Role Model

by Rachel Reid

  “No imagination whatsoever.” Harris sighed.

  “He’s the best one, isn’t he? The game is named after him. Why? Who do you pick?”

  “I’ve been a Yoshi man since I was, like, six years old.”

  “He’s my second choice,” Troy conceded.

  “We’re basically the same person!”

  “Twins,” Troy agreed flatly.

  “What’s your favorite place on earth?”

  “It’s really hard to follow these questions.”

  “But you’re not bored, right?”

  A slight quirk of Troy’s lips. “No. I’m not bored.” Again, he took his time considering the question. “Is on the ice a terrible answer?”

  “It’s the worst answer. Where do you spend your summers? Or have you traveled anywhere good?”

  “I, um.” All of the amusement left Troy’s face. He looked tortured, like answering this question might actually kill him. Harris took pity.

  “On the ice is fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks. Sorry. I’m not good at this.”

  “You’re crushing it,” Harris assured him, though it wasn’t exactly true. “Next question: Mountains or ocean?”

  “Why choose? I’m from Vancouver.”

  Harris grinned. “That’s right! And the team is heading there this week. That must be nice for you.”

  Troy frowned. “Sure. Yeah. Of course.” The way he said it implied that he would rather travel directly to hell than home to Vancouver.

  Harris was fucking this up. Even the most basic questions were making Troy uncomfortable. Harris was usually so good at talking to people.

  He decided to try a ridiculous question, to clear the tension out of the room.

  “Okay. This one’s important: What’s your favorite type of apple?”

  Troy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Red?”

  “Aw, man. Seriously?” Harris placed a hand over his heart, feigning being wounded.

  “What? Not all apples are red. I like the red ones.”

  “I’m offended.”

  “Sorry I’m not a fucking apple expert like you.”

  It was a little mean, but it was also a little...warm. Troy’s eyes once again glinted with something close to playfulness, and Harris liked it. “You’re right,” he teased back. “That was a really hard question.”

  Troy almost laughed. Harris was sure of it, and for some reason his stomach flipped in anticipation.

  But Troy pressed his lips together in what was probably an effort to keep any displays of amusement from escaping. His eyes still sparkled, though. “How about McIntosh? That’s an apple, right?”

  Harris shook his head. “The disrespect. Unbelievable. Last question: Would you rather skate sprints for half an hour, or answer questions for five minutes?”

  “Sprints. Definitely.”

  Harris laughed. Probably too loudly, as usual, because Troy flinched and then quickly stood. “So, we’re done?”

  “Done.”

  “Okay.” Troy walked to the door, clearly keen to get out of there.

  “Wait,” Harris said. Troy stopped, then looked back anxiously. Harris put a hand on Troy’s shoulder, and he heard him inhale sharply. “You still have the mic on.”

  “Oh. Right.” He stood perfectly still as he let Harris remove it, which Harris did quickly with as little contact as possible. He could smell the woodsy aroma of Troy’s aftershave, or probably his bodywash since the shadow on this jaw suggested that he hadn’t shaved that morning.

  “Good to go,” Harris announced cheerfully, holding up the mic. He took a giant step backward, needing to put some distance between them before Harris did something stupid like sniff Troy’s neck. “You, uh, you might want to make sure you have noise-canceling headphones,” Harris said. “For the flight. Those guys are pretty lively on the plane.”

  “You’ve flown with the team?”

  “A few times. I usually go on a road trip or two each year to document stuff. It makes for fun content. I’m going on the trip south in January. There’s a day off in Tampa, so it should be fun.”

  “Oh. Cool.” It didn’t sound like Troy thought it was actually cool that Harris would be on the team plane. He tried not to feel offended.

  “Thanks for doing this,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I post it.”

  Troy nodded once, and then he was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Troy didn’t know what was causing the loud banging noise, but he really needed it to stop. Gradually, he became aware that he was in a Vancouver hotel room, and that the banging was on his door. He groaned and pulled a pillow over his throbbing head, hoping the person would go away.

  The person did not go away.

  “Barrett. Wake up.” The voice was unmistakably Rozanov’s.

  “What is it?” Troy’s voice sounded like it had been sanded down to nothing. He tried to clear his bone-dry throat and said again, “What?”

  “Open the door.”

  Defeated, Troy dragged himself out of bed and, after making sure he was wearing at least underwear, opened the door. Rozanov strode into the room, uninvited, and made a face. “Smells terrible. You got drunk last night.”

  “A little.”

  “Not good, Barrett.” He thrust a bottle of Gatorade at Troy. “Drink this. Sit down.”

  Troy was more than happy to do both. He collapsed on the bed and cracked open the Gatorade, wondering how Ilya even knew he had been drinking alone last night.

  “I saw you in the lobby with a liquor store bag,” Ilya said, as if he could read minds. “Heading for the elevators. You were in a hurry, it looked like.”

  In a hurry to not feel anything, Troy thought.

  “This is something you do a lot?” Ilya picked up the mostly empty bottle of cheap vodka from Troy’s dresser and frowned at the label.

  “No.”

  “We play tonight.”

  “I know. It was stupid.”

  “Yes.” Ilya studied him until Troy was forced to look away.

  “It won’t happen again,” he said, though he wasn’t sure that was true because now his reasons for drinking were all rushing back. After a long, lonely plane ride of listening to his teammates laughing and joking like the tight-knit friends they were, all Troy had wanted was to retreat to his boyfriend’s arms. He missed Adrian so fucking much and he couldn’t even call him. On top of that, he’d been ignoring his dad’s phone calls and texts since yesterday because he could not fucking deal with that guy right now.

  This was the first time in Troy’s career that he hadn’t enjoyed returning to his hometown. He’d never liked seeing his father, but until this trip, he’d been able to see his boyfriend, or his mother, or both.

  Now his dickhead father was the only one left.

  The shit with Dallas had happened so quickly after Adrian had dumped him, and then the trade, that the heartbreak had been kind of a vague emptiness that had hovered over Troy like a cloud. Now that he was in Vancouver, the cloud had descended, filling him with rage and despair. The breakup hadn’t seemed real before now, because he and Adrian barely saw each other anyway. Being in the same city and not being able to hold him, kiss him, take him to bed and truly be himself for a few hours, was killing him.

  And no one could ever know.

  “I’m sorry. It was—”

  If Ilya noticed the way Troy’s voice broke, his face didn’t show it. “This is your town, yes? Where you are from?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your personal life is personal. If it does not affect your game, it does not matter to me. Coach will say the same thing.”

  Troy closed his eyes. “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Not this time.”

  It was a warning, and one that Troy silently promised t
o heed. Hockey was all he had left. He needed to make the most of things with this Ottawa team or he’d fall apart completely.

  “You look like shit,” Ilya said. “Practice is optional this morning. You are opting out.”

  Troy almost protested because he had planned on skating this morning, but it would be ridiculous to argue. He was in no condition to do anything more strenuous than take a shower. “Okay.”

  “Also, your dad is in the lobby.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. He introduced himself to me.” Ilya made a sour face that Troy completely understood. “He is still there, but I can tell him you are...”

  Fuck. “No. I need to talk to him. Otherwise he’ll just—” Troy stopped himself. His messed-up family was none of Rozanov’s business. “I’ll shower and go downstairs. I’ll text him. Let him know.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  Troy finished the Gatorade. “Thanks. For this.” He held up the empty bottle.

  “Rest today. Play good tonight. Don’t do this again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ilya went to the door, then paused before opening it. “Family can be hard. Fathers.”

  It was a weird thing to say, and Troy didn’t know how to respond. He went with, “Yeah. Sometimes.”

  Ilya nodded, then left. Troy blew out a breath and headed for the shower.

  * * *

  Troy did his best to make himself look presentable, but he shoved an Ottawa Centaurs ball cap on his head to partially obscure his face just in case his eyes were still red-rimmed. On top of being hungover, he felt dangerously close to crying.

  Troy couldn’t believe his dad was here. Except it also completely made sense; a rotten cherry on top of the trash sundae that his life had become.

  He saw Curtis Barrett right away, lounging in one of the armchairs in the middle of the lobby. He stood when he spotted Troy, and the two men sitting in the chairs opposite him stood too.

  Of course Dad had brought friends. He loved to show off his NHL star son.

  “Troy! Jesus, you look like you were up all night.” Dad clapped Troy hard on the shoulder. “I hope she was worth it.”

  Curtis’s laugh was as aggressive as everything else about him, and Troy struggled not to flinch. As Curtis’s friends joined in, braying like ignorant donkeys, Troy had a brief, wild urge to say, “Actually my boyfriend dumped me for another man,” but of course he didn’t.

  Instead, he settled himself into one of the chairs, done with standing. “Hi, Dad.”

  “This is Brad, he owns Condor Construction. And Darryl, from Harper Demolition. You remember Darryl, right?”

  “Sure,” Troy lied. “Of course.” All of Dad’s friends looked kind of the same: middle-aged men with builds that suggested they’d once been athletes, but had grown flabby over the years. Troy would probably look like that himself one day.

  “So.” Curtis inspected his son’s Centaurs hoodie and ball cap. “You got downgraded to Ottawa.”

  “I got traded.”

  “You got punished, is what you got. I don’t know what Kent did to get under your skin, but you’ve gotta watch your mouth, kid. Bad fucking luck having it caught on video.” He made a face. “Practices should be private. What’s said between teammates should stay there. I remember back when I was playing in Kamloops...”

  And off he went, sucking all of the oxygen out of the room with tales of his glory days as a junior hockey player. Troy tuned him out. Troy being an actual NHL star had never stopped his father from trying to one-up his every hockey story. Eventually, Troy had just stopped sharing stories at all.

  “Of course, you can’t say anything these days,” Dad was saying when Troy became aware that he was still talking. “Social justice warriors lurking everywhere.”

  “You got that right,” Brad or Darryl agreed.

  “Look at poor Dallas Kent,” Dad said, as if Troy wasn’t sitting right there. “People can say anything on the internet, trying to ruin a man’s career. His reputation.”

  Troy wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. His head hurt and his throat was still precariously tight. Dad was now looking directly at him.

  “Fortunately no one took what you said seriously,” Dad continued. “Obviously Toronto had to get rid of you, which is a damn shame, but anyone who knows hockey knows that things get said in the heat of the moment.”

  Was that what people were telling themselves? That Troy had lost his temper over something during practice and hurled a cheap shot at Kent? That Troy didn’t actually believe that Kent was a sexual predator?

  Dad chuckled. “If you’d been opponents instead of teammates, I think using the bullshit those women were accusing him of would be a smart strategy on the ice. Get in his head, y’know? But not your teammate. You two were like brothers. I hope you’ve at least tried to apologize to him. I don’t blame him if he tells you to get fucked, but you’ve gotta man up and try.”

  Brad and...the other one...made noises of agreement.

  Troy took a long, steadying breath. “You coming to the game tonight?”

  “You bet. Bringing these guys with me. Not sure they’ll be cheering for fucking Ottawa, though.”

  The three men laughed. Troy didn’t. He almost asked why Dad wasn’t bringing his new wife, but decided he didn’t care. He didn’t care about any of this, and he’d used up his ability to appear fine. It was time to seek refuge in his private hotel room so he could cry until he fell asleep. “Well, like you said, I didn’t sleep much last night, so I should try to rest up before the game.”

  “You’re not leaving already, are you? Here, I’ll get you a coffee.” Dad laughed. “You should be buying us coffees, with your millions of dollars.”

  Curtis Barrett also had millions of dollars. Maybe not as many millions as Troy, but the crane company he had started over twenty years ago had certainly made him a rich man.

  “I think sleep would be better than coffee right now,” Troy said. He stood up.

  “I guess.” Curtis frowned at his son, and Troy knew he’d been expecting him to do more to dazzle his friends than mumble a few words through the painful grip of a hangover. He did not look happy when he reluctantly stood and gave Troy another shoulder clap. “All right, well, good luck tonight.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Dad.” Troy was an excellent liar. “Enjoy the game,” he said to Brad and Darryl, then turned quickly and left.

  His eyes were already burning by the time the elevator doors closed.

  * * *

  Troy played terribly that night. Obviously. It had taken all of his focus to keep himself from bursting into tears in the locker room, or on the bench. Either would have been, of course, unthinkable. He wasn’t known for his sunny disposition at the best of times, and his teammates didn’t know him anyway, so it was easier to hide his agony than it might have been otherwise.

  By the third period, Troy had been replaced on the front line by Luca Haas. Coach drastically reduced Troy’s ice time, which only gave him more time to wallow in misery on the bench. His team lost.

  In the dressing room, Troy’s teammates didn’t speak to him. They barely looked at him. Well, Ilya looked at him, but it was in a way that managed to say you get to drink all night and play like shit the next day exactly once before I tell Coach without any words at all. It was impressive. The rest of the team was probably only thinking one thing: Why the fuck did we sign this asshole?

  Everything fucking sucked, and now hockey wasn’t even working. What did Troy have left?

  “All right, boys,” Coach Wiebe announced. The room went silent, the air thick with shame and frustration. “We’ll be practicing in Edmonton tomorrow after we land. Obviously, there are going to be some changes.” He didn’t look directly at Troy, but he didn’t have to. “Edmonton has a stronger team than Vancouver, and we can’t play like we
did tonight against them. So get a good night’s sleep—I don’t want anyone going out tonight, I don’t care what city we’re in—and tomorrow get ready to work hard, okay?”

  There was a chorus of “Yes, Coach,” then Wiebe nodded and left the room.

  Troy wished they were flying right now. He couldn’t wait to leave Vancouver behind.

  * * *

  Troy wasn’t on the top line when his team faced Edmonton. He’d been bumped down to the third line, which he couldn’t blame the coaches for, but it still hurt.

  He needed a goal. He’d never been so desperate for something in his life. As far as hockey players went, he wasn’t particularly superstitious, but he thought maybe, if he scored a goal, things would turn around for him.

  So he played hard every shift, using his speed to get to the net for a chance at a rebound or deflection. He played a physical game, taking his aggression out on anyone who got close to him. He would score tonight.

  In the third period, Coach tried Troy out on the power play line. Edmonton was two goals ahead, and an Ottawa goal now would be a huge momentum boost. The face-off was in the Edmonton zone, and Rozanov won it, sending the puck back to Dykstra.

  Troy darted to the net, right as Dykstra took a slap shot from the blue line. The Edmonton goalie made the save, but couldn’t control the rebound. The puck landed on Troy’s stick, inches away, just as the goalie fell backward on the ice. Troy fired it over the goaltender’s sprawling body, into the wide-open net.

  Troy celebrated like he’d won the Stanley Cup.

  Then he registered that his teammates weren’t celebrating with him, and he heard Dykstra yelling, “No fucking way that was interference, ref!”

  But the ref was making the hand signal for “no goal,” and Troy could not fucking believe it.

  “I didn’t touch the guy!” Troy yelled. “The clumsy fuck fell over!”

  “No goal,” the ref said. “You hooked the back of his skate, Barrett.”

  “The fuck I did.”

  One of Edmonton’s defensemen, a giant doofus named Nelson, shoved Troy’s chest, causing his back to slam into the boards behind the net. “We all saw it, you cheating little shit.”