35. The Jaws of Defeat
THE JAWS OF DEFEAT
brETT
There’s a minute forty left in the game. We’re up by one. Their goalie is skating to the bench before the puck even drops, and suddenly there are six of them coming at us like a wall.
The play develops fast. Too fast.
Decker gets tied up on the boards, and the puck ends up on their marquee centerman’s stick. Butler’s got fifty-one goals so far this season.
I lock in.
“Mine,” I call.
I don’t know if Mason hears me over the noise of the crowd. I don’t know if he trusts me enough to let me have it. For half a second, everything hangs.
Then he peels off to the weak side.
I take the body, a clean hard angle that drives Butler wide and kills his momentum. He makes a desperate pass, hoping to find a teammate in the slot, but Mason’s right where I need him to be, backing me up.
No hesitation. Just instinct and timing and fourteen games of learning to read each other on the ice. He corrals it, pivots, and chips it up the ice to Decker before Nashville’s forwards can recover.
The horn sounds as Decker buries the puck in the back of their net.
The bench erupts.
We did it.
The Wolfpack clinched a spot in the postseason for the first time in franchise history.
Mason’s just standing there, breathing hard, looking shell-shocked as the moment lands.
I skate over to him, and punch him in the arm to shake him out of it. I don’t want him to miss this. “We’re in the playoffs, baby!”
His grin sweeps over his face as he punches me back. “Fuck yeah we are!”
Then Decker crashes into both of us, followed by the rest of the team as we celebrate the fact that we just made history.
Life doesn’t get better than this.
I glance around the plane full of my teammates, acting like fools. The air is electric with our victory.
Playoff bound. It feels pretty fucking good.
I can’t wait to get home to Chelsea and indulge in a little private celebration with her, and then again with her naked.
I haven’t seen her in over a week, unless you count our X-rated video chat after I netted the game-winning goal in our OT battle against St. Louis four days ago, but I don’t, since touching myself pales in comparison to having her hands on my body.
My phone buzzes against my chest, and I pull it out of my suit jacket, glancing at the screen.
Social media is blowing up with fans wishing the team well, so I disconnect from the plane’s Wi-Fi to avoid the constant notifications and shove my wireless headphones in my ears, drowning out my teammates with my post-win playlist.
I’m feeling a bit contemplative. I’ve made the postseason every year since I was drafted to the NHL, even had the privilege of hoisting hockey’s biggest honor over my head twice, but this moment is satisfying on a completely different level.
I’m not just some punk kid, lucky enough to be drafted by a team with enough skill and talent to make the playoffs on a regular basis. With the Wolfpack, I’m a veteran, and I played an integral part in getting this team to the playoffs.
I proved that Craig London and his management team were right to take a chance on a screwed-up defenseman.
I didn’t let them down, and it feels pretty damn amazing.
It makes me realize just how long it’s been since hockey has been my main focus, something I put my everything into, and it reminds me how much I love this game. How important it is to me.
With a smile, I close my eyes and savor the moment.
“Sills. Wake up.”
I don’t know how much time has passed when I’m jarred awake by Decker, who’s flopped into the seat beside me. I wince at the punch in the shoulder and straighten up, before popping my wireless earphones out and tucking them back in my suit jacket. “Jesus. What?”
He shoves his phone at me. “You need to watch this.”
Dragging a palm down my face, I dig the heel of my hand against my eye, trying to get my brain in gear as I glance down at Decker’s phone.
The thumbnail is a pair of wet, bikini-clad tits, and the screen has the blue tinged lighting that makes me think of indoor pools.
Which makes me think of Chelsea. And for the first time in a long time, I’m content.
“What is this? I don’t want to watch your creepy tentacle porn on the plane.”
Jace's expression stays serious, and a little tingle of warning slithers across my skin.
I shoot Decker a frown but put on the Beats headphones he hands me before I hit the on-screen play button.
The video has shitty lighting, but I was right about the pool, and I watch the self-shot footage of the boobs in a black bikini as they break the surface of the water.
The woman keeps the camera pointed down, so her face isn’t in the shot, but as more of her body is revealed, water streaming off her as she climbs the stairs that lead up to the deck, my spine locks with eerie premonition.
Please no.
“Baby, smile for the camera,” she says, and the on-screen view swings wildly as she turns the camera away from her, tracking the gray pool tiles until she arrives at a lounge chair, and the camera pans up a dude’s legs, black board shorts, abs, and an arm that features fewer tattoos than it has now.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
“What are you doing, J?”
My own voice detonates through me. I sound kind of drunk, which I had been, confirmed as the camera jerks up to my face, all glassy-eyed as I shoot the camera a quizzical look.
“What do you think I’m doing?” she asks flirtatiously. And though the camera doesn’t show it, except for the jerky movement and the lowered sightline, I remember the way she straddled my lap, her wet bathing suit soaking through my dry one.
The phantom smell of chlorine and beer and Janelle’s perfume makes me sick.
“Is that my GoPro? I was looking for that,” on-screen me says.
“It’s our anniversary. I, like, thought we could do something special.”
“Whatever you want, but no camera, okay?”
“Awww, are you shy? ‘Cause you’ve got a great cock, baby.” She dips the camera down to where our bathing suits are pressed together.
“So big and thick.” It’s her trying-to-be-sexy voice.
The one she used when she wanted to get her way.
It had worked on me for a long time. In retrospect, I’m embarrassed it had worked at all.
Her left hand appears in the shot, tugging at the drawstring of my trunks. The sight of the three-carat pink diamond on her ring-finger makes me queasy.
“J, be serious for a minute.”
“I am being serious.”
That’s her exasperated voice, and she used it when I was pissing her off. I knew it well.
“God. You’re like, such a buzzkill! A sex tape would just make you more famous, you know that, right?”
“Little kids ask me to sign their jerseys. I hang out at the Children’s Hospital once a month. We’re going to a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club tomorrow night.”
“So? I want to film us getting a little dirty. I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“Nudes get hacked all the time. I just... I can’t take the risk. I’m already on probation with the team. You know that.”
“Oh please. As if you’re a big enough deal to get hacked. There are, like, at least five guys on your team who are higher profile than you. Never mind in the league.”
I wince in time with my on-screen self. Jesus. Why had she posted this shit?
“Janelle, come on. I love you.” My hair flops over my forehead. I look young. And stupid. Had I still believed I was in love with her? Or was I already starting to suspect we were fooling ourselves? “We don’t need a camera to have a good time. Right?”
There’s a quaver in my voice that lets me know I already knew this wouldn’t last, even though we were still about six months out from the bad fights at this point.
“Fine. Spoilsport.”
The screen swings wildly again as she leans forward and sets the camera on the table beside my beer. And that had been the end of that.
At least, that’s what I’d thought when I’d let her reach down and undo my swim trunks.
But I’d been wrong. It’s not the end of the video.
She left the fucking camera on.
My skin’s too tight, everything’s crawling, like I’ve been swarmed by fire ants or something. I claw at my tie, tugging it loose so I can pop the button on my collar.
I glance over at Decker, who respectfully turns his head.
And that, more than anything, is proof of how bad this is.
What the hell is Janelle doing? Did she text it to all my teammates because I’ve been ignoring her calls? “Where’d you get this?”
I know I’m not going to like the answer even before Jace refuses to look at me. I yank the headphones off. “Where the fuck did you get this?”
His voice sounds loud in the darkened interior of the plane.
“It’s all over the internet, man. I just thought you should know.”