43. Tate
All I want to do is fuck my girl raw, but everyone and their grandmother wants to talk to me post-game.
“Do you know you have glitter on your face?” Rico points his stick at my face as we step out of the locker room together.
Not even sweating my balls off during a game, and a post-game shower is enough to conquer the fucking glitter that still lingers in the very air of my dorm room. “I cleared out my dorm room this morning after practice. Moving into the hockey house full-time. Penelope sent me a glitter bomb a while back, it gets fucking everywhere.” Good luck to whoever gets that room next, there’s no escaping the sparkle.
He nods like he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “No shit. You’re so pretty when you shimmer.”
“I’d punch you, but Penelope says I can’t do that anymore.”
Dunno what voodoo Rico and Mikko have worked on my girl, but over the past few weeks with various team members bringing food out to my folk’s house and sitting with us a couple hours after dinner, she’s grown to like them. All of them.
Shouldn’t be surprised, she’s a social butterfly, but Rico and Mikko... after that whole fat-shaming my woman thing, I dunno. Sometimes I still envision ripping their heads off. To this day, she still hasn’t told me which one of the comedic rookie duo said something to her, which instead of making me want to kill zero teammates, makes me want to kill both of them—in spite of the fact they both apologized to her.
She’s forgiven them. Not sure if it’s because that’s her easy going nature, forgive and forget. Or if it’s because she’s suffered so much judgment at the hands of skinny people that she just lets bygones be bygones and tries to let their insults roll off her like water off a duck’s back.
Either way, she’s forgiven them, but I can’t forget.
“Tate, my good man.” Marshall Bryant from Rock108, Eastern Iowa’s rock station steps into my path, hand outstretched.
It’s not the norm for him to be here in an official capacity. He does the morning show, and while he could do post-game interviews, he’s not one of the usual suspects to come down into the locker room for a Q-and-A sesh.
He’s sporting a Raccoons’ shirt, but his press pass dangles around his neck. “I wanted to pass along my condolences.”
I accept his hand and give it a firm shake. “Thank you.”
He turns to leave.
“Is that it? No questions.”
He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm. “Poor taste, no?”
This guy is all class. He’s never been one to insert himself into our space, and all the guys like him.
As much as I want to go bang my girl, I also want to talk to Marshall if he wants to talk to me.
“Is it poor taste if I offer a quick interview?”
His eyes light up. “If you’re sure? I don’t want to push if you’re not ready to talk about... everything.”
I’m not sure whether I’m ready or not, but he’s here, and I’m here. And there’s a media booth not too far away from either of us, so we head that way to have a quick chat for Marshall to air in the morning during his show.
After a quick introduction, Marshall dives right in. “Look, I know that this has gotta be difficult for you to be sitting across from me right now. I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to hang out with us, obviously you want to be with your support system.”
Guilt swirls in my stomach. Fresh off a win on my first game back in skates in weeks, fucking my girl in the parking lot has been my dominating thought all night. Pressing down the grief of losing my parents only a couple weeks ago isn’t easy.
“But, coming off of the fact you got injured in the game only a few short weeks ago, how are you reconciling with yourself that you need to be on the ice during this time?”
I feel for the guy sitting across the table from me, this can’t be an easy interview for him either.
Interviewing anyone after injury, or loss, never mind both together, is likely extremely difficult. Marshall’s a stand-up guy, his eyes are filled with sympathy, and I can tell from the awkward way he’s sitting, he’s trying to tiptoe around the giant elephant in the room.
I’d say banana, but we aren’t at his studio, where the giant stuffed banana is a talking point of damn near all the interview’s he’s done with my teammates. It’s like we can’t help ourselves, once a teenage boy, always a teenage boy.
“Do you need...? I mean... Do you want to have time away? I know you had time off because of the puck to the face.” He winces, his gaze flickering to my jaw where the still-red scars of my recent injury fade away a little more each day.
“But... I mean, come on... your parents...” His sentence trails off like he’s not sure how to ask what he’s trying to ask. How can you be on the ice playing hockey only two weeks after having lost both of your parents in a car accident?
In every interview I’ve ever heard Marshall do, he’s been empathetic to his guest, so he’d never come right out and say ‘what the fuck are you doing, man?’ but the question is implied in what he’s said.
“I know. It’s definitely going to be hard for people to understand. You’re right, the past two months have been some of the worst, actually.” I scratch the back of my neck with my palm. “The absolute worst of my life. But I need to be back on the ice. It’s a mental health thing as well as a physical health thing.”
I shift my weight on the seat. “I was given the all clear by the team doctors, my personal doctors, and I feel good, you know? I feel stronger, healthier. It’s going to take a while to regain the weight I lost from my all-liquid diet, but I’m working on it.”
There’s a lengthy pause, Marshall hasn’t interrupted me, he’s giving me space to finish my answer, and I’m endlessly grateful he’s not pushing, because the sorrow simmering in my body is hard to handle right now knowing my parents will never get to see me play another game of hockey again.
Fuck.
I swallow hard. “The other part of it is, the ice is where I belong, it’s where I’m happiest.” I shrug. “It’s much better for me to be on the ice, than to be stewing over my loss in my parents’ empty house, you know?” I shake my head. “This is where I need to be, on the ice, surrounded by the fans, my teammates and brothers, and cheered on by my girl. It was my dad’s favorite place to spend time, and it’s mine, too. I know it’s where he’d want me to be.”
Marshall gives me a long moment of silence before asking a couple of questions that aren’t quite so hard-hitting. And by the time we’re onto his last question, the mood has substantially lightened in the media room, and in my chest. It’s not an easy thing to talk about by any means, my injury or my parents passing, but I’ve popped my cherry and made it through the first interview on the subject. Hopefully that’ll make it easier the next time, and easier still the time after that.
“Now that you’re through the other side of your injury, are you looking at getting reconstructive surgery to maybe enhance some things?”
He doesn’t let me answer, instead he goes classic, humorous Marshall Bryant, lifting the mood even more. “Alright, we gotta know, if you’re enhancing here, what’s this going to mean for your time with the ladies?”