by Luis, Maria
“Since I was four, maybe five.”
“And now you are . . .?”
He leans forward, his index finger trailing along my report, and I do him a solid of telling him the answer: “Thirty-four.”
“Ah, yes.” He gives me a brief, noncommittal smile. “Thirty-four. That’s thirty years of being in that rink, day in and day out. Studies have shown that children who play heavy contact sports, and who have suffered head injuries prior to the age of twelve, will run higher risks of brain trauma later on in life.”
By the time I was twelve, I’d already caught more gloves to the head, more helmets to the Plexiglas, than I would ever like to admit.
My breath leaves me on a shaky exhale. “So, what you’re saying is . . .”
“We need more testing, of course. Perhaps some time for you to sit with a cognitive therapist and reevaluate your moods. Tell me, do you ever experience out-of-character, impulsive behavior? Something that you yourself don’t recognize but that friends, family, have mentioned in passing that doesn’t seem very . . . you?”
“Never.” In this, my voice doesn’t waver. Aside from lifting Holly onto the hood of my car and taking her there, in the middle of a parking lot where anyone might see, I’ve never acted rashly a day in my life. Just as controlled as I am on the ice, the same can be said about my temper off it.
“That’s good news, at least.” Dr. Mebowitz scribbles something down on my file, barely casting me a glance as he does so. “Listen, Mr. Carter, brain injuries are not to be taken lightly. When you were last here, I suggested that you step back from the game and give your body the chance to breathe without the added, unrelenting physical stress of body checks or fights, or any other potential causes to all those headaches you’re experiencing.”
The thought of leaving hockey, even for a short-term stint, has my chest tightening with pure panic. Who am I? The question won’t stop spiraling through my head. Without hockey, who am I? Without hockey, Who. Am. I?
“Can’t do that, Doc.” I drop my raised foot to the floor and set my elbows on the desk. “The season’s just beginning. My guys need me. The team needs me.”
“Do they?” He only closes my file and then matches my pose, his forearms using my file as a prop. “The unfortunate truth is that everyone is replaceable, Captain. It’s how the game progresses, how the team grows into its next entity, whatever that might look like. Your brain, alternatively, is not replaceable. You break a leg, and a doctor will reset the bone. If there are any levels of Tau in your brain, a neuropathologist like myself will never even discover it until you’re dead and you’ve given your brain to science. That is the outcome of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.”
Christ.
I work my thumbs into my eye sockets, relieving the mounting pressure behind my lids. “It might be something else.”
“It might be, yes. As they say, we’ll hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
“And how, exactly, do you prepare for something you can’t fully diagnose without me being a corpse?”
“Various tests. None are conclusive, but in ruling out factors like post-concussion syndrome or a possible spinal injury, we can narrow our accuracy and determine if you are indeed displaying symptoms of CTE.” He watches me, eyes narrowed and certain. “I could give you a list of players more famous than you, Mr. Carter, who have walked through your shoes. They survived the transition from pro-athlete to civilian just fine. Not to mention, there’s a reason why when CTE was first introduced, it was known as the ‘punch-drunk syndrome.’ I assume you can put two and two together to determine why a disease like this one might gain a nickname like that.”
“I reckon I can.”
“Good. We’ll get you set up for a bone scan, just to rule out any possible spinal damage that’s gone undetected.”
“And the game?”
Dr. Mebowitz’s glasses slip down the bridge of his nose, and he stops their descent with a single finger. “My professional opinion goes unchanged. You have less to fear from full-fledged concussions than you do from smaller, more repetitive impacts to the head. When it comes to matters of the brain, I advise to quit any sport that’s putting you here in my office.” He pauses, then adds, “With that said, I’m fully aware that you pulled a complete disappearing act on me a year ago. Considering the timing of Fitzgerald nailing you two weeks ago and your sudden arrival for the appointment you stood me up for, I can only guess that should I lay down the law, you’ll do as you please anyway.”
For whatever reason, the disgruntled note in his voice makes me grin—despite all the sobering news that’s come my way in the last thirty minutes. I lean back in my chair. “Don’t tell me that you’ve been following my career now, Doc. It’ll go to my head. Next thing you’ll know you’ll be replacing that photo of Neely with one of my face. Just think of it now.”
“Your head,” he drawls with absolutely no humor in his expression, “is big enough on its own. I’ll have my receptionist call you tomorrow with your appointment schedule—bone scans, cognitive therapy, a SCAT3 . . . You’ll be a busy man, but I assume you don’t know what to do with downtime at any rate.”
Taking that as a dismissal, I haul ass off the chair and head for the door.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping-ping-ping!
“Did that missive of yours go through?” Dr. Mebowitz asks at my back.
“Whoever it is can wait. I just want to . . .” I glance back, meeting the doctor’s dark eyes. “I would prefer that none of this be related to the Blades yet.” I don’t bring up Getting Pucked, even though this has been my biggest fear with the show from day one. If the media finds out—if the hockey world discovers that the Beast of the Northeast might be taking a permanent hit—then my career might as well be over. And I’m not ready to hang up my skates, not yet.
“At least not until we know—well, not until we rule every possibility out,” I continue roughly. “This year is our year for the Cup, and headaches aside, I’ve never felt better.” He doesn’t look like he believes me, and my spine hardens. “We’re taking home the Cup, and I’m going to be on that ice with the rest of my team.”
Dr. Mebowitz only huffs softly. “Athletes and their God complexes.” He nods with a quick wave of his hand. “I’ll be in touch with the specifics, Mr. Carter. Shut the door on your way out.”
I do as he says, clicking the door shut behind me.
As I head for the elevators to bring me back to the outside world where topics like TBI and CTE and head trauma aren’t discussed like who’s-having-what-for-dinner, I pull my phone out of my pocket and steal a quick glance at the glass screen.
Oh, fuck.
Me: Sweetheart, there’s nothing I love more than cupping your tight ass and pressing you up against me.
Me: Sweetheart, there’s nothing I love more than cupping your tight ass and pressing you up against me.
Me: Sweetheart, there’s nothing I love more than cupping your tight ass and pressing you up against me.
Beaumont: Did Carter just say he wants to cup my tight ass?
Cain: **eating popcorn GIF**
Harrison: Please tell me he was talking about Holly.
Hunt: He’s not answering.
Hunt: He’s guilty. Totally was talking about Sin.
Cain: 100% ^^^
Harrison: I’m screenshotting this shit right now. Blackmail, y’know?
Holly: Jackson does like a smooth ass . . . No wonder he left me. Clearly, he was thinking about Andre—only then Andre married somebody else. #plottwist
Beaumont: He lost his chance. I’m a one-woman kinda man. He’ll never have the opportunity to get between my sweet cheeks now.
Hunt: Guys, Carter’s on TV. Channel 4. TMZ.
Beaumont: Is he talking about my delicious rump?
Hunt: 1) Don’t ever say that again. 2) TMZ is reporting that Carter went to Mass General for penis reconstructive surgery.
Cain: . . .
; Harrison: Holy shit. For real? I’m turning it on now.
Hunt: No, not for real. But can you imagine his face when he reads this thread?
Me: I hate all of you.
Me: Except you, Holly. The next time I see you, be prepared to have your world rocked.
Cain: Will this rocking take place post penis surgery? Asking on Holly’s behalf.
In the middle of Mass General with nurses and doctors and patients roaming around me, I burst out laughing. It can’t be helped.
For me, my place on the team roster isn’t just because of the level of stick play. It’s because of this—my guys, my friends. My family. Holly.
Dr. Mebowitz may want me to quit the game, but the game is me. And I don’t know how likely it is that I’ll be able to strip this part of my identity from my soul.
Without hockey, who am I?
I hate that I don’t know.
23
Holly
“Can we get that again, Holls?” Adam asks as he readjusts the mic on Duke Harrison’s lapel. “All I’m picking up are hockey players shouting about—”
The plane dips, bouncing along a bump of turbulence, and Adam braces his weight by setting a hand on the Mountain’s shoulder. “Woops! Sorry there.” A grimace pulls at his features before he tugs away sharply. He squints at me, head turned to where I’m standing a row behind with my camera at chest-level, ready to capture the interview. “I just had a moment,” he says.
I lift a brow and wait.
“Yup.” Nodding vigorously, he reaches out to squeeze Harrison’s arm again. “Muscular. Maybe even a little veiny. Now I know why my wife secretly has you as the screensaver on her cell phone.”
Harrison’s eyes go wide as he splutters with laughter. “I’m sorry . . . what?”
“It’s true.” Adam goes about fixing Harrison’s mic, then steps back to pick up his gear. “There she was giving birth to our firstborn child and her phone starts ringing. I pick it up, obviously, because whoever’s calling clearly wants to know the status of the delivery. I get off the phone and then bam! There you are in all of your shirtless glory. And ass—it was a side shot.”
My gaze cuts from my sound mixer to the Blades’ goalie. At times like these, I generally pride myself on always having something worthwhile to say. But, holy cow, I’ve got nothing.
Interview. Think of the interview!
“So,” I drawl out, unease coating my tone like thick honey, “about those Blades . . .”
But Adam isn’t done yet. He flicks his gaze over Carmen, who’s standing to his left, wide-eyed, video camera hoisted on her shoulder as she props one knee on the cushion of a seat. She looks to me and, to be quite honest, all I do is stare right back.
Is this the moment where I’ll have to fire one of my favorite employees because he went crazy on a plane with America’s most beloved goalie?
The plane dips again, almost as though it’s preparing me for the worst that’s yet to come, and I widen my stance and straighten my hips. I readjust my grip on my camera, fully prepared to turn it into a weapon if I have to bop Adam on the head to shut him up and not make us lose the Blades as a client.
Duke Harrison is nice, but there’s only so much the man will take before he snaps.
“Anyway,” Adam says, “I’m only bringing it up because she photoshopped my face over yours. Not that she could figure out how to get rid of your tattoos, so it was a bit of a dead giveaway since I don’t have any myself.” Offering a shrug, he grins big and pats his belly with his free hand. “It was hilarious, though. I don’t think I’ve looked like you a single day in my life.” Another squeeze of Harrison’s shoulder. “Yeah, I don’t have that so it’s wicked nice to pretend I do whenever I look at her phone now. So, thank you. It’s great for the ego to look like a hockey god in your wife’s eyes.”
I swallow down the laugh, and then I’m not even holding it in anymore.
I collapse in the closest seat and bring my camera up so I can grab a picture of Adam’s smug smile and Harrison’s shocked—maybe even creeped-out—expression with Carmen behind them looking, as usual, cool as a cucumber.
Click.
Click.
I choke out Adam’s name between guffaws of laughter. “Oh, my God, Adam, please tell me that story wasn’t in response to my question about the craziest things fans have done in Harrison’s honor.”
He holds up a hand, palm toward me. Solemnly, he murmurs, “Guilty as hell.”
I’m still laughing at his ridiculous (and hilarious) antics as we clamber our way to the back of the team jet twenty minutes later, looking for our next victim—I mean, participant. Most of the team has gathered together to play poker. We’d caught Duke up front while he reviewed tapes of the goalie from the Washington Capitals, who we’re playing tomorrow evening.
The only game separating me from a weekend away with Jackson.
I bite my lip at the thought, my gaze immediately seeking him out among the rows of Blades players. Logic tells me that it should take me a moment to find him. After all, there’s got to be at least twenty players all seated around and shouting at Josh Kammer, the rookie, who apparently pulled a bullshit move.
And yet, it’s like I’ve got a homing beacon on Jackson after all these years.
It takes me a single breath to locate him seated alone in the back row.
Another full second in which I do nothing but appreciate him and all of his rugged masculinity.
With his forearms propped up on the seat back in front of him, it’s easy to see that he’s holding a full hand of cards, just like everyone else. And, like the others, he’s wearing a fancy suit for our late-night flight to the country’s capital. The suit might be Armani or Tom Ford or any of the designers that have percolated in his closest for years, always worn over and over again. At the end of the day, million-dollar contracts and fame have not altered Jackson at the most intrinsic level: he’s still the same Texan who’ll prefer jeans and a T-shirt over dolling up in whatever designer suit he’s been instructed to wear that day.
But this suit that he’s wearing is one I’ve never seen before. It hugs the breadth of his shoulders, the navy-blue fabric a perfect contrast to the olive undertone of his skin. Underneath the jacket, sans tie, he’s donned a crisp, white dress shirt and done the entire female population a service by leaving the top two buttons undone.
He looks casual, relaxed. Like a man who can have anything he wants if only he were to snap his fingers and request it.
As though sensing my stare, he glances up and catches me studying him.
His dark gaze warms. My heart skips a beat.
“Hey,” he mouths.
Cue: the sensation of a rocket bursting in my belly, pink confetti going every which way.
I smile. Mouth back, “Hey.”
Thanks to his schedule, and my own, it’s the first time we’re seeing each other since our night together at the diner and, earlier, on his car. Thankfully, Carmen makes it easy for all of us by exclaiming, “We need stories for a clip that Getting Pucked is using during commercial breaks.”
Kammer’s head pops up from two rows ahead of me. “What kind of stories?”
“Horror stories,” Adam says with dramatic flair. “In particular, what’s the craziest thing a fan has done? My wife juxtaposed my face on Harrison’s body—well, on his face but you know what I mean—and I found out while she was giving birth.”
“The Mountain? Tell her she got lucky with you.”
“Shit, man! You ever want to work out with us, we’ll have you looking like a Duke Harrison clone in no time!”
I hold up my hands, camera still clutched in my right. “Jokes aside, we need a few volunteers. We haven’t decided if we’d rather shoot one interview per commercial break—we’re looking at four or five of you then—or if we’d rather make an exposé with all of you and stitch them together.”
Cain leans an elbow on the back of one seat. “My vote’s for all of us. It’ll be funnier that w
ay.”
I glance at the cards clasped in their hands and then over to my team. “We’ll do it by suit. Everyone will get . . .” I count the number of rows that the players are filling up, then quickly do the math in my head. “Three cards a pop. It’ll work toward three commercial breaks, and that way Fillmore won’t have my head when I tell him we made sure to get every player.”
“Aw, does he have a favorite?” asks Sylas Trent, a D-man on the second line. He flutters his long lashes and twirls a hand in the air. “No, don’t answer that. I know it’s me.”
His right-wing partner, Quinton Dennis, slaps him on the back of the head. “Bro, you weren’t even your momma’s favorite.”
The guys roar with laughter at what is clearly some sort of inside joke that I’m not privy to, while Trent’s cheeks flush a brilliant shade of red.
After asking Cain to count out the cards and pass them all out, I confer briefly with Carmen and Adam about what it is we’ll need before angling my body to pick my way to the back of the plane.
Thank you, turbulence, for easing up so I don’t lose my breakfast.
I move quickly, careful not to elbow any of the guys in the back of the head, until I’m standing in the aisle at the very last row and breathing the same air as Jackson.
Up close, his suit is even more spectacular.
Or maybe it’s just that he looks even more spectacular now that I’m inches away.
His rugged face tips up to stare at me, even as he tugs his new hand of cards close to his chest. “No cheatin’, Holls,” he murmurs in that husky Texas drawl of his, “I see what you’re up to.”