Hazard

by Devon Monk

  He took the exit to Keizer. We rolled through the Keizer Station, a collection of shops and restaurants right next to the Volcanoes baseball stadium.

  We ordered burgers and fries at a drive-thru and were quickly back on the freeway.

  Sean set the cruise control. “I’m ready when you are,” he invited.

  And so I talked about magic.

  At first it came out of me in stops and starts, but eventually I just talked.

  Started with getting kicked out of the NHL and finished it with the first time back on the ice with the team yesterday.

  By the time we reached the house my brain had a kind of hum to it that I usually only felt after a good, hard game.

  And I was exhausted.

  “Anything else, son?” The engine clicked softly as rain fell in misty sheets against the windows.

  I shook my head.

  “Then I’m just going to say one last thing: I’m proud of you, Random. Life has knocked you off your feet many times since you were a child. And you have always picked yourself back up. I know how hard it is to lose your dream of playing in the NHL.

  “But I am damn proud of you for not giving up on dreaming. You have something to give to this world: talent, joy, kindness. I know you will find a way to give those things no matter what happens in your life.

  “I am grateful to know you, Random. No matter what you do with magic. No matter what you do with hockey. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

  And man, what was I supposed to say to that?

  Mr. Spark leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “All right. Let’s go see if there’s dinner planned for tonight or if we’re calling in pizza.”

  I breathed in, breathed out and tried to feel it like Coach had told me to.

  This, right here. This moment shaping me, holding me. A pause. No worries from the past. No worries for the future. Just the words of the only dad I’d ever had grounding me to this world, telling me I belonged.

  Sean and Kit sat one row down from me, leaning toward each other and eating popcorn like this was just another nice evening on the couch instead of our first home game against the Owls.

  I had never figured out how they could stay so calm about the games Duncan was playing in. Being in the seats instead of on the ice always made me sweaty and amped up.

  We were just into the second period and the Moose Jaw Owls were playing that game where they seemed slow and smooth and all about defense. All about blocking not scoring until they suddenly turned on the burners, got possession of the puck, and flew across the ice to slap the puck into the net.

  Their slow game threw off the rhythm of play. We were on our heels when they broke free and went on the attack.

  Our D-men worked hard in front of the net.

  Josky deflected a shot, a rebound and a second shot too.

  The Owls kept at it, and finally jabbed the puck between her skate and the pipe.

  Goal.

  The crowd rushed to their feet shouting with frustration.

  I was on my feet too, scowling. One point didn’t mean the whole game, but it was a bad way to start the period.

  “What kind of BS play was that?” a voice beside me asked.

  Gen stood in the aisle, a beer in both hands.

  “Hey, you’re…hey,” I said smoothly.

  Her grin grew wicked. “Oh, like I didn’t know you’d be at the first home game since the big blow out in Tacoma. Move over, Forty-two. You’ve got an extra seat.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Magic.”

  I moved over to the empty seat next to me.

  She sat then handed me the beer. “Also, the JumboTron totally spotted you in the crowd glaring after that last goal. I thought tonight might be a beer kind of thing?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thank you. Thanks.” I swigged down a couple gulps.

  Sean twisted in his seat, not-very-subtly asking to be introduced, while Kit turned, her sharp gaze taking in Gen, me, our beer. Then a big ole smile spread across her face.

  “Random,” she cooed. “Why don’t you introduce us to your friend here?”

  I squirmed in my seat. I’d never seen that kind of calculating delight on her face before. It made me nervous.

  “Mrs. Spark, this is Genevieve Brooks. Gen, this is Duncan’s mom, Kit Spark.”

  “So happy to see you here, Genevieve,” Kit said.

  “Thanks.” They shook hands.

  Mr. Spark just kept eating popcorn and watching me like I was suddenly more interesting than his son down there trying to win a game. Why was he staring at me?

  “Mr. Spark, this is Genevieve. Genevieve, Duncan’s dad, Sean Spark.”

  “Wants some popcorn, Gen?” He held up the bag.

  Gen scooped out a handful and smiled. “Thank you. Duncan’s doing great tonight.”

  “He needs to remember JJ doesn’t have Random’s speed,” he said. “But yes, he’s doing well. How do you know our Random here?”

  “Yes. How did you and our Random meet?” Kit asked.

  Our Random? What was up with them?

  “We met at the testing clinic,” I said.

  Yep. Just like a bucket of ice, even mentioning my magic cooled everybody’s happy time.

  “Oh, so you’re the cute assistant and rock star Duncan told me Random can’t stop talking about,” Kit said, brightening.

  “Is that right?” Gen panned a slow look my way. “Can’t stop?”

  “Uh, I…”

  Why was it so hot in here? Was it always this hot in here? Half the building was filled with ice. It shouldn’t be this hot in here.

  “Well, just so you know,” Sean said, “you are invited to spend Thanksgiving with us.”

  “Really?” Gen chewed popcorn and stared at me almost exactly the way Mr. Spark was looking at me—like I was suddenly super interesting and amusing. “Were you going to invite me to spend Thanksgiving with your family, Random?”

  “M-maybe?” I hadn’t even thought about it. Hadn’t thought about much except hockey and magic, and whether I could ever deal with one without the other.

  “Ooh. We made him stutter,” said the woman I used to call Mother. “He only stutters when he’s flustered. Or when he likes a girl.”

  “You’re supposed to be on my side,” I groaned.

  Kit let out one of her laughs, the loud ones that made everyone turn to pay attention, and which made Sean give her that fond bemused look.

  “Shhhh…” Kit waved her hand, looking scandalized. “We need to watch the game. But Gen, you really are welcome at our place for Thanksgiving. Stop by any time.”

  She turned back around and Sean winked, then draped his arm over his wife’s shoulder so she could lean on him.

  “I like them,” Gen said low enough only I would hear.

  “I used to, too,” I said leaning toward her, but loud enough I knew the Sparks would hear me. “Before they got old and weird.”

  Kit giggled and there was something just so normal about all this, I felt my shoulders drop and I took another drink of beer.

  Gen knocked her shoulder into mine. “Tell me about hockey. How did they even score that goal?” Her gaze was riveted on the ice, following the face-off, which we won.

  “Refs didn’t blow it dead, so the puck was still in play.”

  “I thought the Owls were slow.”

  “They are until they’re really, really fast. A lot of cats on the team. They work well together.”

  “Yeah, they do. Bastards.”

  We clunked our plastic cups together and drank beer in companionable annoyance of the team with the angry owl on their jerseys.

  “Thought you were going to call me for coffee,” she said.

  “I was. I’m still…”

  “Exhausted?”

  I glanced over at her. “Yeah. Getting better, but not all the way on my feet.”

  “It takes time. I see wizards going through tests every day. Remember when you asked me what your
score was? What you rated?”

  We both paused while the second line made a push toward the goal.

  “Skate, skate, skate,” I chanted quietly.

  The crowd shouted, then let out a mighty groan when our left winger botched the rebound and the play moved quickly to the other zone.

  “Crap. Their goalie sucks,” Gen muttered.

  We clunked cups again.

  “How high?”

  “I’ve never seen anyone score higher than you. Let that sink in a second, okay?”

  I did. It didn’t help me get my head around it. “You must not have that many people go through your office?”

  “Everyone goes through our office. We’re one of the most highly respected testing centers in the Northwest.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.

  “When you pulled that…whatever it was. Tornado? My mind was totally blown at how much magic you were burning through and how well you controlled it.”

  “Not that great on the control.”

  “You didn’t die, so that’s pretty great. No one else died either, so that’s even better. Plus you pulled several dozen people down out of shift. That’s…”

  She went silent and watched as Duncan made a sweet stretch pass that JJ was there to handle. JJ might not have my speed, but he had good ice sense.

  “When I first saw you get swallowed by magic, I thought you’d died,” she said. “And dammit, Hazard, you do not get to die before we’ve had our third date.”

  I laughed. “Fair. And what’s this right now? Number three?”

  “No. It’s our fourth.”

  I did some counting. She was wrong. This was either our second or our third.

  “When did the third happen?” I asked.

  “Never gonna happen.” She smiled and there was that dimple and nose crinkle.

  My heart stuttered and a flipped. She was amazing. I couldn’t look away from her.

  The crowd roared and leaped to their feet. From all the racket, I knew the Thunderheads had made a goal.

  Gen didn’t look away from me either. “I could probably do Thanksgiving.”

  “Good,” I said, quietly enough it got lost in the crowd.

  “Good,” she said back, her eyes full and bright.

  This, attraction, this whatever it was between us felt solid. New, and curious, but good. Real.

  I might have said more. She might have said more, but just then the klaxon went off again.

  Another goal?

  “Goooal!” The announcer yelled out as the crowd went berserk.

  “Hell, yes!” I whooped.

  I grabbed her hand and we both got on our feet to yell and cheer.

  We took the win, putting one point over the Owls in a final score of 4-3. It was an exciting game, all fast plays and edge of your seat screaming in an arena vibrating with noise.

  No shifts.

  No magic.

  Just good, hard hockey.

  A real nail-biter.

  That we won!

  I lingered outside the changing room, unsure if I should leave the team alone and let them enjoy the victory without me. I had done nothing to help them win. Still, I wanted to at least congratulate them.

  Gen was outside of the building with Mr. and Mrs. Spark. That seemed urgent and dangerous too, leaving them to tell her embarrassing things about me. I took a step away.

  “We know you’re out there, Wiz,” Watts shouted.

  I sighed. Wolves and their sense of smell.

  “Get your magic ass in here and celebrate with us,” Duncan whooped.

  And really, how could I say no to that?

  Thirty-Two

  You have a fan club? A FAN CLUB???? Duncan texted.

  You’re high I replied.

  The Wizzers? Hahahahhaa!

  Bullshit. Where?

  He was in Vancouver at an away game and sent me a link.

  I groaned. The Wizzers was indeed a fan club, started by Mrs. Able and Mrs. Strong. I wasn’t going to hear the end of this for days.

  The Thunderheads won the next two games without me while I did my morning workouts, studied a lot, slept a lot, and tried to ignore the fan club which gained members by the day.

  Then, finally, my two weeks of no-hockey was over.

  I traveled with the team to Edmonton so we could play back-to-back games against the Sands. It was my first game back and it was also two in a row and I was nervous as hell.

  I was a mess during pregame warm ups.

  “You are playing in your head, dude,” Duncan said as we waited our turn in the drill. “Like your body isn’t even connected to the ice. Just…relax and do what you do. You got this.”

  I did not got this.

  Graves skated up next to me, easy on his skates like a man who’d been born in them. “What’s going on, Fan Club?”

  I rolled my eyes at the nickname. Maybe Wiz wasn’t all that bad.

  “First game back. Just got some nerves. It’ll work out.”

  He nodded. “I used to puke every night before a game. I ever tell you that?”

  I smiled. I hadn’t expected him to have a weakness, much less admit it. “No. How did you get over it?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Didn’t say I got over it.”

  “Wait. You puke before every game?”

  “Not as often now, but yeah, often enough.”

  If he was a shifter, which I was still sort of doubtful about, going onto the ice with an empty stomach was terrible for him. If he shifted without the resources, he could black out or worse.

  “You think I should, what? Clear my mind? Focus on my breathing and be in the moment?”

  He gave me a weird look. “Who’s been telling you that?”

  “Coach. Able and Strong.”

  His eyebrows went up at the mention of my teachers’ names. “The wizards? Have you met them?”

  “They started my fan club,” I said miserably.

  He laughed, and it was a good deep sound.

  He tapped my shoe with his stick, something the team had been doing more lately. “Look, it doesn’t have to be complicated, Hazard. You know hockey. Nothing else matters today. We’ll win or we won’t. You’re not going to make that much of a difference.”

  “Hey!”

  He grinned. “You could make a difference, and you damn well better step up as the year goes on, but kid, this is a long, hard grind. All you gotta do today is show up and try not to lose track of which end of the ice you’re supposed to be shooting at.”

  “Those are some low expectations of me.”

  “You have some unbelievably high expectations of yourself, NHL. Stop thinking you’re so special. You’re just a hockey player, just like the rest of us. Shoot the puck at the right net. Everything else will fall into place.”

  He tapped my foot again and pushed off to get in position for the passing drill.

  And, yeah, I felt better.

  We tromped the Sands on their home ice. I pulled it together and managed to play a decent game, though I was exhausted by the end.

  But it was a good kind of exhausted. It was the best.

  And the next day? We did it again. Two wins in a row on the road and a six game win streak. That was something to be proud of.

  The bus ride home was a party. Lots of singing, lots of laughing, lots of crowing about which plays were the best, which players were the best.

  Coach left us to it, even while Assistant Coach Beaumont shook his head and looked exasperated. Yes, they were great wins, but it wasn’t like we’d brought home the Cup or anything.

  We were halfway through November and there was a lot of year left. Still, we were finally finding our rhythm. We were working together in a way we hadn’t even gotten close to at the beginning of the season.

  On top of that, we only had one more game before we got four days off over Thanksgiving. And that game was against the Tide, so we were all feeling competitive as hell.

  My phone pinged the next mo
rning. I didn’t recognize the number.

  I know you have a game against the Tide tonight. I know you’ve received threats. Meet me at the restaurant across from the stadium at noon. I have answers.

  Who is this?

  There was no reply.

  I must have decided to go, and decided not to go a million times before breakfast. But by the time noon swung around, I made excuses to Duncan about getting myself to pre-skate on my own, and was outside the restaurant.

  I walked in. Scanned the lunch crowd.

  A man stood from a table near the back.

  Coach Nowak. He waved me over like he expected me to follow his orders, then sat back down and went back to eating.

  This didn’t make any sense. I had no idea why he would want to meet me. But it couldn’t be a coincidence that he was there, waiting for me to walk through the door, and had waved me over. The text this morning had to be from him. Which meant he had answers about who was sending the threats.

  I walked to the table, sat down across from him.

  This felt wrong, like talking to the opposing team was illegal or something. It wasn’t. Not really. Players got traded from team to team all the time. But still, something was off about a coach wanting to see me. Wanting to see me about the threatening letters I hadn’t told anyone but Coach Clay about.

  “Glad you’re here, Hazard. Food?” He pointed toward the menu on the table in front of me. I shook my head.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  He sawed off a bite of steak and chewed before answering. “I thought it was time to clear the air with you, Random, may I call you Random?”

  “I’d prefer Hazard.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he leaned back. “Well, here’s how things are going to go, Random.”

  Ass.

  “You’re going to sit there and listen. All the way through to the end of what I have to say. You’re going to keep your mouth shut. Then you and I will have a better understanding of what needs to happen about those threats you’ve been getting.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Coach.”

  He took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “Oh, I will. But right now, I’m talking to you.” He lifted his beer, took a drink. “I don’t like your kind. Wizards. And I don’t like your kind in the middle of my game. I wanted you out. But that didn’t happen. And I am man enough to see that having a wizard in the league filled seats. Ticket sales are up. That’s good.” He pointed his fork at me.