by R J Scott
I pulled down my face mask and turned to face the team with determination, all of them lined up waiting and chatting and absolutely not staring at their sorry excuse for a backup goalie.
I settled my breathing, leaned over and cleared my thoughts, then bounced in place, bent my knees, and finally, I was ready.
I nodded, and Ten’s line was up first, a give and go, passing crisply, and when my hand was there, the glove catching the puck, it was as if I had steel in my spine. Fuck everything else, this is what I loved, and I was good at it. The rest of it was just noise.
The practice ended with me sweating, tired and happy, and we made it back to the dressing rooms, Adler shooting his mouth off about strawberry shampoo and figure skaters or some such nonsense, and Dieter shoving him every so often.
“A word when you’re done here,” Coach Gagnon said in passing. There was no accusation in his tone. He didn’t seem angry, but the feeling of dread that had marked this morning was back with a vengeance.
Showered and dressed, I made my way to the Coach’s room, standing aside to let Jared Madsen out, and not quite being able to look him in the eye after what I’d managed to do to Ten. He didn’t seem like he wanted to kill me, so that was a good thing.
Maybe he hasn’t heard yet.
I rapped on the door frame, and Coach Gagnon, talking and smiling on the phone, gestured me in.
“Shut the door, son,” he said. The dread intensified, so it was a dead weight on my chest. “Have a seat.”
I took the worn seat and shuffled back from the table so I could fit in the small space left for visitors.
“I can do better,” I said quickly. “Sorry about Ten.”
He ignored what I said, rested his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers, and regarded me thoughtfully, “How are you, Bryan?”
“Good,” I lied. He made a soft noise, a disbelieving hmmm, and that wasn’t a good sound, particularly when he frowned as well.
“How are you finding the mindfulness sessions?”
I opened my mouth to lie, but he was staring right at me, and I thought he could even see through me. I actually found them impossible because I had to sit in silence and listen to my body, and it wasn’t natural. I think I did it already, but not in such a purposeful way.
“Difficult, Coach.”
He nodded and smiled softly, and I was relieved that I’d said something right. He paused for a moment, and I wondered if he wanted me to say anything else.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I know how hard it is to come from another team, and I’d like you to get some help with settling yourself here. I made an appointment with Mitchell Grafton. He’s on-call for the Railers as our therapist for today. He’s an ex-skater, a good man, and I’d like you to see him for a chat.”
A therapist? Jesus, I’d spent most of my life avoiding that shit, and I scrambled for a reason why I didn’t need to talk out my feelings.
“I already apologized for hitting Ten. It was an accident. Wrong place wrong time,” I defended.
“Ten has had worse than a blocker to the chest.”
“It was an accident. He talked to me, took me by surprise. I was in the zone.”
The lie tasted horrible on my tongue, but Alain Gagnon was a former goalie and would know what it was like to be in the zone.
It worked. He chuckled, then coughed to clear his throat. “Okay, so we’re looking at an appointment beginning in ten minutes. Make your way up to concourse level, and it’s room C twenty-three.”
“What? Now?”
“Now.”
“But, Coach, I have time booked for strength and conditioning.”
“You can make it up.”
He looked at me steadily, and I knew I had to say something to make this all go away, but I wasn’t about to argue with the man who held my future in his hands. All he had to do was tell our GM or head coach I wasn’t mentally fit for this and I was gone from the Railers.
“Bryan?”
I snapped back to Coach’s voice. “Sorry?”
“This isn’t up for negotiation.”
Aarni’s chuckle filled my head, “I knew you wouldn’t last a month there.”
“Yes, Coach.”
Which is how I found myself standing outside room C twenty-three, hand in a fist, ready to knock, and feeling like a fifteen-year-old kid meeting my billet family for the first time. I knew back then my new family would have so many questions, and it was a familiar dread that gripped me. I stepped back from the door and leaned against the wall, thankful that this room was in a curved corridor with a dead end past it. No reason for anyone to walk past and see how fucked up Bryan Delaney was.
Then, before I could second-guess myself anymore, I rapped on the door and entered at the muffled “Come in”.
I expected a couch and a man with gray hair who would stare at me as I cried my way through life.
Instead, there were sofas with cushions and jerseys in glass frames around the room. The pen holder on the desk was a miniature replica of the Stanley Cup, and the man I was there to see was on his hands and knees on the floor, picking up what looked like an entire lifetime’s worth of paper clips.
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry, I’ll be with you in a minute. I didn’t have the appointment until half an hour ago, and I was unpacking.” He returned to the job in hand and scooped clips into a pile. “Pass me that would you?” He gestured to a cardboard container which had rolled toward the door. I picked it up and passed it to him. He scooped each paperclip in there and finally stood, brushing off his pants, and then extending a hand to me.
“Mitchel Grafton, call me Mitch, and you’re Bryan Delaney, the backup goalie. I saw you play against the Jets back in fifteen. Nice saves in the shootout, good hands.”
I wasn't expecting a guy who didn't stop talking, but seriously he was all smiles and happy and confident. I hated him and really wanted out of the room.
“Thanks,” I said instead.
“Sit, sit.” He chose one sofa, so I took the other, easing back into the comfort of dark leather and waiting for the questions to start. “Tell me the truth,” Mitch began and leaned forward, all earnest and focused.
Here we go.
“I’ll try,” I said.
“I read you sometimes close your eyes in practice. Is that for real?”
Wait. Where was the searching question about my parents or my sex life or my opinions on images I could see in ink blots?
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I know it’s strange, but I connect with the ice.”
Mitch grinned at me. “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. I played hockey at college level, not a goalie but as part of the leakiest defense in the NCAA. Maybe we should have all closed our eyes and felt a connection with the ice.”
Is he teasing me? Is he laughing at my weirdness?
He didn’t seem to be. I couldn’t see that he was anything but genuine.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Anyway, where do we start? Coach Gagnon wanted me to talk to you about mindfulness, but before we do that, I’d like to get a feel for the real Bryan Delaney. Where were you born?”
I gestured at his lap. “Don’t you need a notebook or a file?”
He shook his head, “I don’t take notes. I’m not that kind of therapist. I just want to talk, man-to-man, see how we can work together to make your thoughts a little calmer in the net.”
“What if I don’t need that?”
“We’ll work out if you do or not and take it from there.”
Resigned and not able to run for the door, I laced my fingers together in my lap, my palms sweaty, my chest tight, and steeled myself for all kinds of searching questions. Starting with where I was born, which would lead to my parents.
“I was born in Canada,” I said before he could ask me again. I had this story carefully plotted, and it was all in my bio if you looked hard enough. “My dad was a mechanic; my mom was a secretary for the local Catholic church. I went to school i
n the town I was born in, played my first hockey game at four with my best friend, Darren, and moved to a billet family in Erie when I was fifteen.”
Mitch watched me carefully. “Let’s start at the beginning.”
Please, let’s not.
“Why?”
“I just want to get a better picture.”
Irritation spiked. What the hell gave the Railers the right to know anything past my basic information? I was theirs now, but all that stuff from my childhood wasn’t important. I even had the words on the tip of my tongue to say just that, but Mitch beat me to it.
“So, your dad was a mechanic; your mom a secretary. Did either of them play hockey?”
I couldn’t help the snorted laugh, imagining my sour-faced mother on skates or my dad drunk off his head trying to stand up on dry land, let alone ice. Of course, that was the wrong thing to do as I caught a glint of interest in Mitch’s steady gaze.
“How did you get into hockey?”
“My best friend’s uncle was a coach and our local priest. He would take us both.”
“Priest? Are you a practicing Catholic?”
“No.”
That was a can of worms I was not opening, and I guess my tone was enough for him to back off. The irritation inside me was acid under my skin, and I had to try damn hard to sit still in the chair.
“You left home at fifteen.”
Not a day too soon.
“A lot of hockey kids get selected to play and live with new families.”
“I know. Tell me about the family you ended up with.”
“Daisy, my billet mom, is married to George, and they have two children of their own, Emma and Tom. I loved my time with them until I moved to Arizona after the draft took me to the Raptors.”
“But you weren’t happy at home in Canada?”
“I never said that.”
Mitch frowned and shook his head. “The Raptors are a hard team.” He didn’t elaborate, and I wasn’t going to give anything away. “Are you still close to your billet family?”
By the time the session had finished, Mitch knew very little about the real me, and I certainly hadn’t told him about the first fifteen years of my life or getting caught kissing the priest’s nephew or why I wasn’t a Catholic anymore. Hell, I hadn’t even told him about Aarni being my boyfriend, although I did tell him I was gay. He didn't bat an eyelid at anything I actually deigned to say to him. I was congratulating myself on my success and actually felt calmer, so maybe there was something with this talking business.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” Mitch concluded and shook my hand. I’d made it all the way into the hall, heading in the direction of the stairs when he called after me. “Same time Friday?”
I sketched a wave back at him, didn’t actually say I’d be there. That was all I could manage right now. I was exhausted from skirting the truth and avoiding the past, and my head hurt.
It didn’t help when Ten cornered me by the lockers as I pulled out the thick fleece that had replaced my coat.
“Check your phone. There’s an invite on there for a preseason party at our place. Beer, talking, and I think Jared’s doing barbecue.”
“I’m not sure I can make it,” I blurted and realized what I’d done. He hadn’t even mentioned a date, and I had just fucked myself over. The last thing I wanted to do was be social with the team. When the Raptors got together outside hockey, it was an excuse to get drunk and pick on anyone who showed vulnerability. The quiet goalie was at the top of everyone’s lists. But don’t think for one minute I can’t think on my feet. “I’m washing my hair,” I quipped and turned the whole thing into a joke.
Ten went from confused to happy in a millisecond, and he fist-bumped me.
“Sunday, starts at four, details on the phone.”
He left then, in his cool Railers’ jacket, and I looked at my stupid ass Raptors fleece and threw it back into the locker.
I might not be with the Railers very long, but I could get one of the jackets and eBay it later when they dumped my ass.
I had two preseason games to prove I wasn’t a fuckup and solidify my place as a legitimate backup to Stan, and one team party to get through without seeming like an idiot.
But all I could think about was Aarni and the blonde or the unidentified man on the phone or Gatlin and his soft voice and kind eyes.
And I was tired of it all.
Eight
Gatlin
“You come.”
I glanced up at the Russian sitting in my chair, getting some color added to a new tattoo. Stan stared back at me.
“You come.”
“Stan, I appreciate the offer, but it’s kind of last-minute notice. I might have something planned for that night.”
“What plan? You got better plan to party with us?” He stared right into me. I returned my attention to the soft blue going into the small baby bunny on his wrist. A little blue bunny. All fuzzy and adorable with the name of his son inked in among the flowers Noah the bunny was cavorting in. Well, I guess Noah was Erik’s son, but try telling Stan that. Or Stan’s mother. That boy was theirs as much as he was Erik’s.
“I didn’t say I had plans. I said I might. You okay?” I glanced up again, pulling the needle from his skin after he had moved his hand. “Getting too intense on the pulse point? Lots of people complain about that. We can take a break.”
“No, it good fine for pulse points. I need you tell me you come. Big party. We bring Mama and Noah. Many wife and children. One beer only why hard training for new season. Make good times. You come.”
I sighed. “Stan…” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. I did. I loved the guys on the team and was kind of flattered to be thought of as one of their inner circle. But where the Railers were, Bryan was sure to be, and that whole festering mess had yet to be resolved. Why? Oh, because the big bad tattoo artist didn’t have the balls to call the man, or vice versa it seemed. That kiss had elevated things from mere attraction to fuck-me-now, and I wasn’t sure Bryan was on board with—
“You look goofy-faced.”
“I was born looking like this,” I quipped to cover my lapse.
Stan chuckled, then flexed his hand to work out the tingling in his fingers, I wagered.
“You sexy old man.”
“Thanks.” I sniggered, sitting straight to work out the kinks being bent over his arm had brought.
“I no mean old man. Old man like young man but not so old dick no work good no more. See? I make clear sunny day as shine on face!”
I had no idea what he had just said. “Yep, clear as a sunny day on shine face.”
“Ah, we speak good talk. You smart man. Smart come with old. So, you come.”
I folded my arms over my chest, tattoo gun in my right latex-covered hand. “Are you going to keep pestering me until I give in?”
He nodded strongly. “I pester big much. You come. See friends. Eat good foods. Bounce baby Noah on knee. You come.”
“Okay, I give up.” I held up my hands. “I’ll go. Text me the directions to Tennant and Jared’s place.”
His grin was wide and sincere. “Is good you come! You see. Big good times for all.”
I doubted Sunday night would be filled with big good times, but at least it beat sitting around, staring at Bryan’s jacket while I played with myself.
“Now do work on new Noah inks.”
“It was you who kept distracting me,” I pointed out with a soft laugh.
Stan’s smile grew wider. “Yes, but you come now. Distracting make work mighty fine.”
Sunday night arrived, and I was pretty sure not much was going to be mighty fine or even a little fine. I felt stupid, underdressed, too damn old, and was about to knock on Jared Madsen’s door with Bryan’s coat over my arm. Shit. Maybe I should’ve gone back and thrown it into my car. Yeah, good call. I dashed to my car, chucked the coat in, and then jogged back to Jared’s and then rang the bell. I could hear the party from out here. When the do
or was yanked open, the sounds of laughter, both adult and children’s, leached into the early October evening.
“Gatlin, dude, so glad you made it!” Tennant grabbed my hand, shook it, and then pulled me into his home. “Yo! Our ink man has arrived.”
Everyone in the tastefully decorated apartment greeted me. I lifted a hand, and my sight flew to Bryan standing by an old upright piano. Seeing him sucked the air from my lungs. How was it possible that he’d gotten even better looking since I’d last seen him? That shaky kiss flashed through my mind as we stood drinking each other in while I made small talk with Ten and Jared. They shoved a soda into my hand. Two young boys ran past, one bouncing into and then off Tennant’s leg.
“So yeah, I’m working my best charm to get Bryan to join our Pokémon group, but he’s holding out hard. Think you could maybe discuss how painless it is to get new ink?”
I gave Tennant a lifted eyebrow. The kid had the grace to look a little shamed.
“Okay, so they do kind of hurt, but he’s just balking because…well, I don’t know why. I know he wants in because, yeah, it’s Pokémon, but every time we mention the tattoo part, he gets all ashen and shit.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t want a tattoo. Not all of us do, Tennant,” Jared interjected, his hand lying on the back of Ten’s thick neck, right over Rowe’s own tattoo.
“Maybe, but I think if he just talked to a professional about it…”
“Okay, I’ll go talk to him about tattoos.”
“You rock.” Ten and I rapped knuckles, and then I meandered toward Bryan. Each step I got delayed by hockey players or their wives, many who had also come to me for ink, until about fifteen minutes later, I finally stepped in front of the man who had been haunting my dreams for days.
“You’re popular,” Bryan said, holding a can of pineapple soda.
I’d never seen pineapple soda before. “Is that some sort of Canadian thing?” I asked, waving my good old can of Coke at the yellow can in his hand.
“Oh, not that I’m aware of. Stan said it was an American classic.”
“Stan’s probably not the one to talk to about Americana.”