12. Griffin
12
GRIFFIN
I haven’t heard anything from Jack since the prank. We don’t have each other’s numbers, and I don’t see him around the rink. I know better than to go there during their practice. I’m public enemy number one among the Blades. And rightfully so.
A part of me wishes he’d found my number and texted. Even something about how he’s going to kick my ass. I go back to the bar, but I don’t see him either.
My team and I lace up for our first game of the season on Sunday afternoon. Nerves jangle through me. My heart races so fast I have to ball my hands into fist to get them to stop shaking. The last time I played hockey, I lost an eye. I lost everything.
“Hey. You okay?” Bill squeezes my shoulder, sensing my nerves. They must be coming off me in waves.
“Yeah. Like riding a bike, right?”
“It is. I wouldn’t have stalked you if I didn’t think you could do this.” Bill stares into me, pulling out my fear. His unwavering confidence helps to put me at ease.
“If we lose, we go out and drink. And if we win, we go out and drink,” Hank says.
Bill has us huddle.
“We’re not going to let anyone push us around,” he says. No matter how fun the game is, Bill takes it seriously. We all do on some level. Nobody wants to lose.
We put our hands in the center and yell “wolf pack” at the count of three. It pumps me full of adrenaline.
“Okay, lace up and let’s get out there,” Bill says.
We go out into the stadium, and there’s a decent number of people in the stands. I gather they’re mostly family and friends, with a few hockey superfans scattered in. To me, it feels like the damn Stanley Cup. It’s just a fun game, I remind myself. Win or lose, we’ll laugh about it over drinks.
“OK guys. This is it!” Bill says just before we go out there.
We corral by the rink entrance.
“Give it up for the Comebacks!” the announcer yells over the loudspeaker.
We yell and whoop and rush out onto the ice to thunderous cheers.
As soon as I step out though, something feels off. I immediately can’t find my balance. I lean forward, then back, then resort to windmilling my arms before toppling into Des, who topples into Tanner. Human dominoes.
The crowd stops cheering.
I stand back up to collect myself, yet just as fast, I fall on my ass down again.
“What the fuck,” I mutter.
“Uh, Griff...” Tanner squats down. “Did you check your skates?” He points at my blades.
I run my finger over them. They’re slick. No cuts.
“You got taped,” he says.
I look across the rink, just knowing it. Sensing it.
Jack. Waving. Smiling.
Fucker.
* * *
I track down Jack’s number from Marcy, telling her it was damn near an emergency to talk to him. He left after I spotted him, so I didn’t have a chance to beat his ass in person.
“What the fuck is your problem? You covered my blades in tape?” I growl into my phone when I’m back in my truck. After we got the tape off, I was able to skate, but my confidence was rattled, and the bad juju spilled out to the rest of the team. We lost.
“Hey? You like what I did?” Jack asks, cocky as ever.
“No. What the fuck? You fucked with my skates?”
“It was a prank.”
“On game day!”
“You stole my clothes,” he shoots back.
I grip my steering wheel tight. “That was during practice. I would never prank you on game day and fuck with your juju. Good juju in hockey is sacred.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know they were taped before you went out. A win for me.” Jack gets quiet when he notices I’m not laughing. “It was a classic hockey prank, a welcome back to the game. I thought you would’ve taken the tape off before you got out there.”
“Well I didn’t. This was my first game in a long time, and my first game playing with one functioning eye. I had other things on my mind.” Blood pounds at my temples. My first game back, and I fall flat on my face. Multiple times.
“I’ll know for next time.”
“There is no next time. I know what you’re up to. Doing your dad’s bidding. Let me tell you something. What happened on the ice was his fault. He charged into me and took out my eye. He messed up his shoulder. It wasn’t me.”
“What? Griffin, what are you talking about?”
I don’t have the patience to listen to his excuses. “Both of you can fuck off.”
I miss the days of slamming down a phone to hang up on someone. It’s not as cathartic pressing the end call button.
* * *
A few days later, I’m still steaming about the prank. The thought of it makes my ears burn. Jack’s tried calling me back a few times since then, but I don’t want a halfhearted apology. I don’t even want a full-hearted apology from him.
“You don’t prank a player before an actual game,” I mutter to Hank. I slouch in my chair, not for emphasis, but because these auditorium chairs are so damn uncomfortable. They’re meant for teenage bodies, not mine.
“I know, I know.” Hank is only half paying attention to me. He looks toward the stage waving to his son Brody like he’s flagging a taxi. Brody gives his dad a tentative, awkward wave back, immediately embarrassed.
“That’s shit you only pull during a practice. Pranking before a game is below the belt stuff.”
“It’s that whole generation. They don’t care about rules, or anybody, so long as it makes for a good meme. They don’t have driver’s licenses. They don’t have sex. All they have are memes.” Hank shakes his head. Were we not in public, he’d probably be shaking his fist, too. It’s amazing how all of us turn into this person as we get older, whether we like it or not.
Brody sits at a long table with three of his quiz bowl teammates. They all wear matching, baggy South Rock High Quiz Bowl T-shirts. I hate to admit what Hank and I said about these types of kids when we were their age. I’m not proud of it, and since most of those kids are far more successful than me, I’ve been eating crow my whole adult life. Why do we mock smart kids? They’re the ones who become the doctors who keep us healthy, engineers who build our cities, creatives who entertain us, and politicians who pass our laws. Shouldn’t they be at the top of the popularity food chain?
“Go Brody! Kick some ass!” Hank shouts out along with a resounding WOOOO that reverberates in the auditorium. Brody blushes and looks down at the table.
Brody’s quiz bowl coach, Mr. Bright, hops off the stage and comes up to us. He’s young, beanpole thin with a mop of brown curls. He empties some Skittles into his hand and tosses them back like pills.
“Mr. Rush, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this isn’t a sporting event. You may want to take it down a scooch.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, Amos.”
“Since we’re at my place of work, please call me Mr. Bright.”
Amos is good friends with Mitch’s husband. We’ve been around him at social gatherings, where it only takes half a drink for him to let down his professional guard.
“You got it, Mr. Bright.” Hank gives him a salute. “Brody has been practicing really hard for this. He’s going to kick so much ass the other team will need a rectal exam when it’s over.”
“You know, I might not phrase it exactly like that.” Amos cocks his head. “But I appreciate the enthusiasm.”
“You don’t want to throw him off his game, like by taping his skates,” I say.
“It’s not a game. It’s a quiz bowl tournament. But sure?” Amos awkwardly places a purple Skittle in his mouth and returns to the stage.
On the way over, Hank was listing out all of his son’s academic achievements like the proudest dad in the world. Brody is destined to find the cure for cancer, invent the next supercomputer, or help us colonize Mars. Maybe all three.
“Anyway, cut Jack a little slack,” Hank says. “He’s not that far removed from being a teenager, and you know how guys are in high school.”
“He’s twenty-four. He’s an adult,” I shoot back.
An uneasy feeling churns in my stomach. Jack is nearly twenty years younger than me, and I’ve still been thinking about him standing naked in the parking lot. He let it all hang out proudly. And well…he had every right to be proud.
“Is there another fucking video of me circulating online?” I ask Hank. Jack’s video of the toilet paper incident had over a thousand views online. Hank assured me that was nothing in the world of going viral, but it was still a thousand people seeing us made to be fools.
“I had Brody look, but he didn’t find anything.”
“Fine. At least he didn’t make an even bigger mockery of me.” Taping up my skates right before my first game in decades. What the fuck? My cheeks burned with residual embarrassment. “But the point stands: you don’t do that to another player. You don’t fuck up their actual game.”
“He didn’t fuck it up, though. We got the tape off before the game started. Watching you go down was kinda funny.” Hank stops mid-snort when he notices I’m not laughing. I narrow my eyes at him. “I said it was only kinda funny.”
“We lost. Because of the bad juju he gave me.” It wasn’t even close. The other team won by four. The tape incident and resulting embarrassment threw me off my already rusty game, and I wasn’t able to recover until the third period. “Every hockey player knows that you don’t mess with the juju right before the game. I guarantee nobody in his pro days ever did something like that.”
“You’re right. He’s an asshole,” Hank says, but only to placate me. It’s the same tone he uses when I critique his goaltending skills.
“He’s an asshole. And he’s in this league and fucking with me as revenge for his raging dickhead of a father. I’m telling you, Hank, he’s going to send this league down in flames.”
“I’m impressed. You’re new to being gay, but you have the drama queen shit down pat.” Hank raises an eyebrow at me. “This is Real Housewives-level. I’m…I’m legitimately impressed.”
“I’m not a drama queen,” I growl back. I’d rather be compared to an overflowing Porta Potty than a Real Housewife. “I’m pointing out legitimate issues with this new player. You don’t think it’s fucked up that he’s Ted Gross’s son? You saw how the guy was at Ferguson’s.”
Ted hasn’t forgotten what happened on the ice. Neither have I.
“It’s a little fucked up. But maybe it’s just a coincidence that he’s in the league?” Hank raises his shoulders to his ears. “He used to play hockey. He misses playing hockey. He found a local competitive league for hockey. I’m going with Gillette razors on this one.”
“What?”
“It’s a concept in science that says the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
“Isn’t that Occam's razor?”
“Oh. Maybe. I’ve never used their razors.” Hank feels his clean-shaven face. It’s a miracle that he graduated from high school. There were times the team would wait outside his classroom to find out if he passed a test and thus had a GPA high enough to play in that week’s game. Sometimes, I wonder how Brody could be Hank’s offspring, but then I remember Brody is just as sweet and loyal as his old man. Genetics are weird.
“Maybe Jack doesn’t like you for a totally different reason. Who knows?” Hank wonders. I haven’t told him or the guys about what happened on the rooftop. I’d much rather believe it’s a complicated revenge plot led by his dad.
“In all fairness, we stole his clothes.” Hank chuckles, remembering the prank. “He wanted payback, and he got it.”
“Please. He enjoyed it. He was fucking smiling as we drove away.”
Again, my mind flashes to him letting his towel drop, his cocky smirk as he let me soak in what I was missing by leaving that rooftop. I can feel the warm sensation brewing in my core—and heading south. My dick isn’t on my side here.
“What I mean to say is that he knew what we did was a fun prank. Taping a guy’s blades on game day is a dirty move.”
“You’re not the first player to get your skates taped, Griff.”
“Jack is an overconfident prick.”
“Whatever you say, drama queen.” Hank shakes his head while staring at the stage, waiting for the event to begin. “You were never the guy to let another player get inside your head. I guess there’s a first for everything.”
His words shine an unwanted spotlight on me, making me want to hide. “He’s not in my head.”
Well, which head are we talking about?
“He’s totally in your head. He’s moved in and already assembled IKEA furniture.” Hank chuckles to himself, his cheeks getting extra bulbous.
“No, he’s not.” I lightly punch Hank’s shoulder. “He’s pissing me off, that’s what he’s doing.”
“Who’s pissing you off?” Derek scoots into our row with his friend Leo. Derek’s daughter Jolene sits next to Brody on stage, her radiant red hair unmistakable up there.
“Hey, buddy.” Hank leans over me to bump fists with him. “Good to see you again, Mr. Mayor. How’s that pothole on Mercer Street coming?”
“It’s getting patched up this month.”
“You said that last month.”
“Well, I mean it this month.” Leo has the slicked back hair and polished look of a politician, which makes sense since he’s Sourwood’s mayor. But today he’s here with his dad hat on to cheer on his son Ari, another one of Brody’s quiz bowl teammates.
“So who’s pissing you off?” Derek leans back in his chair, likely tired from another long shift at the firehouse.
Hank leans over me. “Take a wild friggin’ guess.”
“Jack Gross?” Derek arches a skeptical eyebrow.
“He violated the sacred rules of hockey,” I say, though nobody seems to believe me. “And he’s a ringer.”
“You got a ringer on your team?” Leo asks.
“Not our team. We play by the rules. It’s the Blades. They have a professional hockey player in their ranks.” I sit back, crossing my arms. “A professional hockey player who insists on pranking players before an actual game, not during practice.”
“His dad is Ted Gross,” Hank informs them. “The guy who…” He points to my eye patch. I swat his hand away.
“Shit,” Leo says. “And now you’re playing his son, who’s a pro hockey player?”
“A former pro hockey player,” I say. “He wants to take a break from buying buildings and jet-setting to play in our league.”
“Yep. He’s in your head, he ain’t paying rent, and he’s never leaving.” Hank snorts to himself.
“Hank, I remember what your locker used to be here. I will find a way to shove you back into it.”
“The whole Blades team is good,” Derek says. “I went to their game. They trounced the Matterhorns.”
“Maybe Jack is teaching them his professional secrets,” Hank says.
“Which would be another violation of league rules,” I point out.
“Were you always this much of a stickler for rules? Just relax.” Derek shrugs.
Hank shushes us when the moderator steps onto the stage. She wears a blazer and pencil skirt to go with her serious expression. She kindly explains the game rules. Hank makes the wrap it up hand gesture to us, no doubt because this is not his first quiz bowl rodeo. We go quiet as she jumps into asking the first question:
“Protons and neutrons are made up of this subatomic particle.”
Brody buzzes in. “Quarks.”
“Yes! Let’s go!” Hank cheers.
“Correct,” the moderator says, eyeing Hank. “Next question. SB is the symbol for this element on the periodic table.”
Brody hits his buzzer again. “Antimony.”
“Correct,” she says again, betraying no expression.
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” Hank yells.
The moderator stops mid-question. Amos sits off to the side, his face as red as the Skittle in his mouth. Brody motions for him to take it down a notch.
“Sorry,” Hank says. He watches with rapt with attention, a gigantic smile on his face. The world of hockey is the furthest thing from his mind.
Jolene and Ari get buzzer time throughout the competition, but Brody is obviously the star of his team. Each time he gets an answer right, Hank lets out a “yes.” He keeps looking over at me in amazement, wondering if I’m as floored by his son’s intelligence as he is.
At the end of the round, South Rock High is way out in front. Leo leans over, the wheels spinning in his head.
“I can’t help thinking about this hockey matchup,” Leo says. “We have a professional hockey player and his young guns on one team. And then we have the Wolf Pack on another.”
The Wolf Pack was the nickname for our high school hockey team when we were playing. We were a force to be reckoned with, leading the school to back-to-back championships.
“You guys were legends in this town. And now you’re back together, the original lineup. It’s quite something.” Wheels turn behind Leo’s eyes, but I don't have time to decipher that look. I have bigger things on my mind.
“I need to prank Jack back. Hard,” I say. “Show him that I won’t give in.”
“Dude, I don’t have the time or energy for another prank. Why don’t we focus on the games? We’re not playing the Blades for a few weeks anyway,” Derek says. He knocks at my skull. “Get this guy out of your head.”
Easier fucking said than done.
“Yeah, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have a crush,” Leo says.
I feel my entire face turn red. Before I can respond to that accusation, the moderator takes to the podium and Hank shushes us.
“Let’s go, Huskies!” Hank cheers. “Let’s go Brody!”
“Can you be quiet?” A fellow dad a row in front of us sneers.
Hank gets right in his face. “Hey pal, you wanna take this outside?”