Jesse

The guy I fought with left a bruise on my jaw, but at least I left him looking worse.

Even though we lost the game, when we got back to practise the next day, the guys presented me with the sledgehammer given to the guy who hit the hardest.

Usually penalty hits are excluded, but seeing as he started it and got a penalty too, they gave me a pass.

I want it to feel good. This is my role on the team, and I’ve known that for a while, but being the fighter doesn’t feel as good as being the top scorer or the guy with the most assists, or the goaltender who saves the most goals. I’m just the muscle who can hit people the hardest. I take it how it’s meant to be taken and smile and goof around with it until we get bored and move onto something else.

Coach calls me into his office after practise and tells me there’s someone who wants to talk to me.

A guy around my dad’s age in a sport’s jacket and jeans is waiting in Coach’s office and shakes my hand.

“, this is Colin Bradford, he’s a scout with the Carolina Steamrollers in the ECHL.”

“Hello Sir.”

“Good to meet you , you were impressive at the Harvard game last night.”

“Oh?”

Coach offers us both a seat and I take one, feeling him watch me across the desk while Colin Bradford fixes his tie.

“I’ve been watching you for a little while now and I’m impressed by your tenacity.”

“Tenacity?”

“He means your fighting spirit .”

“Oh.”

I know what it means, I just didn’t understand what it had to do with me.

“, what are you planning to do next year when you graduate? I understand you don’t have an agent and you’re not under contract with any teams yet?”

Yet?

“I’m 21,” I say.

Colin nods, waiting for more. I expect that to be explanation enough.

“You know you can sign as a free agent.”

“I know that. It’s just… no one’s interested.”

“I’ve talked you up to my bosses in North Carolina,”

Colin says, “we’d be interested in you coming down to play with us on a three month contract, just to see how things go, then, who knows?”

I look at Coach, but he doesn’t make eye-contact. He’s just watching us with his chin rested in his hand, letting me know he’s still here, but he’s not going to say anything unless he has to.

“Thank you Sir, that’s a very… I appreciate the offer…”

“You’ll have some time to think about it of course ,”

Coach jumps in.

“Of course,”

Colin agrees.

I shake his hand again and Coach tells me to wait there while he shows him out.

When he comes back in, he closes the door behind him and stands at the edge of his desk.

“So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know, what do you think?”

“I thought you were serious about coaching?”

“I am, but…”

“it’s not playing, I know…”

“no, it’s not that, yeah I guess I’d like to play in the NHL one day…”

“you guess?”

I shrug. “It’s not competing that I love, it’s… being here,”

I look around Coach’s cramped office. The whiteboard with the rink drawn in Sharpie with Coach’s tactics scribbled all over it.

“Do you think I need to play professionally first before I can coach?”

“No, not necessarily, I think your experience here will probably be enough, and honestly, playing doesn’t really prepare you for coaching. Not every player has it in him to be a coach.”

“If I turn down an offer to play pro…”

I start and then stop.

“What?”

“My dad.”

Coach watches me, waiting for more. Argh, why the fuck do people make me talk about things?

“He thinks you should sacrifice anything to play pro. If I have to brawl for three month contracts in the ECHL in the south, then that’s what you do, no matter how slim your chances of getting into the NHL. While you’re playing pro, even if it’s minor league, even if its junior league, you’ve still got a shot, but once you’re out, you’re out.”

Coach pulls up the chair Colin had been sitting in and faces me, “listen to me , if you go to North Carolina, that’s exactly what they want you to be - a brawler. And in three months’ time, they might cut you loose, or they might not. But you’ll probably move around a lot, and the chances of you moving up are slim, but not impossible. Plenty of guys have done it.”

“More talented than me though right?”

“No, not necessarily. , you have to think about what you really want. Do you want to play in the NHL?”

“Yeah.”

“More than anything?”

I swallow, shake my head.

“I’m lazy,”

I say, repeating what my dad has told me hundreds of times. My voice is stupidly quiet and my face flushes.

“It’s not lazy, I’ve seen lazy and you’re not it. Lazy doesn’t win you a starting place on my team three years in a row, trust me. It takes a special kind of crazy to make the major leagues. Maybe you’re just sane like 99% of the rest of the population.”

Coach grins at me and I force a smile.

“What if I regret it?”

“You might. But they want you soon , that means not graduating. Can you afford to pay for your own education a year down the line?”

I shake my head. The way Coach says it so upfront like that, it doesn’t make me feel embarrassed like it usually does when someone brings up my scholarship.

“Your dad might be disappointed at first, but I can talk to him if that helps.”

I stiffen, “I don’t think it will.”

“Want my advice?”

“Yes please?”

“This is just advice, you can take it or leave it, and you don’t get to blame me if you take it and it doesn’t work out.”

“Okay.”

“Graduate. If you still wanna play hockey next year, go to a team in the ECHL where you wanna live, maybe somewhere close to your friends or your girlfriend or whatever and bug them for a try out, show them your college resumé, hopefully with the championship trophy your senior year, and give them my number for a reference. And if you don’t, well then you’ve got a degree from an Ivy League school. Go do your graduate degree at community college. Get your accreditations and learn to be a coach or a personal trainer or a sport’s nutritionist.”

“Yes Coach.”

“ this is just my opinion.”

“It’s smart.”

He laughs. “Get out of here and think about it, talk it over with your parents and your teammates and girlfriend or whatever.”

“Coach?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,”

“okay, whatever,”

“I have a boyfriend.”

Coach raises his eyebrows, I can see he’s shocked and doesn’t know how to take it, but he recovers well.

“So then…”

he slaps me on the shoulder, he’s the only person who instinctively avoids my bad shoulder, “talk to him about it.”

I text Nate as soon as I get out of the rink,

‘Can you talk? Something big happened and I don’t know what to do.’

‘Yes, are you okay? Where are you?’

‘At the rink, meet at your house in about thirty minutes?’

Nate’s mom answers the door in another one of those soft-looking cardigans. She looks a lot happier than the last time I saw her. Actually, she’s kind of grinning at me.

“Nate, ’s here!”

she shouts up the stairs in a singsong voice.

Nate comes powering down a second later, grabbing me by the arm and running upstairs with me trailing behind.

“You boys have fun!”

his mom calls after us.

“What was all that about?”

I ask as Nate presses his back to the wall in his room.

“She knows about us.”

“How?”

“She saw used condoms in the trash.”

“Oh, shit, sorry, maybe I should have hid them…”

Nate crosses the room and kisses me, slow and deep, and it shuts me up.

“It’s fine, she approves.”

“She does?’

He laughs, “of course she does. She thinks you’re a ‘hunk.’”

“Oh.”

My face gets hot.

“, what’s wrong? What happened?”

I step back, because I need to breathe and I still can’t believe this happened.

“I was scouted.”

“Oh my god.”

“By an ECHL team, in North Carolina.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna go.”

“Why not?”

I shrug. “Because I wanna graduate and just being in this school is like the best opportunity I’ve ever been given. Because I don’t want to sign a three year contract with the Carolina Steamrollers to beat the shit out of people and then get passed up as soon as I’m worn out. Because I don’t really need to play hockey to be happy…”

Nate comes closer again, he’s tentative as he picks my hand up and I squeeze it to let him know I want him here.

“How long do you have to think about it?”

“I don’t know, at least a few weeks I think.”

“So take a few weeks.”

I nod.

“But I think you already know what you want to do, right?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“It’s not because of me though is it?”

“What?”

“Not going to North Carolina? I mean, it’d suck having you that far away, but if it was your dream, we could make it work.”

I cup his face, “no, don’t worry, it’s not that, though getting to stay here does have its benefits.’”

He stands on his tip toes to kiss me and I drink him in.

“I think I want to do the summer camp thing and get my grad degree in sports training.”

Nate beams at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I am. I just have to tell my dad now.”

“Do you want me to tell him with you?”

“No, I don’t want the first time you meet my family to end up in a fight.”

His eyes get all wide.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mean a physical fight. My dad hasn’t spanked me since I was ten.”

“He spanked you?”

I shrug, “everybody did when I was growing up.”

“…”

“It’s okay. I’ve got this.”

Fuck, it feels good for someone to have my back like this. It’s like being part of a team. And that right there, feeling a part of something, that’s what I love about hockey. Not beating people up or scoring points or even winning, but being a team, looking out for each other and knowing someone is always in your corner.

I pull Nate in close and feel his heart beating against my chest and smell his shampoo in my nose.

“I love you.”

He doesn’t miss a beat before he says it back. “I love you too.”