’d never seen this kind of pain in his brown eyes before. Usually, he was the one taking care of me, helping me put myself back together again. But right now, he was starting to fall apart in front of me.

  “I just don’t want the whole team to be worried about making guys on the other side answer for saying shit when the truth is those guys are just scared, you know? They saw what happened in that game last season, they know I’ve got HIV, and they’re scared they’re going to somehow get it from me. And I get it! I understand their fear and why they’re going to act out like they are. But I want my team to worry about playing hockey. Playing as a team. I don’t want the other nineteen guys out there feeling like they’ve got to beat some sense into the other team every time someone blinks at me the wrong way.”

  “Something tells me your teammates wouldn’t look at it that way,” I pointed out. “I mean, they threw a party for you. They clearly want you to feel like you belong.”

  “But if I really belong, why the hell do they have to drop their gloves to prove it all the time?”

  “Might not be all the time.”

  “But it could be. This was just the first game of the preseason. The regular season doesn’t even start for a couple of weeks. This was only the first chance any of the guys on the other side could have a go at me since I was carted off the ice on a stretcher. If they’re already trying to get to me…”

  “You think it’s just going to get worse from here,” I finished for him.

  By now, we’d pulled into his garage. He parked the car and gave me a pained look before releasing my hand and getting out.

  I followed him into the house, walking faster than I normally would because I missed the warmth of his skin pressed against mine.

  Drew closed the garage door behind me, backing me up against it to kiss me. Hard. His tongue pressed against the seam of my lips, and I opened to give him access, practically climbing him as soon as his hands touched my body.

  The sudden change, from talking about his worries to mauling each other in his kitchen, did a number on both my senses…and my resolve. I ripped at his tie, dragging it loose and tossing it on the floor, completely forgetting about my determination to get to know him better.

  “I need you,” he rasped, barely breaking the kiss long enough to get the words out.

  “You have me.” In so, so many ways.

  And I needed him, too, more than I was prepared to admit.

  This week, with Drew gone, would be torture.

  THE ENTIRE TIME I’d been playing for the T-Birds, I’d been doing it while distracted.

  In my first couple of seasons here, I was trying to come to terms with a lot of changes in my life. I’d found out my wife was cheating on me, that I now had HIV, and we’d gotten divorced. I hadn’t filed for divorce right away, trying to find a way to make it work out between us. Most of those things had taken place while I’d been in the playoffs with the Blackhawks—the team that had drafted me, that I’d won the Stanley Cup with, and where I had a legitimate chance of winning the Cup again every season I remained in Chicago.

  But then in the off-season, I’d found out I’d been claimed in the expansion draft by the Tulsa Thunderbirds. And even though Chelsea had said she was on board with making our marriage work, and that she wanted to come with me wherever I went, that had been a lie. Because she was still cheating with the other guy. In the end, she never moved to Tulsa with me, and the divorce was finalized around the time our first season here began.

  In some ways, being picked up by the T-Birds was the best thing that ever could have happened to me, even though it eliminated any hope of seeing another Stanley Cup any time in my near future. It gave me a fresh start. A new city to call home. New teammates to become friends. New sights for new memories. A new outlook on life.

  Here, I had the opportunity to completely rebuild my life in a way that would have been a lot more difficult if I’d stayed in Chicago. Hell, it might have even been impossible.

  So, while a lot of the guys who’d been claimed in that same expansion draft had come to Tulsa with chips on their shoulders and a belief that life was treating them unfairly, I’d arrived with a sense of excitement about what we could build here.

  The newness of everything wasn’t enough to eliminate my distractedness, but it had certainly helped. But instead of truly embracing the opportunity I’d been given, I’d spent a lot of that time in a fog.

  Maybe it had been too many changes in my life all at once.

  The only thing that had kept me sane during that time was my family. They had been my rock, the anchor that kept me grounded when my life had become a tempest.

  Most of my teammates hadn’t known just how fucked up my head was during those first couple of seasons.

  They knew I’d recently gone through a divorce, but that was all I’d told them. Nothing about the fact that she’d cheated on me. Not a word about how I’d only discovered her unfaithfulness during a routine checkup with my doctor, which revealed I was HIV-positive. I’d kept myself closed off from the rest of the guys, determined to keep my private life private.

  I hadn’t done a fucking thing toward bringing this team together or helping us make the change from being a bunch of disparate parts lumped together to becoming a group truly working as a team toward a common goal.

  I’d kept to myself, and I’d sat by and watched most of the rest of the boys do the same.

  Zee was one of the few guys in our locker room who was making a serious, concerted effort to bring everyone together. It was high time I gave him some support in that endeavor, especially if I was going to be the next team captain, like the coaches and front office expected of me.

  But now that I’d come to this realization and was ready to take the necessary steps toward that goal, I was distracted for an entirely different reason.

  Because I was worried about Ravyn now that I was on the road with the team.

  We’d talked every day while I was gone. I usually called her in the mornings, when I had a few minutes before practice and she was getting up to start her day. A lot of times, I called her again late at night, once I knew the tattoo shop was closed and she’d had time to get back to her place.

  She sounded good when we talked. And she promised she hadn’t hurt herself, that she hadn’t even been thinking about hurting herself, and that if she did do either of those things, I’d be the first to know.

  I tried to convince myself that meant she was fine and I should stop worrying about her.

  But I still worried, because I couldn’t get the vision of those newly healed scars on her arm out of my mind. And I
wasn’t fully convinced she wasn’t hurting herself without me there to stop her, even though she said she was okay.

  That probably said more about me than it did about her, now that I thought of it. Did I not trust her to tell me the truth? I supposed I couldn’t, or I’d take her at her word and go on with the rest of my day. But what was I supposed to do with that realization now that I’d had it?

  I’d been trying to get my head back on hockey, but so far, I’d had little success.

  Spurs had given me the night off against Dallas, which was probably for the best for everyone concerned. We’d lost, which surprised no one, but Nemo had done a hell of a job in goal during his half of the game. The other young goalie who’d played that night hadn’t fared so well. In fact, his stint in the net had been so ugly that the coaching staff had already sent him back to his junior team without giving him another chance.

  Maybe they didn’t want to traumatize the kid, but if that was the case, they probably shouldn’t have put him in the net against one of the most potent offensive teams in the NHL.

  Tonight, we were due to face the Coyotes, and I’d been hoping the coaches would grant me another reprieve. Another night in the press box could only do me good, the way I saw it. My head wasn’t on straight, and I didn’t want to let anyone down. Especially not myself.

  No such luck.

  When I walked into the locker room before the game, Spurs was writing line combinations on the white board at the front of the room. My number—eighty-one—was listed on the right side next to two numbers I didn’t even recognize: forty-seven and sixty-four. Which meant I was the seasoned pro on my line for the night, whoever the other two guys were. Lovely.

  Travis Royal, an insanely shy, quiet guy we all called Prince, walked up behind me to scan the board. He was in the lineup on defense for the night, also paired with some young kid. “Who’s fifty-two?” he asked me.

  “Hell if I know, but he’s your partner for the night.”

  He let out a sound I couldn’t interpret and headed for the arena’s underbelly. “Two-touch game starting in five,” he called out over his shoulder.

  Which meant I had five minutes to shoot off a quick text message to Ravyn and let her know I was thinking about her. She’d be at work right now, so I doubted I’d get a response until well after the game tonight, but that didn’t matter. Letting her know she was on my mind was all that was important to me.

  Sitting on the bench in front of my stall, I took out my phone. I’d set it on silent earlier when I’d gone up to my room for my pregame nap. Apparently, I’d missed a few text messages in that time.

  I quickly scanned through them just to be sure there wasn’t anything important I needed to respond to.

  One was from my sister with the latest pictures of Lucy and Charley at the park. Lucy was on the swings and Charley was climbing a kid-sized rock wall that looked a lot more daunting than I would have expected her to tackle. Both of them had grins a mile wide.

  Another message was from my mother, letting me know that she and Dad had booked a flight down for the T-Birds’ season opener. I’d forgotten they were planning to come down for that. Something else to talk to Ravyn about, because I wanted her to meet them. Maybe she wouldn’t freak out too bad if she had enough warning.

  Then Razor had apparently texted to see if I wanted to grab a coffee with him before heading to the arena. Oops. Coffee would’ve been good. In fact, I should probably go on a search to see where I could get a cup now. They were bound to have coffee somewhere in the arena.

  The last message was actually a long string of them, all from Ravyn. My breath got trapped in my lungs as soon as I saw her name with more than a dozen messages attached.

  I scrolled up to the first new text from her and worked my way down. She’d sent me some pictures of her progress with the design she was making for her mastectomy client, all full of bright, bold colors.

  I actually smiled, looking at those, because she wanted to share this piece of herself with me, and because she was clearly starting to feel more like herself. Not only that, but her sketches were fucking brilliant.

  But then there was a whole slew of messages with her panicking because a couple had come in, wanting Ravyn—and no one but Ravyn would do—to design matching tattoos for them after their three-week-old son had died suddenly, seemingly for no reason. Ravyn didn’t think she could do it.

  Because it had to do with a baby.

  And because she was sure it would come out dark and ugly and full of her own pain, much like the paintings she had hidden in her apartment closet, and it wouldn’t be the beautiful memorial they were hoping for.

  In one of the more recent messages, she said she’d talked to Rick and that had helped some, but she really wanted to talk to me and hear my voice. That she wanted to help these people and do the tattoos for them, but she was worried she would cut herself because of all the hurt it would bring up within her to go there.

  The last of her messages had been sent more than an hour ago.

  Fuck. If I’d checked my phone sooner, I could have already talked to her. We could have had a good, long conversation already, and I might have been able to talk her through this. Was it too late already?

  If she’d cut herself…

  I pressed my eyes closed, refusing to allow myself to think like that. It wouldn’t be my fault, even if it felt like it was. I couldn’t fix her. Hell, she didn’t need to be fixed. She was just depressed, and struggling, and I knew as well as anyone that depression was an illness. She needed treatment and understanding, not someone to be a knight on a white charger, rushing in to rescue the damsel in distress.

  She might be in distress, but she—and only she—could ultimately get herself out of it. With help, sure, but she had to be the one to take the steps. She had to go to counseling. She had to take meds if they determined she needed meds. No one could do those things for her.

  I couldn’t do those things for her, no matter how much I might want to.

  I dialed her number, hoping she would answer despite being at work.

  It rang twice. Three times. I was starting to give up hope when her voice met me on the other end of the line.

  “Drew?” There was definitely a sense of panic in her tone.

  “Hey,” I said. My throat felt raw and my tongue too large to fit comfortably inside my mouth. Worry could do a number on a person. “I didn’t see your messages until now. I’m sorry. I would have called you sooner.”

  “It’s okay. You’ve seen them now.”

  “Is it okay?” I asked. I didn’t want to be more specific than that. I didn’t want to put my fears into words in case that made them come true. Probably a superstitious thought, but hockey players were superstitious by nature. Might have something to do with how often we took hits to the head or crashed into the boards. But that was beside the point. “Are you all right? You haven’t…?”

  “So far, so good. I’m just thinking about it. I don’t want to, you know? That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though. But I’m still at work, and I never do anything like that at work. Only when I’m at home.”

  Alone.

  She didn’t need to fill in that part.

  I did some quick calculations. By the time we finished the game, talked to the media, got the entire team to the airport, flew back to Tulsa, and I could get home from the airport, it would be sometime between three and four in the morning.

  She’d be off work by eleven.

  Five hours was a long time for her to be on her own when she was in such a bad state of mind.

  “Can you maybe go home with someone tonight?” I suggested, racking my brain. “Or at least until I can get back there? I can come and pick you up once we land.”

  Bear walked past me, and apparently he overheard my side of the conversation, because he raised a brow in question.

  I shook my head at him so he’d keep doing whatever he was in the locker room to do.

  “If Rick was
here, I could go home with him and Shannon. But they went to Oklahoma City for the next week. Their oldest daughter is having a baby any day now.”

  “But you said you’d talked to him.”

  “I did. On the phone. He called me as soon as he saw my messages.”

  Shit. “And you can’t go home with any of the other guys from the shop?”

  “We don’t have that kind of relationship,” she said, and I didn’t doubt it. Ravyn wasn’t the sort who invited many people into her life. She kept her distance. And I wasn’t sure I’d want her going home with one of them, anyway. I didn’t know any of them well enough to trust them with her.

  “Does Ravyn need a place to stay?” Bear asked, plainly ignoring my earlier head shake. “There’s a key under the potted plant in my backyard. Left it there for the dog sitter. She can go to my place, and you can pick her up when we get back.”

  “Hold on,” I said to Ravyn. Then I angled the phone away from my mouth so I could get rid of him. “She’s got somewhere to stay. She just shouldn’t be alone right now. That’s all.”

  I assumed he’d go on about his business, but he took a seat next to me, claiming the bench at Preston Hutchinson’s stall.

  “What about going to stay with one of the WAGs?”

  She didn’t know any of them to speak of, other than London, and I doubted she wanted to spend hours with a newborn baby. Bad idea.

  She’d briefly met Dana Zellinger, but Dana had a three-pack of little ones running around.

  Tallie Fielding would open her door to Ravyn in a heartbeat, but she was chasing around a one-year-old daughter these days.

  I didn’t know Tori Chambers well enough to ask. Or any of the other guys’ wives, either. That was one of the problems with me keeping my distance since joining the team.

  None of those sounded like very good options considering the reason Ravyn needed to be around other people right now.