Chapter 16 #2
But this was progress, at least. It meant whenever Micah talked to me again, I would have good news for him. And I would be patient, and I would wait.
However long it took.
I preferred when we were on the bus instead of crammed in a plane. First, I hated flying. It scared the shit out of me. Second, when the drive was long, I could stretch along the back two seats and knock out.
The other guys hated it back there. It smelled like shit from the bathrooms, and the constantly flushing toilets irritated them. But I could sleep through anything.
And did.
At least, until a big body shoved itself under my knees.
Peering one eye open, I groaned at the sight of Alexio, who was getting himself comfortable under my legs. Rene was across the aisle, staring at me, and I realized this was probably some kind of intervention.
“You know what we call you in Russia?” I asked, my voice sleep-thick.
He gave me a cautious look, like he thought I was going to say fart sniffer or butt licker. “What?”
“Lyosha.”
“Aww, so cute,” Rene said, leaning over to ruffle Alexio’s hair. A year ago, he wouldn’t have dared. A year ago, Alexio was untouchable.
But now he had a ring on his finger and a softness in his smile no one thought he was capable of. Well, I did, but no one believed me until Jonah came along and changed everything.
A few of the guys had worried it was going to fuck his ability to play. Most of them didn’t like change. The rookies were the worst. They were all up front, shaking in their little boots right now about how the game was going to go.
But Jonah was Alexio’s good luck charm. Even better than his coin.
“So,” I said when I realized they weren’t going anywhere and had no intention of letting me finish my nap. “What you want?”
“To find out what the fuck’s going on with you,” Alexio said. He squeezed my ankle. “You yelled at Linny this morning.”
I winced. I had yelled at him. He wasn’t a rookie anymore, but he had the excitement of one, and while normally I would have joined him in his pregame joy, I couldn’t.
Not with Micah on my mind. Not with him missing again and ignoring my texts. Not with finding out that he’d been scratched for the next ten games.
I’d asked Jonah, who said all he knew was that his brother was fine, and Caleb hadn’t answered my messages, which wasn’t a surprise, considering how it had been the last time I’d seen him.
I believed Jonah that he was fine, but Jonah also didn’t know what was happening.
I didn’t think this was Hunter’s fault. At least, not directly. I had a feeling Micah was running, and for the next ten days, I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“Vanny,” Rene said softly. “We’re worried.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t normally lie to us, bud,” he added.
Closing my eyes, I groaned and rubbed my hands down my face. “Look is…big personal problem, okay? Not your business.”
“It is if it’s going to affect your ability to defend the net,” Alexio said, ever the fucking pragmatist.
And it did piss me off. So far, I’d shown zero indication that my mood was going to affect my game. “Is that all?”
“Vanya…”
“Was trying to take pregame nap. If I’m bad tonight, might be your fault.”
Alexio’s face fell, and suddenly, I felt like a complete asshole. “Sorry.”
He and Rene were gone, moving two rows up before I could collect myself and apologize. Shit, I had to be better. I needed to control my frustration with this situation.
It wasn’t fair to the people I cared about.
“Vanya?”
I glanced up, startled to find Ferris hovering near the edge of the now empty seat. I sat up and shifted my legs around. “Little Reddy. You okay?”
He was worrying something between his fingers, and I realized it was one of his little crocheted creations. “I know rookies are meant to stay at the front of the bus, but—”
“No, no. That’s stupid rule. Sit down.”
Ferris dropped down like it was some kind of military order and I was his commander. He swallowed heavily, twisting the brightly colored yarn animal in his hands.
“You’re nervous tonight?”
“There wasn’t a chance I was going to play the last roadie. I didn’t even bother putting my cup on. But this time…not that you’ll fuck up or anything, but…”
“No. I understand. You’re getting ice time.
Coach might pull me to give you more. It’s okay.
” I thought about reaching out to squeeze his shoulder, but he’d always recoiled from touch, so I kept my hands in my lap.
“You can be nervous. Maybe it will be bad game—maybe you will be terrible. But you can’t get better without being terrible first.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I mean…I guess? My boyf—my…” He stopped, then shrugged. In truth, everyone knew about Quinn. He was gone before my time in the NHL, but people talked about him and his injury.
And people talked about the fact that Ferris had almost gone the same way before his career even started. I’d seen a couple of paparazzi shots of them on the internet, and they were an odd but very cute couple.
“Yes, your boyfriend,” I encouraged.
“It feels weird to call him that.” He let out a breath. “Anyway, he told me that his first two rookie years were really rough. It’s different when you’re a goalie though. It takes so long to be allowed on the ice, and then it’s usually for a failing third period.”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t get a real chance to show off my skills for the first couple of years after I’d been drafted. And Ferris hadn’t gone to the farm. He’d come straight here from collegiate, which was rare.
But it also meant he was good.
“You’re better goalie than me.”
He laughed, and then his eyes widened. “S-sorry. Sorry. I thought you were telling a joke! I suck at understanding when people are kidding. But…but why aren’t you kidding? I’m not better. You’re old.”
I winced. “Okay, that hurt a little bit.”
He glanced off to the side, his cheeks going a little dark with a flush. “I didn’t mean…I’m…” He licked his lips. “I’m autistic, so sometimes I say whatever pops in my head. You’re old. But in a good way. You have years of experience on me.”
“Yes, but at your age, I had to work much harder to get to where you are now. So you are better. You will be better.”
Ferris blinked rapidly. He wasn’t really looking at me, but thanks to half my friends now being somewhere on the blind spectrum, I no longer relied on that to know if people were paying attention.
And he was.
He seemed overwhelmed.
“Was wrong thing to say?”
“No.” He shook his head, then met my eyes for a brief second. “No. I…thank you. Sometimes I feel a little lost here? Because I’m, ah. Well. Not like everyone else.”
“Goalies always weird,” I told him with a small grin. It made me think about Micah and Jonah. They were both delightfully weird in their own way. Different from each other. Different from me.
But our friendships—and other ships, whatever they were—made sense. They made me feel safe. And I wanted Ferris to have that too.
“It’s different for me,” he said after a beat. “Being autistic. Being South Asian.” He stopped, then shook his head. “Being the only one of my siblings to look like I’m Pakistani. People didn’t really care. They didn’t really notice when I was in school. But they notice here.”
“It was same for me. A little,” I added. “My mother from Islamabad.”
His eyes widened. “Wait. Really?”
“Mm. She die when I was very little, but my grandparents help me remember her. Is not the same for me though. I look more like my papa.”
Ferris bowed his head. “My brothers are more like you. No one thinks we’re related.
I think sometimes it’s harder for them. They look just different enough for people to notice, but when they try and connect to who we are and where our family came from, people tell them they don’t belong.
My brother Logan took it the hardest. But it’s hard to talk to him when he doesn’t deal with the same shit I do. ”
I knew what that felt like, but it wasn’t something I often thought about. And maybe that was the privilege of it. Something Ferris couldn’t relate to.
But I’d been playing hockey for a long, long time, and I’d seen what he was dealing with. I’d seen what happened to players who didn’t fit the expectation of who we were supposed to be and what we were meant to look like.
“You feel…uncomfortable? Someone saying something to you?” I demanded. “Tell me who? I will order hit on the ice and—”
“No.” His lips twitched as he tried to hide his smile. “You sound like Quinn.”
“Do I?”
Ferris laughed and nodded. “You know he works for the team now? Physical therapist. Hopefully, you won’t have to meet him, but if you do, I think you’ll like him.”
“Well, if he sound like me, he is good guy. He and I will take care of problem for you if you need.”
Ferris bit his lip, then settled into his seat and very, very cautiously eased himself closer to me.
“Is this, um…I mean. I noticed some of the guys are touchy. Which is hard for me sometimes. And I never seem to know when I’m allowed or when it’s weird.
I almost got beat up a couple of times my freshman year, and—”
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him over until his head was pillowed on my shoulder.
He let out the smallest sigh. “Thanks.”
“Of course, new best friend. Is what I’m here for. You missing boyfriend and need a cuddle? I can do that. I know how it feels.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.
My heart twisted in my chest, and I let out a heavy exhale. “I don’t know. It’s…”
“Complicated,” he said, and I nodded against the top of his head. “Yeah. With me and Quinn…it was complicated. And hard. And scary. I think, in the end, if he hadn’t been so sure of me, I would have run.”
“What helped?” I tried not to sound desperate, but I was. I needed to know what I could do to shut all those ugly voices up in Micah’s head.
“He was patient. And sweet. And with him, it was easy to remember that I could be myself. That I didn’t have to try and put on a mask to seem just like everyone else. He loved me for being different.”
“Yes. Is same for me,” I said. “He’s different and amazing. And falling for him is hard because he’s so stubborn.”
Ferris snorted a quiet laugh. “Sounds like he and I would be good friends.”
“Maybe you will be.” And god, that would be the dream. I’d stepped into Micah’s world, but if he let me pull him into mine, just for a bit—just every now and then—I wasn’t sure I’d survive having that much joy.
But I would sure as hell try.