36. CONNOR
THIRTY-SIX
CONNOR
Me: I’m going to stop giving a shit about how I’m playing. I no longer care if I win or lose because this will be my last season in the NHL.
My body: Sweet, let’s have fun and have the best game of our entire career.
It’s almost as if the universe has heard me and won’t allow me to let go of the game. Because two goals and four assists when I’m not even trying? What the fuck?
I shouldn’t be reading into it because it’s making me doubt my doubts. And doubting my doubts is doubtfully doubty out here. And now the word “doubt” has absolutely no meaning anymore.
Parker’s right that I should be over-the-moon ecstatic with how I’m playing tonight, but all it’s doing is making me angry. It’s like no matter what I do out on that ice, the puck finds a teammate’s blade, and they flick it in the net. So then I decide to start aiming for the net, and I fucking score.
Maybe if I’d stopped caring about winning a long time ago, I’d already have a Cup to my name, and then I wouldn’t feel the seed of resentment that’s already beginning to grow.
Parker came to see me during the break to congratulate me, and the only thing I was focused on was his expectations of keeping it up. Of going all the way.
My resentment isn’t only at him though. It’s at my parents. At myself. At everything. Because I finally decide what I want to do with my life—sort of. Okay, I’ve decided what I don’t want to do with my life—and everything else is pushing me back toward it. Old Connor would’ve sucked it up and gone with it. New me, I can’t. I just fucking can’t.
There are murmurs around the locker room to get the puck to me this period. Everyone wants to see me turn my two goals into a hat trick, not unheard of for a defenseman but not expected, and there everyone goes throwing expectations on me again.
Do I suck it up and go for it? Or do I dig my heels in and do what I want?
When we get back out onto the ice, I decide to do neither of those options. A petulance I never knew I had—one that would rival Lachie’s—takes over my body, and I hit even harder. My anger drives me, and at one point, I catch the speed of one of my slapshots and begin to worry for Dotrosky’s life in the net.
Yet, no matter how many times I tell myself to calm down when I’m back on the bench, I somehow only manage to reach new levels of pissed off. And when I see Novi on the ice and I’m sent out for another shift, I can’t help picturing the way he avoided teenage Parker tonight. How he looked so uncomfortable, didn’t seem to want to be there, and refuses to wear anything Pride.
Instead of focusing all my anger on those it should be directed at, I let it all flow out irrationally toward Novi.
Like he’s the reason I can’t quit hockey. Like he’s the reason I can’t come out. Like he’s the reason I finally know what I want and can’t have it.
I practically chase him down on the ice, waiting for my perfect chance to check him without getting a penalty, but it seems being so far behind has made LA as fired up and frustrated as me because it all comes to a head when Novi and I run into each other so hard we both go down.
The whistle is loud as it rings in my ears, and it’s not until I sit up and get dizzy that I realize I must’ve hit my head on the way down.
But as I stagger back to my feet, I almost lose my footing again. Not from the knock to my head but from Novicov punching me square in the fucking jaw.
I’ve gotten in fights on the ice before—where warranted. This could go either way, and I’ll have to wait and see the replay before knowing who was in the wrong in the first place, but with the way my mind is in sabotage mode, calculating risk is not something I’m up for. So instead of skating away or letting the refs separate us, I go all in.
The gloves are off, and I give the people what they want. Hell, this is what I want too.
Novi might be my proxy for everything else happening in my life, but I don’t care.
I land a jab to his pads, probably hurting my hand more than his ribs, but the sharp hit does make him cradle that side, opening up the left side of his face for a perfectly executed hook that comes next.
We’re literally that meme: “I went to watch a fight and hockey broke out.”
The crowd is deafening, the refs don’t even try to pull us off each other, and we just keep throwing fists. I’m not sure which of us is angrier. It’s a struggle to keep upright on my skates, but all I’m concentrating on is hitting as much as possible, and judging by the way fists keep flying at my head, Novi is doing the same. His breathing is as heavy as mine.
Novi eventually goes down, and I know I need to stop. When a man hits the ice, you don’t go for more. But I’m not done.
Not until I land another punch, and the refs finally realize I’m an unhinged fuckhead who won’t stop unless they stop me. It takes two of them to pull me off Novi while another helps him up.
I’m breathing hard, regret setting in almost immediately but also the urge to cry too.
Yesterday, I was uneasy about letting hockey go, even if I wanted it, but I had a sense of hope, a bright outlook on the possibilities of what I could do.
Today, I suddenly hate hockey so much I’m willing to do anything to throw it away.
I’m halfway to the penalty box when the ref and linesman on either side of me stop me. I figured I’d be getting a five-minute major, but no. The other ref skates to center ice, where he makes the announcement that we’re both being slapped with ten-minute misconducts and are ejected from the game.
Fun times.
I deserve it though.
Disappointment and guilt follow the adrenaline crash, and it sets in pretty fast.
I shower immediately, not caring about properly cooling down, even though I’ll feel it tomorrow, and by the time I’m getting dressed into my suit, I’m defeated.
Completely and utterly defeated.
I told the guys outside that I don’t want anyone coming in here. No coach, no PR person, no parents, and, in particular, no Parker Duchene. Not that security could ever make Parker stay out. He owns the damn place. Well, he owns the team, not the arena, but same difference, practically.
That’s why, when the locker room door opens, I don’t even look up. It’s probably him.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
Only where I’m expecting Parker’s sweet voice laced with “ What the fuck were you doing out there?” I get a faint Russian accent in return.
“I’m sorry.”
My head snaps up to find Novi in his suit, a nice bruise down the side of his face and murder in his whiskey-colored eyes. His face doesn’t match his words.
“You are?” I ask, making sure he didn’t come in here to, in fact, kill me.
“I don’t normally let the game get to me like that, but … Fuck, give us the puck every now and then.”
I huff. “Fair. And I guess I should say I’m sorry too. I … I might have used your face to get out all my personal frustrations.”
His murderous eyes don’t falter, but I swear he almost smiles . “I could say the same thing.” He approaches me and sits on the bench next to me in front of Easton’s cubby. “It’s difficult not to hate you two, you know.”
“Us two?”
He points to Easton’s name. “Gay brother. Big protector.”
“I really hope this is a language barrier and you’re seriously not telling me you hate my brother because he’s gay. Because I have news for you. He’s not the only queer Kiki, and I can easily punch the other side of your face so your bruises will be even.”
Novi laughs deep and slow, almost sounding like one of those over-the-top Russian James Bond villains. “Calm down. I … I didn’t have that growing up. No support. Lived in Russia where being myself was not an option. I?—”
I pull back. “Wait, what?”
“I have waited seventeen years to be able to get the rest of my family out of Russia before being able to live my truth, and now that I have permanent residency and I worked out how to get my family visas in Canada, my sister refuses to leave our homeland. It feels like she’s doing it to hold me back.” He eyes me. “What is holding you back? ”
When he puts it like that, the fact Parker and I can’t claim each other in fear of some stupid, untrue comments online feels weak.
“What makes you think I’m talking about me?” I ask defensively but quickly slump. Because why bother?
He cocks an eyebrow at me.
“Okay, yes, I was talking about me, but it’s complicated. Not fight for my life kind of complicated but fighting for some kind of life. One I want. One the universe doesn’t seem to want me to have.”
“I don’t know what any of that means, but speaking as someone who has put off his personal life for his entire career, don’t let it make you bitter.”
I hang my head. “I don’t want to play hockey anymore.”
At some point while talking with Novi, someone else entered the locker room, but I didn’t hear them.
I hear them now though.
“You … what?”
I tense at Parker’s croaky voice, and when I lift my gaze and meet the blue eyes of my boyfriend, my heart breaks at the betrayal reflected back at me. “I … I …” I look to Novi for help, but he doesn’t give me any.
Instead, in the thickest Russian accent that clearly isn’t his usual voice, he says, “Uh, this not visitor locker room. I don’t speak English.” He’s out of here so fast I could swear I see smoke trailing behind him.
I guess our bonding session hasn’t quite sealed a lifelong friendship.
If Knox were here, he’d come to my rescue.
As if proving me wrong, Knox comes in next. “What the fuck, man?”
I have some explaining to do.