10. Brett

Brett

It's the first game of the season, and the crowd is alive . We got lucky this year, and our opening game is at home, which means there was no long flight, no annoying travel, no jetlag.

Just waking up and coming into work. As I skate out onto the ice for warm-ups, the crowd cheers, waving their towels and pointing down at me. This is an important night. My first game this season after being out for all but the championship game last time.

The Vipers are coming off of two consecutive Stanley Cup wins. We're nowhere near the record, of course, but it's still exciting. If we win again this year, we'll join the Maple Leafs as the only two teams to have won three in a row. Thinking further ahead than that is just dreaming.

There are ten teams in the league who have never won the cup at all. Like the Minnesota Wild.

"Hey, man," Devon says, skating over to me and spraying me with ice. I roll my eyes at him, but I'm still swallowing down my thoughts about the Wild. I would give anything not to have to return to Minnesota. But would I give up my career?

"How's the leg?" he asks.

I blink, then nod, then look down at my leg, as though I need to see it to have an answer. The truth is that it hasn't bothered me since I started seeing Fallon. I blink again and meet Devon's eyes. He's giving me a look that reads Are you good?

"Leg's all good," I assure, clearing my throat and nodding. "Yeah, all good, man."

"Yeah?" He narrows his eyes at me. "Well, what about up here?"

He taps his temple, but at that moment, Coach Aldine calls us to the side of the rink. I've never been more relieved for a huddle.

Because the truth is that I'm not ready mentally—I know that. I just proposed to a woman yesterday, and left her my phone number in case she says yes. There's a group of people —including my parents and Vipers administration—who aren't going to be thrilled if they find out about that.

I'm not stupid. I know that marrying Fallon so she can get her trust fund is some form of fraud. That if someone wanted to, they could take me to court over it.

But she had this look on her face, this hopeless, panicked look, and I just wanted to do anything I could to help. When I was walking out, I thought about finding her address and putting cash in the mailbox, but that would be creepy.

So instead, I've had the ringer on my phone turned all the way up, and I've been staring at the screen, waiting for her to call. To text.

She probably won't. She seems like a reasonable person, which is probably why she's not marrying any of her roommates, either.

"Alright!" Coach Aldine says, slapping his hand against his clipboard. "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives! Right now, I want every single one of you to think about last season, right? You got it in your head? Now delete it. It never happened. This team has never gotten to the Stanley Cup—you got that? I need every single one of you to be hungry. Fucking starved. You got that?"

Thoughts of Fallon fall to the back of my mind as that familiar, addicting high of game night floods in, infusing my veins with heat and adrenaline. My feet itch to skate, my fingers tighten on my stick.

It's time to fucking go.

We launch into the game at full speed, winning the face-off and starting out on offense right away. I come down the wall, taking the puck and rocketing it cross-rink to Devon, who takes it behind the net, wrestling with a Jazz player to keep it.

There's traffic behind the net and I skate around, taking the pass from Devon. There's an opening, and I snap the puck home, watching it sail past the goalie.

"That's it!" Devon says, skating past me and clapping me on the shoulder pads.

I feel my body get lighter, like I'm skating on air rather than ice. Our defense is tight—the Jazz don't even get a shot off on our goalie before we take it back down the other side of the rink. We move it around, and I get a tight pass to Devon, which he slaps into the net.

This is it. This is going to be our season. One of the Jazz players gets a penalty, sending us into a power play. Devon nods at me, and we light it up, pressing harder and harder. The defense fights over the puck, winning it and sending it our way.

I see an opening. I can picture the moves in my head, the puck bouncing back and forth before sliding right into the goal. It's an epic play—it'll make the crowd go absolutely nuts. I skate hard across the center of the rink, already grinning at the goal that's about to take place.

I hear his voice a second too late.

"Ratcliffe!"

There are stars in my eyes, and my head is hitting the ice, bouncing like a basketball. I hear my helmet crack under my ear. When I blink, I see blood on the ice, Devon flat on his stomach, trying to lift up from the floor, but slipping and muttering, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,,,"

***

Devon is out for at least the next game. He has a concussion and a sprained wrist to go with his fat lip. They took him off the ice pretty quickly, especially after he threw up near the bench. They needed to scan him, make sure he didn't have a brain bleed.

None of my teammates would look at me, but someone spoke up.

"What the fuck were you doing, Ratcliffe?"

"I saw—"

"You left your fucking section, didn't communicate, and didn't even watch where you were skating? You'd better fucking hope Chambers is okay, man."

When I meet Coach Aldine's eyes, I can see his anger as coach, and his concern as Devon's friend. Everyone knows they were tight when they played together, so it doesn't help my position at all that Devon's the one I skated into.

Now, after getting torn into by coach and getting the cold shoulder by everyone on the team, I'm lying on my stomach in my living room, flicking through channels. The TV's light casts my living room in a soft, almost gloomy glow.

"—is likely going to be out for at least the next game, but we have no news from the training staff just yet—"

"—and after last season, would you agree that Chambers is essential to the Vipers? Or do you think recent rookie hot-shot Ratcliffe is going to be enough to get them through this season?"

"Well, that's a great question, Dave. Here's what I think: There's a reason Ratcliffe had the worst performance of everyone last season. And it's not because of his skills—it's because of his age. He's too young, too wild, literally—I mean, look at this clip—what we're seeing here is a lack of focus . This guy is out on water skis just before the season starts. He's not paying attention. We need him in a few years, when his frontal lobe has developed."

"Wow, Chris, I'm impressed with your knowledge of anatomy."

"Well, Dave, I'm still waiting for my kids to get that frontal lobe development. In other news, women's soccer players have—"

When my phone rings out with Grace's ringtone, I grab the remote from the floor, clicking off the TV and stuffing my face back into the couch cushion.

"Hey," I say, sitting up and trying to brighten my tone. "What's up?"

"Don't what's up me," Grace says, and I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. "Are you just rotting on the couch right now?"

"No."

"Don't lie," she laughs. "I saw the clip of what happened, and I know what you're like after you make a mistake."

Her voice is quiet, and I can almost picture her in the upstairs bathroom, her hand cupped around her mouth, fan running to mask the sound.

"Hey, listen," she says, "We're leaving for a movie in like ten minutes, but I wanted to tell you not to let it get to you, okay?"

"Right," I say, clearing my throat and wishing that would be enough. "Less about me—how is volleyball going?"

"Oh," she says, "I—"

There's a muffled sound, then I hear her calling out to someone in the hallway.

"Gotta go," she whispers. "I'll call you Sunday. Love you."

When we hang up, my brain immediately reverts to feeling sorry for myself. Why hadn't it been me? Devon and I were both involved in the impact, why couldn't I have been the one injured?

Missing a single game this season is the last thing I want to do, but I have my whole career in front of me. I may have just shorted Devon's, or taken away one of his last chances to play for the Vipers.

My phone starts to vibrate, and I ignore it. It's not Grace's ringtone, so it's probably Coach, thinking of a different way to rip me a new asshole. Or someone else at the Vipers, wanting to tell me what a mistake I made. Or someone nice and well-meaning, like Lola or Ellie, calling to try and make me feel better. But that's also going to make me feel worse.

My phone stops, but immediately starts up again. I let out another groan into the cushion, groping for it. Someone had better be dying. When I glance at the screen, it's an unknown number. I stare at it for a moment, then answer.

"Brett?" a small voice asks.

I sit up immediately, eyes widening, body waking up.

"Fallon?"