21. Griffin
21
GRIFFIN
O n Sunday, I roll into Summers Rink for the Comebacks’ next game, slightly more confident than the previous week. Sure, I’m still nervous as hell. But it’s a good, nervous energy. I’m juiced up with adrenaline and more excited to get on the ice than I have been all season.
The lobby of the rink is scattered with people who watched earlier games and some who came to see us. There’re plenty of people I don’t recognize, and it’s fuller than expected. Whereas last week most of our scant audience were family and friends of the players, I get the feeling there are actual strangers here.
One of them, a gruff guy in a puffy winter coat, claps me hard on the back. “Sourwood Cup! Go get ‘em!”
“Uh, thanks.”
“I watched you guys back in high school. Kick some Gen Z ass!” He raises a fist in the air.
I half raise my fist back and keep walking to the locker room. It’s been a long time since I had fans.
When I get to my locker, I tell my teammates about the encounter. They don’t act shocked, since the same thing has been happening to them. People have been coming up and wishing them luck. One guy came up to Tanner at the urinal to give him playing tips for beating the Blades.
“What can I say? People love us,” Hank says with zero modesty.
“I think it’s great that people are getting invested. We need to harness that momentum,” Bill says. He’s always the first guy suited up. “The Blades just played before us. I watched some of it.” He shakes his head, fighting the urge to get psyched out by what he saw. “There’s a reason Jack Gross went pro. He’s easily their top player. He has a great shot and good control of the puck.”
He also is brilliant with dirty talk, a fact I keep to myself.
Bill shakes his fear away. That’s what makes him such a great captain. He always knows how to get his focus back. “The Blades are good. There’s no denying that. But that means we have to work harder. Each Sunday game we have is another practice, another way to improve our game.” His eyes flick to me for a second. “We have the goods. So let’s use them.”
“In other words, let’s not make asses of ourselves in front of the whole town,” Des says.
“Exactly!” Derek says.
When we get onto the ice, I’m able to drown out the noise and pressure that Bill’s trying not to instill in us. I focus on the game, on what I love about hockey, what I’ve missed about playing. The thrill of the puck careening off my blade. My skates gliding through the ice. The choreography of the perfect pass to the goal.
At the top of the bleachers, I clock a familiar blond. Jack watches us warm up. Or rather, watches me warm up, because whenever I look, I find his eyes on me. Even when my head is down, I can feel his presence.
His hair is still damp and shaggy, making him look extra adorable.
Bill corrals us to our bench and gives us one final pep talk. Today’s game is against the Trouts, a bunch of guys from the outskirts of town who all fish together at a local pond where they’ll play hockey when it freezes in the winter. Their beards are so long they scraggle through their face masks.
By the time both teams get on the ice for the puck drop, Jack is gone.
As soon as the puck drops, I become an immovable force on defense. Pretty much nothing gets through me. I deliver a perfectly timed poke check as the Trouts’ forward tries to cut to the middle of the ice, knocking the puck away and preventing a dangerous scoring chance. I smoothly recover the puck and skate it out of my zone, threading a crisp pass to Des who breaks out down the ice and scores.
I continue winning puck battle after puck battle in my zone, tying up sticks in front of the net. I can tell the Trouts’ forwards are pissed off as they barely get any shots on our goal, muttering expletives at me as their breakaways keep getting rejected. I’m able to anticipate passes before the opposing forwards can even make them and intercept multiple cross-ice passes.
In the final period, the opposing forward charges to the net. I skate in front of him as he takes his shot, the puck bouncing off my shin guard with such force I worry the gear is going to crack. I quickly recover and clear the puck with a sharp pass to Bill.
The game flies by in a joyous blur. It’s the same euphoria I felt on those rare times when I studied for a test and knew every answer, where filling in the Scantron was a preordained victory lap. When the game ends, I don’t want to get off the ice.
We win in a shutout, four-zip.
“Holy shit,” Bill says to me in the locker room afterward. It takes a lot to stun Bill. His poker face is a default expression. “Griffin.”
“Good game, right?” I ask.
“ We had a good game. You had a fucking incredible game. Holy shit.” Bill happily wears his expression on his face this time. He’s as excited as my daughters when we put up the Christmas tree.
“You were on fire,” says Des behind us.
“Griff’s mojo is back!” proclaims Hank.
“I knew it would come back. It just needed some time,” says Bill.
“I’ll be honest. I didn’t know if we had an ice cube’s shot in hell of beating the Blades.” Des takes off his gear, chucking it into his locker. “But now, I think we actually do.”
To my surprise, nobody disagrees with that statement.
Bill grabs my cheeks, his eyes wide with glee. “Secret weapon: activated.”
* * *
“Hey, what the hell are you…” Jack stops mid-sentence.
I push myself out from under his car and rub my hands off on my rag. I’ve raised it using a pair of jacks, which allow me and my creeper better access to the underbelly of his car. I’m even wearing one of my work jumpsuits. I have a suspicion that it turns him on.
I stand up from my creeper. Jack looks at me, the jacks, the toolbox, his car. He can’t make sense of anything.
So this is what it takes to shut Jack Gross up, huh?
“That’s my car,” he says, pointing at the rundown, two-door vehicle that desperately needs to go through a car wash. He points at me, but has no clue what to say.
“You said you needed new brake pads.” I pull the rounded pads from my toolbox. “Sometimes we have extra auto parts at the hangar. These should fit your make and model. They’re ceramic, too, which typically last longer than metallic.”
“Um. Okay.” Jack’s index finger is still pointed my way. “You’re giving me new brake pads?”
“Yeah. The brake pads themselves aren’t expensive. You’re mostly paying for labor.” Being a mechanic may not be a very lucrative job, but the amount of money I’ve saved not getting ripped off by other mechanics could probably pay for an Ivy League education for both of my daughters.
“How do you know where I lived?”
“I asked your teammate.”
“And he told you?”
“I asked nicely.” His teammate Fuentes made me promise that I wasn’t coming over here to cause trouble. I assured him I came in peace. My reason for visiting Jack would be a net positive for both teams.
“How did you know which car was mine?”
I smack the “Puck Off” bumper sticker on his car. I lay back down on the creeper. “Can you hand me the metal wire brush? Your rotor is really corroded.”
I push myself underneath the car again and hold out my hand. A few seconds later, Jack shoves the brush firmly into my palm. After putting on my goggles and dust mask, I get to work scrubbing the rust off his rotor, finding the shine under the grime. I hop out from under the car and continue scrubbing.
Eventually, Jack finds the extra metal brush and protective wear and scrubs at the rotors for the back wheels.
“I was going to get my car fixed,” he says.
“I know. I had the parts and the time.”
“Thanks.” The word is filled with genuine emotion, a hidden tiredness coming off him.
“You don’t want to drain all your savings on Ubers.” I maneuver the brush between the bolts. Jack finds a stubborn patch of rust and scrubs hard, his forehead reddening with exertion.
“I wish my dad had taught me how to fix cars rather than play hockey. Is that how you learned?” Jack asks.
I give a terse nod. “Fixing up his hot rod was the last thing we did together before he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
When I’m working on a plane, there are times when I close my eyes for a second and the smell of the machinery sends me back to our family garage with my dad. We’d spend nearly every weekend working on his car, the hours sailing by, beer for him and Coke for me, classic rock on the radio. There was no greater high than the jittery anticipation of watching him turn the key in the ignition and the exhilaration of hearing the engine come to life.
“I’m grateful he taught me everything he knew about cars. When hockey didn’t pan out and I lost all my college scholarship prospects, I needed a job. Luckily, you can fix cars with only one eye. I kept learning and worked my way up to fixing airplanes.”
Even though my hockey path didn’t work out, I hold out a sliver of hope that my old man would be proud to watch me work on massive jet wings and engines. Or maybe it would only disappoint him, wondering about my wasted potential.
“You’re making your parents proud,” Jack says. “How’s this?”
I come over and slide my finger over the rotor. “It needs to be a little smoother.”
Jack nods and reverts to rigorous scrubbing. Any rust on the rotor will compromise the new brake pads and make them less effective.
Mom and Dad are watching me from heaven, and I can’t help wondering if they’re proud of what they see. Their son was supposed to be a hockey star. That’s what all the struggling was for. “I wanted to give my mom the life that we never had growing up.”
“Fancy cars? A big house? Fur coats? Those things are overrated. They make you happy for a little bit, but not long. The high wears off pretty fast. And I’m sure you’re aware of how much of a money pit a fancy car can be.”
I chuckle as I scrub around a stubborn patch. People who owned sports cars were always shocked and appalled at how much it cost to fix them. They assumed we were ripping them off, but it was actually the manufacturer ripping them off with expensive parts.
I go over to Jack and feel his rotor. Nice and smooth. Like his bare ass.
“So why the hell are you fixing my car on a Sunday night?” he asks.
“Because I kicked ass this morning. I had my best game of the season by a mile. I wasn’t in my head. I was nailing all of my shots and passes.”
“You were in the zone,” Jack says, something clicking for him. “I was, too.”
“I heard you played great in the game before us.”
“My teammates had been telling me I was rusty, but that I’d shake it off.”
“Sounds familiar.” I slide the new brake pad into the wheel I’m working on, then do the same for the other front wheel. “We need to keep the momentum going.”
“What do you mean?”
“First rule of hockey: if something brings you good luck, you keep doing it.”
Players grow out their hair and beard to caveman extremes. They eat the same foods. They listen to the same song on the way to the rink. It’s all about keeping the good luck streak going no matter what.
I move to the back wheels and place the brake pads in then tighten the calipers.
“Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?” Jack asks.
I nod, knowing that it sounds both insanely crazy and supremely logical. “How else do you explain why we’re suddenly both better players?” I walk over to Jack’s wheel, the final one left. “I thought it was just something we needed to get out of our systems that one time. Or two times. But what if it unlocked something for us? We both had big wins. We should keep the good luck going.”
“By fucking each other?”
“Yes,” I say with utmost seriousness in my voice and a tightening in my pants. “People are actually talking about this game between our teams. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves on the ice. We need to do whatever we can not to jinx ourselves.”
“By fucking each other?”
Every time he says fuck, my dick jumps.
“I mean, yes. You didn’t seem to hate it.” His dirty talk and desperate moans echo in my head. I want more of them.
Jack clears his throat, a patch of blush emerging on his cheeks. “This is nuts.”
“Is it any worse than guys who refuse to change socks for the season to keep up the good juju? Look, I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. I’m not even asking you to dinner, Ringer. I just want to win some games.”
I also want to kiss him hard and feel his body clench and shake under my touch as he explodes with orgasm.
The taste of victory will be just as delicious as the taste of him.
I hand Jack the final brake pad, my finger slipping over his.
“I guess if it’ll help us, then we should keep doing it.” Jack slides the brake pad into place. “For the good juju.”