Chapter Two September #2
All week, the one thing he looked forward to was getting some extra hockey in.
Despite his early misgivings, the pick-up game was a good idea.
Hockey exhausted his body and guaranteed that his constant stream of thoughts and worries shut off as soon as his head hit his pillow.
It gave him a place to work off some frustration, too.
Checking or not, the game was physical. A good battle for the puck on the boards or in front of the net helped him tap some of his unspent aggression, leaving him mellow and calm.
After the week he’d had, he could use some mellow.
As a bonus, he could imagine Chad from sales whenever he was trying to shove someone off the puck.
Nick (6:07 p.m.)
anything i should know before i head out?
like any secret pickup tricks that only pros know??
Nick (6:28 p.m.)
dude don’t leave me hanging??? i’m freaking out already
Jensie from Hockey (6:57 p.m.)
bring a white jersey so we can be on the same team
it’s nothing special just a regular game except you don’t know anybody
Nick (7:00 p.m.)
so like my first game on the jagr bombs? terribly anxiety ridden and me constantly second guessing myself?
Jensie from Hockey (7:12 p.m.)
didn’t you get an assist that game?
bring a white jersey. you’ll be fine.
Jensie from Hockey (7:16 p.m.)
maybe don’t eat spicy food though
Nick smiled at his phone. His nerves weren’t completely settled, but he definitely felt better.
Entering rinks had rapidly become a familiar feeling. The cold rush of air accompanied by the staleness of the locker room grounded him as much as the routine of gearing up.
Or it did until he looked around and didn’t know any of the other people suiting up, most of them chatting amongst themselves.
These people did know each other.
Brady wasn’t here.
Shit.
Whatever. Worse came to worst, he’d be miserable for an hour and know better than to go to a pick-up game in the future.
More than that, it was hockey. Bad hockey was still better than no hockey, and that was the attitude he needed to have.
It was the whole reason he’d started playing to begin with.
He went through his usual pre-game routine: skating to loosen up, stickhandling to get a feel for the ice, a few shots-on-net to warm up the goalie.
Still no Brady.
It was impossible to get a read on the other players.
A few were warming up like him, but most were standing by the benches, talking.
They had a wide array of jerseys, some plain practice jerseys, others for NHL teams, but most were for local rec leagues.
He didn’t recognize more than a couple, though, and it made him feel even more isolated.
Here he was, per Brady’s instructions, in a plain white jersey.
“All right!” came a shout from the Zamboni entrance as a guy closed the boards. He was in full gear, only missing his gloves and stick, and had the same aura of authority that Benns did. “Line up! We’ll split you into teams. We’ve got the ice for another forty-five minutes, so let’s hustle!”
The guy skated down the line, pointing people to one side of the ice or another. The only qualification that seemed to matter was jersey color: the lighter colors were pointed toward the scoreboard and the rest were sent to the far side of the ice.
“Scoreboard,” the guy said with no more than a cursory glance at Nick’s jersey.
Nick headed that way, sizing up his temporary teammates, when the whole rink echoed with the sound of a door opening.
There was Brady, scrambling to get on the ice from the locker room. His white jersey wasn’t even pulled over his hockey pants, and his helmet was askew.
“Nice of you to join us, Brady,” the guy in charge barked. “It’s not like we’re paying by the minute here.”
“Fuck off,” Brady grumbled.
“Ray of sunshine as always,” the guy shot back and, with a wave, dismissed him to the scoreboards. “You’re lucky you make my numbers even.”
Brady glided right to Nick as if there were nowhere else he’d go. Nick ignored the way his pulse quickened and how Brady’s presence put him at ease.
“He’s full of shit,” Brady said while he fixed his jersey and helmet. “I’ve seen people roll in during the third and he lets ’em play. You got cash, you got a spot.”
“Uh huh. Since when are you late to hockey? You’re that person who’s already dressed and waiting for them to zam the ice. I assumed you were dead on the side of the road or something.”
“Uh huh,” Brady said back. “You thought I was setting you up for a super-hard pick-up and laughing that you fell for it. Bet you considered bailing even after you got on the ice.”
“Uh huh. And you probably would’ve done that, except you can’t say no to hockey without going through withdrawal. You set me up, were laughing at home, and then realized you’d set yourself up to miss out on a game and had to rush over.”
“Uh huh—”
“Yo, what you guys play?”
Nick shook his head and took a forced step back from Brady. They’d drifted closer together as they tried to rile each other up, nearly chest-to-chest, and the space was the only way to force his head to clear. Brady’s gravity drew him in without him noticing.
“I like to play back, but I can play up,” Brady said. He stood square to the other players, almost as if he too felt the need for space. “Just don’t expect me to take a faceoff.”
“I play up,” Nick said. He wouldn’t mind trying out defense, but not here, not now.
He wanted a few more months of actual play under his belt before he branched out.
Then, because he still felt like being a little shit and maybe missed having Brady’s attention to himself, he jerked a thumb toward Brady. “I can take his faceoffs.”
Brady’s head whipped around to face Nick. His mouth fumbled over words that didn’t come, and Nick suppressed a snicker.
They divided up their eight players across two-ish lines, three on defense and five forwards. The other team had two more players than them, probably because of the same team finagling that Brady had done with Nick, and Nick didn’t look forward to double-shifting to make up that difference.
As a plus, no one had minded him playing offense, and he was out with Brady more often than not.
Brady was about the only one he could predict: people would pass when they should’ve held on, dump when they could’ve carried, hold on when there was a guy wide open.
It was frustrating, and more often than not he felt like he and some of the slower, less experienced players were being snubbed.
And then there was Brady.
Brady, who could outskate all of them, would pass even to the players who would lose the puck right after he sent it to them.
Brady, who would go out of his way to include all the players on the ice.
Brady, who calmly stepped between a newer player and the asshole who started chewing him out for missing a back-door chance and stopped them from actually fighting.
Brady fucking Jensen, leading by example and solidifying his place as Nick’s latest crush.
“Cheers,” Brady said in the locker room and handed him a can of beer. As if to make matters worse, he was wearing nothing but his hockey pants, showing off toned skin and a sinful happy trail.
Nick accepted the can automatically. “Huh?”
“You said I owed you a beer for coming out tonight.” He popped open a second can, pulled from God-knew-where, and tapped it against Nick’s before chugging half of it.
Nick did not watch his Adam’s apple bob as he drank.
“Oh, right.” He carefully sipped his own beer. His head was already rushing, endorphins making him feel buzzed; the last thing he needed was alcohol making it worse.
It was warm and suspiciously devoid of any condensation. He looked at the can of Pbr and couldn’t help but wonder why exactly Brady was late. It couldn’t have been to pick up beer for a joking demand Nick had made.
Right?
“How do you know that guy? Simon? The one who runs this?” Nick blurted out in an attempt to derail his train of thought. Not that it helped to bring up the only person he’d ever heard use Brady’s actual name instead of his hockey ones. Nope, not jealous at all about whatever was going on there.
Brady gave him a bewildered look. “I know him from here… from this pick-up…”
Duh, how else would you know someone? he seemed to say. How do I know you?
“Riiight.” Nick felt like an idiot, inserting a storyline and drama where there was none.
He needed to remember that Brady was as straightforward as he seemed.
He liked hockey, he liked people who liked hockey, and he was nice despite being quiet and kind of a grump.
The rest was Nick projecting. “Sorry, thought there was more of a backstory there.”
Brady polished off the rest of his beer and tossed the can in the trash.
“This pick-up is word-of-mouth only. I stumbled on it by accident when I first moved here, been coming since then. Simon’s got two kids and travels for work, so he only does it like seven weeks in the whole year.
I keep in touch so I don’t miss it. I probably bug the fuck out of him, but this is my favorite pick-up. ”
Yeah, that sounded very Brady.
Oh, you have hockey? I like hockey. I will text you to bug you about hockey to make sure I get more hockey. Hockey hockey hockey.
Disappointment burned through Nick, and he took a long gulp of his beer, then carefully set it down so he could finish getting undressed.
“Well, lemme know the next time he’s doing one.”
“Yeah?” Brady perked up. “You had fun?”
The smile he pasted on was fake even if the sentiments behind the words were genuine. “Not half as scary as I thought.”
“Good. They run some up in Reisterstown…”
He let Brady go on as he ranked every rink in a fifty-mile radius in terms of ice, pick-up opportunities, and locker room quality. It was cute, which was part of the problem. Toward the end, with his hockey gear safely tucked away in his bag, Nick started to block it out.