9. 9

9

Robbie McGuire

Well, we lost again.

It was deathly quiet on the bus to the airport and hardly a word was spoken for the entire flight home. Everyone had their earbuds in and their overhead lights off. It was cold and late when we arrived back in Seattle, pissing with rain and windy as well.

I’ve been away for so long I forgot how shit the weather is here. I used to love the rain when I was a kid. To me, it felt like home. The crackle of an open fire and the soft glow of table lamps dotted around the living room. It felt like safety and security. In those days, being home as the weather rattled the windows and beat at doors felt like being woven into a cocoon. A cocoon made only for people who shared my last name.

On bad nights, when the rain set in, my mom used to make us hot chocolate, and we’d sit on the rug on the floor in the living room, crammed around the coffee table, dunking spoons into our hot chocolate and licking them clean. The hot chocolate was a big deal because my mom didn’t use a powder or mix. She’d heat milk in a saucepan on the stovetop and melt copious amounts of milk chocolate into it. “ Chocolat ,” she called it. She insisted we all use the throatiest French accents we could muster, under threat of only one marshmallow for those who refused to participate. It devolved into hilarity every time. My dad used to put his nose in the air and say “ Chocolat ” over and over without moving his lips at all.

It was great.

I can’t remember the last time we did it.

How did that happen?

It’s long after midnight, I’m three glasses of wine in, and right now, it feels like the end of the world. I didn’t consent to no more hot chocolate nights. I didn’t agree for that part of my life to be over. I was so busy chasing a puck and dreaming of ice that I didn’t realize life was changing around me.

Fuck. I’ve gone and grown up without meaning to.

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise since I’m twenty-four years old and it’s been over four years since I moved out, but it does.

I’m feeling quite crap, to be honest. The house feels too big and too empty, and the heat isn't working too well upstairs. It’s frigid up there, and a loud, clanking sound is coming from the boiler room. It’s the kind of sound that I just know is going to be expensive.

Eventually, I drag my mattress, a couple of pillows, and all the blankets I own downstairs and set up camp in the living room. Maybe I’m better suited to living in an apartment. Maybe I’m not cut out to live in a big house on my own, or maybe I miss New York City because it never felt like this there. It’s way, way too quiet here. I haven’t heard a siren or a taxi honking since I got home, and it’s been hours. Haven’t heard yelling or cursing either. Other than the sound of rain on roof tile, the only thing I can hear is the endless chatter of my own thoughts.

I turn off the lights and lie back, wincing as the movement reminds me of the puck I took to the kidney in Vancouver. I close my eyes and will sleep to find me. It only makes my thoughts louder.

In the dark, I don’t just think about it, I feel and see it—Decker’s face close to mine. The heat of his breath on my face. Black eyes burning holes into me.

I toss and turn, throwing the covers off and pulling them up again.

His lips on mine. Warm and soft. A pit in the middle of me that opened on contact and has been throbbing ever since. The hair on his head. All that hair on his face. I can still feel the light scrape of it on my chin.

And Jesus. That mouth.

Why did it feel like that? Like the beginning and end of the world. Like something that’s never happened before and something that’s happened a million times over. It was just a kiss. A normal, not-even-that-long kiss with a guy I actively don’t like.

Why did it do this to me?

I thought I was done with the what-ifs and curiosity years ago. I questioned a thing or two when I was in my late teens, I won’t deny it, but I’m straight.

Aren’t I?

I’m a little slowed-up from bad sleep and booze, and I’m not going to lie, getting a text from Coach telling me to be ready to hit the ice at nine a.m. is the last thing I need. I was ready for a stretch, a massage, watching a rerun of the game, and being yelled at a little.

What happened to rest is a weapon?

Decker is leaning against the boards, looking at his watch pointedly as I approach. He sweeps his tongue across his front teeth and gives me a look tantamount to the slowest of slow claps.

“Sorry I’m late, I—” It’s one of those times where I’m late because I left home late, so I think it might be best not to elaborate.

Coaches Santos and Warren are on the bench, and Luddy and Decker are suited up, helmets on, sticks in hand. Warren warms us up, taking care not to allow Decker and me too close to each other. There’s a strange vibe. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but perhaps the best way to describe it is that it feels like a warm-up session from the old days. From junior league, if not before that. I don’t hate it as it’s kind of nostalgic, but I don’t love it either.

We do a little stickhandling and some low-intensity skating.

“McGuire!” yells Warren. “Half-speed!”

Santos taps Warren’s arm to make him let it go. I don’t read that as a warning, but I should. Maybe I would have if the cloud of cold air that floats above the ice hadn’t hit my bloodstream so hard. I push off and glide, and as always, it’s the glide that gets me. It’s a quick, hard shot of adrenaline that enters my body through my skates and rushes to my head. Tempered steel slices into ice, a soft swish that centers me. My arms and legs move, and at first, I can tell I’m the one doing it. It’s my calves. My quads. My hamstrings.

And then it’s not.

There’s a lull and a lag. A clutch disengages. Then there’s a jolt as a new gear is selected, a flywheel turns, and a synchronizer collar locks tight. Gasoline hits my bloodstream as surely as if I mainlined it.

Like that, I’m not skating. I’m flying.

We take our position on the center line. Luddy in the middle, Decker on the right, and me in my happy place on the left. Luddy passes to me. I tap the puck left and right and flick it back to him. It’s mine again in a second and I put it into the net with ease.

We go back to the center line, and this time, Luddy passes to Decker. Decker passes to me, or at least, he tries to. I’m moving so fast that the puck hits the board a few yards behind me.

We run the drill over and over. We do it until Luddy is winded and Decker is a dark, frozen slab. A statue of an angry man carved out of ice. Fury incarnate. Coach calls us off and indicates to the Zamboni driver to resurface the ice.

“Luddy, take a break,” says Coach when the Zamboni has done its work, and the ice is a frosted mirror with no sign of steel having marred the surface .

Decker and I are on the ice. Just us. There’s a dark, sullen presence to my right that takes up more than one side of the rink. It’s dense and heavy, sinking like cold air, churning and disturbing the peace that’s trying to find me. The rink is silent other than the sound of Decker breathing. Panting. A soft, raspy saw in. A hard, determined saw out. The lights are bright overhead, a field of LED bulbs so dense there’s hardly a shadow to be seen around us. A fever dream of cables and tension and bright beams suspended above us.

“What are you waiting for?” asks Coach, tossing the puck to the center. It spins twice, three times, and lands, skidding toward Decker. His left skate slams onto the ice, followed by his right. He goes for the puck as if his life depends on it. So do I.

He’s fast, but I’m faster.

I snatch the puck up and speed toward the goal.

Both coaches are on their feet, and so is Luddy. None of them say a word, but their collective thought is so loud it rings in my ears like tinnitus.

Pass the fucking puck!

At the last second, I concede and tap it to my right. It hits the board with a dull clatter.

“How ’bout you pass it where I am, not where you think I should be?” sneers Decker .

We do the same thing again. And again. We find the goal each time, obviously. There isn’t a defenseman near us, so it would be almost impossible not to, but fuck, it isn’t pretty.

We do it over and over.

The Zamboni comes and goes again.

The ice is fast. A hard, smooth surface that seems built to repel us. When I look up, I see that Warren and Luddy have left. The stands are deserted except for Coach. Blood pumps hard. My lungs scream and my throat burns. I’m exhausted, and my mood is rapidly plummeting.

Coach is sitting back on the bench, legs crossed, feet propped up on the boards, with his eye on his phone. He scrolls steadily and, now and again, lets out a quiet chuckle.

We take our positions at center ice and Decker passes to me. I scramble to get there, twisting my hips into a sharp stop and stretching my stick backward to make contact.

It’s the last straw.

“Fuck!” I roar. Ordinarily, it takes a lot to make me lose my temper. It really does. Ordinarily, it takes years to provoke me to this level of rage. Decker getting in my face is the notable only exception to the rule. I’m stressed and drained today, I’ve hardly slept a wink since Decker put his hands on me at the hotel, and our losing streak has gotten to the point where no amount of positive thinking can ignore it. On top of that, I’m hungover, I’m thirsty, and I have a low level of arousal swirling through my veins that’s making me feel like I exist outside of myself.

I skate aggressively three yards forward and slam my stick onto the ice. “Pass here !” I glide back several yards and beat the ice again, “Not here!”

Decker glares at me, plumes of steam puffing out from his mouth as he catches his breath. “Not even you could make that, dumbass,” he says evenly.

I raise my chin and stare him down. “Try me.”

We head back to the line. Decker has the puck. He keeps it on the blade of his stick until he’s moving at close to his top speed, then he swings and unleashes a torpedo in my direction. His aim is surgical—five yards ahead of where I told him I’d be.

Asshole.

I get there, just. It isn’t easy, but it’s a damn sight easier than having to come to a stop and scrabble behind me. The puck makes contact with my stick. I control it, and then I let loose a torpedo of my own .

Behind me, to my right, I hear a low rumble. A soft “humph” said two or three times over and Decker mutters something that sounds like, “Show pony.”

He taps his stick on the ice twice, and without looking back, I feel where he is. His presence is vast. Endless. A dense, murky swamp with a hurricane at the center. A cold blast from behind me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I put the puck where he is. Carbon fiber meets vulcanized rubber. I don’t need to look back to know he didn’t have to move a muscle to stop it. The puck found his stick with the sure force of a magnet.

When he begins to skate again, something’s different. His presence and mine find each other and merge. Hot and cold mix. Peace and chaos collide and cancel each other out. I’m dimly aware of my legs and my skates. My stick in my hands. I am aware of the puck though, a black linear streak that screams toward me and ricochets back and forth from his stick to mine. I’m more than aware of it. It’s like it’s developed a pulse. A heartbeat I feel in my chest as surely as if it’s my own.

Without a word spoken between us, Decker and I rip up the ice. We score again and don’t take a second to regroup. We don’t bother tracking back to center. One of us gets the puck, and we tear all the way to the other end of the rink and score in that goal as well. We dart back and forth from one goal to the other, the nets swish, and as soon as the puck lands, it’s back in play. Neither of us stops. We can’t.

A long, hard-to-conceptualize time later, several banks of overhead lights go off, changing the rink from harsh white to misty blue-gray.

I turn in a startled stop and so does Decker. We look around and see Coach on his feet, so we skate over.

By the time we get to him, my body is reacting to the sudden halt in overexertion. Nausea rises, thin and bitter as it hits my tongue. I swallow it down and plaster a big smile on my face because beside me, Decker’s chest is heaving and he’s struggling more than I am to contain it.

“You know,” Coach says, “I don’t claim to know much. But I know hockey.” He points at me in that no-nonsense way of his. “I asked for you, McGuire, I fought for you, and I wasn’t wrong to do it. Off the ice, the pair of you are dumber than a box of rocks, but on it? You have the potential to be something special. Poetic, almost.” He looks at Decker and then back at me. “Next time the puck drops, I expect to see nothing less than what I saw here today.”