8. Gideon
Gideon
I wasn’t smiling. That would’ve been asking too much from the day.
But I was peaceful, and I felt it from the moment the puck dropped.
The crowd rolled down around us in a wall of gold, Ryan somewhere behind the bench working with the equipment crew as if he belonged there.
We’d shared soup. I had a date with Ryan, an actual date, after I’d asked him and fucked up asking him and somehow fixed it enough that he said yes anyway.
I could think about that tomorrow. Tonight there was hockey.
The first ten scoreless minutes flew by.
Neither team could get anything going, both of us trading chances up and down the ice.
Arnaud made a huge glove save three minutes in and got a roar for it, then Walker rang one off the post less than thirty seconds later at the other end.
Bob blocked a shot with his ankle, swore loud enough that I heard it from the far boards, and stayed out another forty seconds because that was Bob.
It was fast hockey, physical without being stupid, both teams finishing checks and fighting for every loose puck, and we were playing better than we had all season.
Not happy. I wasn’t going that far. But good.
The puck came around the boards, and I got there first, taking it on my forehand before their defenseman could close the gap.
I chipped it behind him and chased, won the race into the corner, and sent it around the net for Walker to collect.
He tried the wraparound. Their goalie kicked it away.
The rebound came loose, and I got my stick to it and shoved it back toward the crease before one of their defensemen tied me up.
Walker battled for it. Bob pinched down from the point, and for a few seconds it was all sticks and skates and bodies before the puck squirted free and their winger got there first and cleared it.
I turned and went after him, and everything narrowed down to puck, ice, skates, space. For the first time all day, Ethan wasn’t at the front of my mind. He was still there—he would always be there—but he wasn’t hurting me. I could breathe. I could skate. I could—
Something huge slammed into me. My shoulder hit the boards first, then my hip.
My skates went out from under me while the rest of me twisted the wrong way, landing flat on my back with my legs half up the boards, my stick trapped underneath me and no idea where the puck had gone.
For one ridiculous second, I couldn’t move.
A six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound turtle stuck on his shell in front of six thousand people.
Asshole.
I rolled onto my side and found number twenty-seven skating away. Mason Kessler. Of course it was fucking Kessler. Ten minutes of good hockey, ten minutes of feeling almost normal, and then Kessler happened.
I got one knee under me before Bob flew past.
“Bob!”
Too late. He caught Kessler by the shoulder, spun him around, then shoved him hard enough that Kessler stumbled back, and he shoved him again. Bob dropped his gloves, and the arena exploded.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
I got upright as Bob grabbed a fistful of Kessler’s jersey and threw the first punch. Kessler answered with one of his own, and then they were locked together, helmets knocking, fists flying, the officials circling them, looking for a safe way in. Walker skated over and stopped beside me.
“You alive?”
“Apparently.”
“You looked like a turtle.”
“Fuck off.”
“Little legs in the air and everything.”
“I hate you.”
He patted my shoulder. “Love you too.”
Bob landed one more punch before both men lost their balance and went down together. The linesmen finally moved in to pull them apart while the crowd gave Bob a standing ovation. He got to his feet with his hair sticking out in every direction and pointed at Kessler.
“You don’t fucking touch him.”
The crowd roared again. I stared at him.
“Bob!”
He looked over.
“I’m fine!”
“Good!”
The official grabbed his arm and steered him toward the penalty box. I muttered idiot under my breath, and Walker bumped my shoulder. “Your idiot.”
Yeah. He was.
The officials sorted out the penalties while I skated a slow circle to check that everything still worked.
Shoulder fine, hip fine, head fine, pride severely damaged, and there wasn’t much anyone could do about that.
When I passed the bench, Chip raised an eyebrow at me, and from the other end Arnaud banged his stick against the ice and yelled, “Tortue!” Even in French. Fantastic.
I climbed over the boards for the change and sat down beside one of the rookies, who was trying so hard not to laugh that his whole face had gone red.
“Do it, and you’re dead.”
He looked straight ahead. “Didn’t say anything.”
“Good.”
Coach Harris leaned over. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, because we’ve got a power play.” He nodded toward the penalty boxes, where Kessler had somehow picked up an extra two minutes for the original hit, which meant Bob’s stupidity had at least bought us something useful. Coach tapped my shoulder. “Get out there.”
I went. The first unit moved the puck around the zone until their penalty kill collapsed toward Walker, who sent it back to the point.
Chip moved it across, as I drifted low while everyone watched the puck.
Bob stood in the penalty box shouting something I couldn’t hear, probably tactical advice, possibly threats.
It could go either way. The puck came across.
I caught it. Shot. Goal. The red light flashed behind the goalie and the building went insane.
And that time I smiled. Couldn’t help it.
Walker reached me first and nearly took my helmet off, slapping the back of it.
Bob was right behind him with a side bump that nearly put me into the glass. At least this time I stayed upright.
One-nothing.
The second came five minutes later when Walker buried a rebound from the edge of the crease, the exact ugly goal Coach had spent the last week demanding. Their first came before the end of the period off a turnover in our zone, and we went into intermission up two-one.
Bob came back from the box looking ridiculously pleased with himself.
“You’re welcome.”
“For what?”
“Motivation.”
“You punched a guy.”
“He flattened you.”
“It was a legal hit.”
Bob stared at me.
“Mostly legal,” I amended.
“He made you a turtle.”
Walker lost it completely. I pointed at Bob. “You’re dead to me.”
“Five minutes for defending your honor, and this is the thanks I get.”
“I didn’t ask you to defend my honor.”
“Someone had to. You were on your back waving your little feet in the air.”
I threw a towel at him. He caught it and wiped his face with it. Asshole.
The second period belonged to us. Chip scored from the point through traffic.
One of the rookies got his first of the season on a breakaway and nearly launched himself through the glass celebrating.
Arnaud stopped everything thrown at him, including a nasty shot from Kessler that he gloved clean before giving the guy a long stare.
Four-one going into the third, and for the first time all season, everything clicked.
We weren’t chasing the game or forcing passes that weren’t there or trying to make every shot pretty.
We were winning battles, getting bodies to the net, doing exactly what Coach had drilled into us. Retrieve pucks. Win battles. Score.
They got one back halfway through the third, but Walker answered less than two minutes later, tipping Bob’s shot from the blue line past their goalie. Five-two. The final horn went with the crowd already on its feet.
I coasted toward Arnaud as everyone spilled off the bench, gloves tapping helmets, sticks banging against pads. He pulled off his mask and grinned at me.
“Tortue.”
I shoved him. He laughed. Bob caught me around the neck from behind and dragged me into the pile.
We won. I scored. Nobody was hurt. Bob had punched Kessler in the face.
The crowd was happy, Coach was happy, and I was tired in the good way, muscles heavy, sweat cooling under my gear, my head finally quiet after a day I’d thought quiet might never come.
Ethan was still gone. Tomorrow that would still hurt.
But tonight I had my team around me, a win on the board, and somewhere inside this building was a redheaded man who agreed to go on a date with me.
It was all good.
A week passed.
Ryan and I didn’t go on another date, not officially.
The fundraiser was still a week away, and that was our date.
We’d said the word and agreed on it, and I’d spent an embarrassing amount of time turning over the fact that I had a date with a man.
With Ryan. Everything between now and then just got filed under friendship, and apparently friendship ran almost entirely on food.
We had coffee after practice on Monday, sitting in a quiet corner near the loading dock because Ryan only had twenty minutes before his dad needed him back.
He brought me half a turkey sandwich on Tuesday because he’d bought two by mistake, which I didn’t believe for a second.
On Wednesday, we shared a box of fries in the equipment room while he worked on a pair of skates.
There were texts as well. I was shit at texting.
Ryan sent complete conversations through his phone: thoughts, observations, photographs, links, questions, complaints about customers who somehow thought skate sharpening could be done in thirty seconds, and I answered with things like yeah, lol, okay.
One night he sent a photo of two shirts and asked which one I liked better.
GIDEON: left
RYAN: Your ability to communicate is breathtaking.
I stared at that for a full minute before typing back.
GIDEON: Thanks
The three dots appeared, disappeared, then reappeared.
RYAN: That wasn’t a compliment, Taft. LOL.
GIDEON: Oh
He sent back a laughing emoji and a skull. I’m not sure what that meant, but I found it cute. Yep. Cute.