Chapter 12 Wes
The locker room is loud with the win. The stereo is playing with a song Paulson put on that has a heavy beat. I sit at my stall and pull the tape off my shin pads and drop it in the bin.
Paulson catches my eye across the horseshoe. "Twenty-two, Mercy. Twenty-two before Christmas. That release was filthy."
"You made the pass."
"I made an average pass. You turned it into a highlight." He tosses the towel into his stall and leans against the frame. "You going to celebrate? Dinner? Drinks? Anything?"
"I'm going home."
"You are always going home."
"Then you already knew the answer." I pull off the rest of my gear.
"I did know the answer. I'm asking because I keep hoping the answer changes."
"The answer doesn't change."
"Consistent. That is our guy. Twenty-two goals and he goes home to his couch."
Reeves leans over from two stalls down. "Mercy, that sauce on the goal was sick. Where was that in the second period?"
"It wasn't open in the second."
"That is the most Mercy answer anyone has ever given."
"It's also the correct answer."
Reeves shakes his head. "Twenty-two. You don't even seem happy about it."
"I'm happy about it."
"That's what happy looks like for you?"
"That's what happy looks like for me."
"Alright." Reeves claps me on the shoulder as he walks past. "Celebrate for us then, Mercy. One of us should be."
Paulson turns, standing near the shower entrance. "Mercy. For real. Nobody you're going to celebrate with?"
"Not tonight." I will talk with Luca for a few minutes later. I hope.
"That's a crime."
"Good night, Paulson."
"Night, Mercy. Congrats."
The room empties. Guys filter toward showers, toward the lot, toward whatever their nights look like. I take my time because there is no rush to get home. Skates off, guards on, pads stacked, jersey hung.
The drive takes twelve minutes on the causeway. The building lobby is empty. The elevator takes me up. The hallway. The door. The penthouse opens onto dark and I leave it dark because the kitchen light is enough.
I make a smoothie and take it out onto the balcony. I lean on the railing and look at the water. Dark and flat. My phone is on the railing. His feet on the sand. The Aruba wallpaper. I glance at it and set it face-down.
The game was good tonight. My legs felt right.
The ice felt clean. The shift in the third where the goal happened, the puck found my tape in the slot.
I put it where it needed to go, and then the building went up.
For three seconds, all I had was the puck and the net.
Three seconds where the only thing happening was hockey.
I bring the smoothie inside and sit on the couch with my phone because it is ten-thirty and the apartment is quiet and the scrolling is what fills the space between the game and sleep.
Or a phone call if I am lucky. Instagram.
A few team accounts. A photographer in San Juan whose work with light makes me want to put the camera in a drawer.
League highlights from the other games tonight.
The Firebirds account is near the top of the feed.
Team dinner from a few hours ago. A long table at a restaurant with a brick wall behind it, warm lighting, faces I recognize from the roster and from the names Luca has mentioned on the phone.
Luca is next to Marchetti. His head is tilted back and his mouth is open and he is laughing. Full, real laughing. He is laughing at something someone said and the laugh has his whole face in it.
I have not heard that laugh in weeks. We are navigating this long distance, but our calls are shorter. My texts don’t get immediate replies.
I look at the picture for a while. I open my messenger app.
Where's that
That looks fun
I didn't know about that
Three texts. I send them and put the phone face-down on my knee.
The apartment is quiet. The ocean keeps going outside the door.
I was not asking questions. Not directly.
I sent those before I caught myself and they are sitting on his phone right now in Atlanta.
He is going to read them and that’s not the Wes I want him to see.
The phone rings nine minutes later.
"Hey."
"Hey." His voice is careful. Checking. "I saw your texts."
"Yeah."
"What's going on?"
"Nothing. I saw the dinner post. Looked like a good time."
"It was a team thing. Marchetti put it together. That place on Ponce with the brick oven."
"Looked fun."
"It was fine. We do them every couple weeks now." A pause. "Wes, what is going on?"
"Nothing is going on."
"Your texts were weird."
"They weren't weird. I was saying it looked fun."
"You don't text like that. You never text like that."
I look at the dark water through the glass door. He is right. I don't text like that.
"Who was the guy next to Hájek?" I say. I did not plan to say it. The question was not in my mouth until it was.
"That's Davis. Wes, you know who Davis is."
"Yeah. I know who Davis is."
"Then why are you asking?"
"I don't know."
The line is quiet. I can hear his breathing. I can hear the apartment behind his voice, whatever Atlanta sounds like after ten at night.
"Wes."
"What?"
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm just tired. Good game tonight and I'm winding down."
"How was the game? I saw you have twenty-two points."
"It was a good night. Paulson set me up."
"Don't do that. Don't make it smaller. Twenty-two is not a good night. Twenty-two is a career year."
"Yeah."
I close my eyes. He is right about all of it. The texts were weird. I should have called him about the game. I should have talked with him about twenty-two and let him be proud of me. Instead I sent three flat sentences about a dinner I was not invited to because I live hundreds of miles away.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm tired. I shouldn't have texted like that."
"You were being a little weird. It's okay. I just wanted to make sure you're all right."
"I'm all right."
"Are you actually all right or are you doing the thing where you say you're all right?"
"I'm actually all right. Just a long night."
"Okay." He pauses. "I wish I could have been there for twenty-two."
The sentence lands between my ribs and sits there. I press my thumb against the arm of the couch.
"Yeah," I say. "Me too."
"Good night. Love you."
"Love you too."
I sit on the couch with the phone in my hand after the call ends. The screen goes dark. His feet on the sand. Aruba.
The apartment is quiet at midnight when I head to bed. The game is hours behind me now. The good feeling from the ice is hours behind me.
I pick up my phone again.
Hey. About earlier. I was tired. Don't worry about it.
Glad you have those guys.
Talk tomorrow.
I send them and put the phone on the nightstand and get into bed. The sheets are cool. The pillow on his side is flat because I make it flat every morning.
In the morning the phone has one new message. Four-twelve a.m., which means he was awake at four in the morning.
night wes
Two words. Lowercase. No punctuation. I read them standing at the counter with the coffee running and his two words sit on the screen above my three texts and my three texts sit above the three I sent before that and all of them are a record of a man who saw a photograph and did not know how to be glad about it.
I put the phone down. I take the coffee to the balcony.
The water is flat and gray and the light is wrong again.
I pick up the camera and frame the ocean and this time I take the picture.
It will be a bad picture. The light is not there.
I take it anyway because the camera gives my hands a place to be that is not the phone, and practice is in two hours.
?