by Luis, Maria
“Fun-killer.”
“CARTER! Goddamn, will you two stop hooking up and let us in?”
Eventually, Jackson puts me down.
Eventually, I dress before he lets his teammates inside.
I watch them like a military sergeant watches his platoon members, checking each one off my mental list as they come to talk with Jackson and offer him an ear from his peers, people who know the risks of the game.
Duke Harrison.
Andre Beaumont.
Marshall Hunt.
Henri Bordeaux.
Weston Cain.
Turns out, the immature one in the Safe Space group thread was the rookie, Josh Kammer, and he comes in too, bringing up the rear.
They crowd Jackson in the living room, threatening to sit on his face if he doesn’t open up and tell them everything. When I pause in the kitchen to gather plates and utensils for the food Duke brought, I grab my phone and scroll through the new group message I began on our separate drives back to Jackson’s condo, appropriately titled, The Best Group Thread To Ever Exist.
Me: Rules of this thread.
Me: 1) I’m in charge. 2) Repeat: I’m in charge. 3) No mention of sweet cheeks or you’re out. 4) Are you in?
Harrison: At least I can listen to someone else be in charge. Jackson never shuts up.
Cain: The sweet cheeks are a thing of the past.
Beaumont: You’re killing my vibe but I’m in.
Hunt: New rule—Beaumont can’t text more than once an hour.
Kammer: Is it wrong that I’m just excited I was invited? #fullconfession
Me: Jackson needs y’all. I can’t give information without his okay, but I know that he’ll feel better with you guys here. We’re heading back to his condo now. If you could make the time . . . we’ll be ready for you in an hour.
Bordeaux: I coming.
Hunt: I’m on my way.
Cain: omw
Beaumont: Is it creepy if I sit outside his door and wait? Kidding, you never have to ask. Carter needs us and I’m there.
Kammer: You got it!
Harrison: Carter has dropped everything for us for years now. I’m heading there now. I’ll pick up pizza so we’ve got food.
Familiar arms pull me into an equally familiar embrace. And then that voice . . . that same voice that has whispered in my ear for nearly fourteen years, whispers the sweetest words I’ve ever heard: “Always you, Holls. Always you.”
36
Jackson
Six Months Later
“Now that was a cliffhanger if we ever saw one, right? No kidding, I don’t think I’ve felt so on the edge of my seat since the last Game of Thrones season.”
The audience around me cheers on Dominic DaSilva, Sports 24/7’s notorious analyst, as he moves across the stage with a microphone in hand. I’ve met the guy once before, back when I was a rookie with the Bruins and he was in his second season playing football for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Fast forward a decade and we’re both old geezers who had our seasons and careers ended prematurely. Six months ago, I wasn’t quite ready to pack in the proverbial bag—and I didn’t. Stubborn ass that I am, I straddled the fence for as long as I could hold out. I played hard on the ice and played hard off it, too, with doctor appointments and therapy, and Getting Pucked following me from one place to another.
I had my eye on the Cup, and I’d be damned if anything impeded that.
In March, Dr. Mebowitz got his wish. A hard hit from a Canadiens D-man had me seeing stars for weeks. Stubborn or not, there was no coming back from a body check like that. I’d been sidelined by an asshole with a unibrow and a weird, idol-like obsession with Beaumont.
Holly told me it was fitting that Andre was the one to bust in my cheek, taking me out for half a season years ago, and the guy who wanted to be Andre was the one to end my pro-hockey career for good.
I don’t think it was fitting so much as it was ironic, but there’s life for you.
One fucked-up string of ironic event after ironic event.
“Well, I’ve got some news for all of you tonight,” DaSilva goes on, looking like some sort of mafioso up on the stage. He’s not wearing a single thread that’s not black—and the ladies in the crowd love him for it, if their initial swooning when he got up on stage is anything to go by. “Getting Pucked has not only allowed us access to a clip of the exclusive interview between Jackson Carter and Holly Carter before it airs on primetime TV next week, but we’ll be joined by Mr. Carter himself on stage following that.”
Wild applause erupts in the massive hall.
I slide a glance over to Holly, who’s seated next to me in the front row of the theater. She looks gorgeous with her blond hair down around her shoulders and wearing that same blue dress that I stripped her out of months ago. Reaching for her hand, feeling the cool gold of her wedding band on her third finger, I pull it onto my lap, needing her touch and support.
“You’re going to be fine,” she says for me only, cupping our clasped hands with her free one. “If you can sing My Heart Will Go On to a bunch of hockey players, you can go up there and talk to a crowd about the sport you love so much. Plus, you’ve got another few minutes before you have to leave this seat. I believe in you.”
“The singing happened because you were up there with me.” I duck my head, brushing my lips across her temple. “You wanna come up on the stage with me?”
“Not a chance.” She smooths my swollen knuckles with her thumb. “But I will absolutely come with you later, if you know what I mean.”
My cock stiffens in my slacks. “Tease.”
“Took your mind off the talk, didn’t it?”
She’s right, it did. At least, momentarily, until the lights in the theater dim and my face quite literally makes it on the big screen. It’s jarring to see myself as everyone else does, and not for the first time do I think about the fact that I look normal. And, for the most part, I feel normal, too.
“Tell me your name,” I hear Holly say over the surround-sound speakers, “and two facts about you that fans wouldn’t know.” She’s not visible to the viewers, purposely seated behind the camera, so as to allow me to remain the sole focus of the episode.
Getting Pucked’s season-one finale.
I watch as I fidget in the frame, this big-ass dude constantly fiddling with his Blades ball cap until he thwacks it against his thigh and leaves it dangling from his knee. “I’m Jackson Carter, and I love belting out Celine Dion lyrics with my wife, generally loud enough for our neighbors to come banging on our door at all hours of the night. I, uh, also love hockey.”
It was Holly’s idea to approach Mark Fillmore about the final interview. I’d been hesitant at first, unwilling to even consider the level of vulnerability necessary to do something like this—open my heart and my fears to the public.
I wouldn’t have done it, either, except that my wife had one very good point: “You have a voice, Jackson. Fans adore you and players admire you, and I swear, you have enough trophies under your belt to fill an entire room. Lend that voice to someone who might not have it.”
In the clip, Holly poses the next question: “Why do you love hockey?”
I smooth real-life Holly’s hand flat on my thigh, playing with the same wedding ring I put on her finger almost twelve years ago now. We wed on a different day for the second time around but decided to keep our rings. To the utter surprise of no one, neither of us had thrown them out or sold them to a pawn shop.
It was fate, obviously.
A shooting star that took pity on me and made my wish happen.
“Hockey feeds my soul,” I hear myself respond huskily, “it’s my high. I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, but for years, hockey has satisfied the adrenaline junkie in me. It was the thing that I did with my dad, who was a military intelligence officer in the Army. He deployed a lot, while I was growing up, but he’d come back home and ask how my skating was doing. The ice allowed me to thrive, it allowed me to gro
w up and discover the man I was meant to be.”
There’s a small pause in our interview and though the public will never know, thanks to the miracle that is video editing, it was in that moment where Holly held me while I broke. I didn’t shed a single tear, but I broke all the same.
The very next morning, we dressed in the same clothes we’d worn the day before and continued filming like we’d never stopped.
Slowly but surely, the interview continues. Holly’s questions grow more targeted until I’m admitting to what I now realize were the early signs of an addiction to painkillers: “You think you’re invincible on the ice. Every injury can be reset, every lost game can be overturned by one that you win. But when the enemy is what you love, and it’s slowly chipping away at your health, it’s a battle not everyone will win.”
“You won,” Holly says on the screen.
“I only won because someone paved the way before me. She showed me what mattered, what I could lose if I kept going. You don’t mess with my wife when she’s trying to make a point.”
Beside me, Holly squeezes my hand. Almost two years ago, I saw Dr. Mebowitz and it took me an entire year to go back. It took me seeing a future again with Holly, knowing what was at stake, to lead me back to his office.
“Before we cut to a break, I want to ask . . . what are your plans going forward? Do you have any?”
Without TV-me answering, the massive screen goes dark and I heave out a big breath.
Here’s to my five minutes of fame—I much prefer it while wearing hockey gear.
DaSilva comes back on the stage a moment later. He’s ditched his suit jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt. I don’t think it’s my imagination when I hear feminine sighs throughout the room.
He doesn’t pay any of it any attention when he says, “Sorry for cutting that clip short. Looks like you’re just going to have to tune in next week when it airs on Sports 24/7! Shameless advertising? One-hundred-percent, folks. Anyway, we’re going to welcome Jackson Carter to the stage now.”
Just before I stand—and try not to vomit—Holly kisses my cheek. “Knock ’em dead, tiger. I love you.”
I steal a deeper kiss from her mouth. “Love you, too.”
The crowd roars with enthusiasm as I pick my way to the side stairwell and then up onto the stage. A microphone is waiting for me, and I pick it up on the way to meet DaSilva in the middle of the stage, as we rehearsed earlier today.
“Jackson Carter is a legend in the NHL,” DaSilva starts, ambling across the stage as he speaks to the audience. “With one Stanley Cup under his belt from his time with the Boston Bruins, he’s also been the recipient of the Art-Ross and Conn-Smythe awards. He’s played with the Dallas Stars, the Bruins, and the Boston Blades. He comes in a measly fourth place in terms of most goals scored during a career with 745 to his name. Don’t worry, no one would dare knock Wayne Gretsky out of the number one seed.” DaSilva chuckles low, and a girl in the front actually presses her hand to her heart.
“Let’s welcome the Badass of Hockey, shall we?”
DaSilva steps to the side, ushering me to take his spot on the X marked on the floor. I’d tried to memorize tonight’s speech after Sports 24/7 told us that Getting Pucked was actually up for an award for best docuseries of the year.
Steven Fairfax did actually faint when the nomination email hit his inbox. Mark Fillmore took a picture and texted it to me right after.
Gripping the microphone tight, I allow my gaze to bounce along the unknown faces in the audience. “I had a speech prepared,” I murmur, keeping my tone light, “but I have a feeling that it was somehow left on my kitchen table. Which means I’m gonna have to wing this for y’all, and it’s going to have to be short because the Blades are down to game seven tomorrow, and if I miss my flight, I know who I’m comin’ after.”
The crowd applauds at that, and I mentally thank Holly for booking us a red-eye from L.A back to Boston. My wife knows how to plan ahead, and for that I’ll always be thankful.
“See,” I say once the clapping subsides, “I planned to come up here with a perfect speech about how I transitioned from hockey player to hockey coach in the quickest time in the history of the league. Hey, DaSilva”—I point the mic in the analyst’s direction—“I got Gretsky on something. Man might be a god in my book, but he can’t hog every top-place slot.”
DaSilva offers a gallant, dramatic bow. “Touché, Carter, touché.”
I give a little bow of my own, sending the audience into a fit of laugher. Maybe I’m not that awful at this public-speaking business.
Pushing the thought away, I keep going. “The truth is, I was a wreck. Tell any pro-athlete—hell, ask anyone who has an extraordinary love for their craft, whatever it might be—that their time is up, and I promise you that it’s not going to be a smooth process. It wasn’t for me, as you’ve seen during the course of this season’s Getting Pucked.”
I step back, away from the stand, taking the detachable microphone with me. “There’s nothing more terrifying than realizing that you’re only hurting yourself if you keep up with what you’re doing. For me, that was playin’ hockey. Each time I stepped onto the ice, I risked injuring myself more. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t quit—against the advice of my very nice, very patient doctor. In my defense, I wasn’t willing to stop until he traded a picture of Cam Neely on his desk for one of me, but that’s another story for a different day.
“So, I kept going until I could go no more. There’s something refreshing about waking up and thinkin’, well, shit can’t get any worse from here. I pushed my body to the brink and my body flipped me the bird. Don’t worry, we’re on speaking terms now.” Scrubbing a hand over my jaw, I run through the words I’d rehearsed with Holly. All of them, now, come up blank.
Fuck it.
Time to go off the cuff and wrap this up.
“I’ve been asked multiple times what changed my bitter outlook, and I’ll tell you that it was thanks to one person—the woman who interviewed me for the final episode of Getting Pucked. She was a constant on the show the entire season, working some of the most brilliant magic behind the scenes. My wife, Holly Carter.”
Fruitlessly, my gaze searches for her in the crowd. When I don’t see her, I push onward. “I once asked myself, without hockey, who am I . . . and I’ll admit, I didn’t have an answer six months ago. I was me, a man who loved hockey and a man who loved her, Holly. But then I thought about it, really thought about it, and I finally knew what I hadn’t realized all along: hockey may feed my soul, but it’s not because of the rush of the ice under my skates or the sting of my helmet hitting the Plexiglas. It’s because of my guys on the team; the staff who work diligently to improve us, game after game. It’s the fact that, when I was out for the count, my family came to me with pizza and trash talk and goddamn Cards Against Humanity, and me and them and Holly stayed up until four in the morning playing ridiculous board games.”
“I love hockey because I’m part of a family.” I shove my hand into the front pocket of my slacks. Draw in a deep breath before going for gold. “My brilliant wife then slapped me with a healthy dose of reality, and said, Not all superheroes wear capes, Jackson. So, I stand here before you, out of my usual Blades uniform and skates. I put down the hockey stick in favor of working together with doctors like Dr. Mebowitz and others who study TBI and CTE. We can’t change what happened to me or what’s happened to so many other athletes, but we can do something different for our children.”
There’s a commotion at the side of the stage, and it takes me a moment to register the fact that Holly, my Holly, is making her way up toward me. In her hands, she carries what looks like a navy-blue towel.
Only when she shakes it out do I realize that she’s bought me an honest-to-God cape with the words ASSISTANT COACH emblazoned in silver.
“You didn’t,” I rasp, not even giving a shit that the entire theater can hear me.
I stand, rooted to the spot, as Holly
gives the fabric an extra shake like a matador waiting for the bull. She steps in close. “Turn around, Coach.”
Like any husband who knows the benefits of obeying his wife, I turn my ass around.
Her nimble fingers close the front around my neck, snapping the cape’s button closed before lingering a tad longer than is socially appropriate. She skims her nails over my chest before snagging the microphone from my grasp.
Whirling around to the crowd, she sidles under my arm and rests her head against my chest. “Let it be a lesson learned,” she says into the mic, “not all superheroes might wear capes, but when you’re the Beast of the Northeast, the Badass of Hockey, there’s no other option. Anyone think Jackson here should wear this cape tomorrow at the game? Maybe it’ll bring him and the Blades a little luck?”
As the crowd freaks the hell out, I don’t know whether to kiss or spank my wife.
But when Marshall Hunt scores the winning goal the following night, clinching the playoffs for us and bringing home the Cup, I opt to do both.
And I make sure to wear my cape for a little luck.
Epilogue
Holly
Five Years Later
“Mommy, can I eat cereal out of Stanley?”
Normally, the answer to that question, posed by my four-year-old son, would be a hard hell no. (Without the four-letter word additive, obviously.)
Usually, “Stanley” refers to our Great Dane who drools in my shoes and hogs up the entire bed until both Jackson and I are clinging to our respective edges. Even our king-sized bed is no match for our furry firstborn.
I glance down at Mikey, where he’s clinging to Dog Stanley’s leg. “Please?”
He makes the most pitiful face I’ve ever seen. I’m seconds from caving and he knows I’m in his four-year-old clutches. Casting a quick glance at the Stanley Cup, which is seated in the center of our living room, I briefly wonder if Josh Kammer decided to clean the damn thing down with antibacterial wipes before schlepping it over to our house.