Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
NATHAN
The stadium lights are off, but the lights over the rink cast a warm blue tone over the ice. Bobby’s made his run with the Zamboni already because there’s not a single crack in the surface.
I inhale the faint, mineral smell of the rink mixed with the machine oil lingering from the Zamboni.
I’ve associated this particular smell with ‘home’ since the first time I traded my sneakers for skates and learned how to wield a hockey stick.
Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to Riley’s fragrance. Because of the engine oil she often works with, I can sense a little of home when I hold her.
Max is standing in the benches, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on the ice in a reverent sort of contemplation.
“Max, hey.” I lift a hand.
He raises one of his enormous paws in return.
Max looks like someone who had a growth spurt in childhood and then he never stopped growing.
“Sorry for calling you while you were celebrating,” Max says. “My schedule’s so busy that I don’t think I could have fit in this conversation any other time.”
“You’re a team manager doing team manager things. I get it.”
“Yeah.” Max clears his throat.
In the silence that follows, I become more aware of the dull ache in my leg. It’s like a warning bell, harkening that the pain is about to get worse soon. It’s only a matter of time before my pills wear off, and I don’t want to be anywhere near Max when that happens.
“You used to play in college, right?” I try to jog the conversation.
It’s a rumor that I heard somewhere, but I’m certain it’s true. The way Max is looking at the rink reminds me of the way my grandfather would stare lovingly at my grandmother’s picture before jumping into a story of how they met.
“I played with Chance. We were roommates. Always talked about getting drafted together. But then I hurt my shoulder.” Max rotates his arm. “And that was it. In one day, my dreams were gone. I couldn’t play hockey anymore no matter how much I wanted to.”
His words are like a cold bucket of ice washing over me.
It’s too close.
Too real.
“I fought it.” Max shakes his head and chuckles faintly. “I fought it hard, man. I wanted to get back to hockey. Wanted to get back to the game. But my body wasn’t listening. It couldn’t do it anymore. I was mad. Pretty much torpedoed my life trying to get back at…”
He inhales. “I don’t know who. I was just lashing out at anything.
It was unfair. Other people were squandering their opportunities to play.
And there I was, willing to do anything.
I would have done anything. I just wanted a chance.
When that option was taken away, I didn’t feel like I had anything to live for. ”
I stare soberly at the ice, his words knocking into my chest like a fist.
I lived that. Had those very thoughts when I was lying on my back in the hospital room, in the dark, in the quiet, wondering if I was being stupid. If my parents were right. If the doctors were right. If it was better to just give up. Admit defeat.
And yet, I couldn’t.
I needed hockey like I needed air.
“I thought I’d dealt with all that,” Max motions to his head, “drama. I thought owning a hockey team would make me forget. I figured I couldn’t play anymore, but I could take a team of gifted, talented, hardworking players to the top.
” Max looks at me. “I was excited to have you in the training camp.”
“You were?” That’s news to me. Every time I got into Max’s orbit, he treated me like a bug he wanted to flick off his windshield.
Max’s eyebrows jump when he sees my disbelief. “Nathan Campbell, star rookie. Chance McLanely’s league stand-in? Are you kidding?”
“I got the vibe that you could barely look at me.”
Max clears his throat. “You were perfect on paper, Campbell. But when I saw you hit the ice, there was a part of me that…” He shrugs.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t take it. I kept comparing myself to you, wondering if that would have been me if only I hadn’t given up.
Maybe if I’d pushed back at the doctors and insisted on training, I could have found a way to stay in the game. ”
“I wouldn’t recommend disagreeing with a team of doctors,” I admit. “It was extremely painful. Almost impossible. They knew what they were talking about. Believe me. I suffered a lot and failed for a long time before I saw any progress.”
“But now you’re here,” Max says.
I bob my head, grateful. “Now, I’m here.”
The ache in my leg throbs like a heartbeat.
‘For how much longer?’ the ache hisses like a snake.
I shake my head to quiet that voice. “I’m happy to be here, Max.
I love playing hockey and, it’s been my dream to play with Chance McLanely.
I’ve got a lot of respect for what he does on the ice.
” I stretch a hand out to Max. “And now, after this conversation, I have a lot of respect for what you do off the ice.”
“I appreciate that.” Max shakes my hand. “But I can’t take all the credit for this talk. May tore into me for the way I treated you at Chance and April’s engagement party.”
“May is…”
“April’s sister,” Max reminds me. “Short, bubbly, smile that could light up a room.”
I hear the yearning in his tone. “Are you two…”
“No. Nah. Never. I’m much older than her.”
I smile. “I’m older than Riley too. By six years.”
“I’ve got double that. Trust me. It’s not a thing.” Max blinks. “Speaking of twelve years, I heard Riley was into you since she was twelve or something?”
He’s trying to change the subject, so I don’t push it. “Me and Riles? We weren’t thinking about each other like that as kids. For obvious reasons.”
“You sure? There was a video in the nursing home group chat talking about it.”
“What video? And what group chat?”
“Want me to add you? You’ll have to mute the notifications though. They’re constant.”
I shake my head. “If you’re talking about Layla’s video, then I can verify that it’s all lies. Riley’s my best friend’s little sister, so of course she was always with us. When we met again as adults, she was doing her best to avoid me in Lucky Falls.”
I laugh at the memories of her diving into her passenger seat and ducking behind people in the crowd at the fair to keep from being seen.
“Trust me. I had to work to get her to go on a date with me. She just started seeing me as more than a brother.”
“That’s not what the clip says.”
“Send it to me,” I tell Max. “I want to know what lies are being spread about us.”
My phone beeps as Max sends the link.
I nod my thanks.
With the air cleared, we make our way to the exits.
Max slaps my shoulder. “Are you ready for the pre-qualifiers? The first game is in a few days.”
We talk strategy and Max promises to send me some video links of the opposing team’s best plays.
In the parking lot, we separate to our own cars and I pull out my phone to text Riley that I’m coming. Just as I tap on my messages, I see Max’s link and get curious.
What nonsense has Layla been saying?
If I was the only target, I’d ignore her and move on with my life. But she’s throwing mud on Riley. Will I have to hire a lawyer and sue for defamation?
I click on the link and a video fills my screen.
The camera quality sucks, but that’s probably because the creator zoomed in quite a lot on someone being escorted out of a hospital corridor. The caption reads ‘Nathan Campbell Is Dating His Stalker Fan-Girl’.
At first, I toss my phone, certain that I can file Layla’s ridiculous evidence along with all the other fuzzy, low-resolution snapshots of the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot. Riley wasn’t there at all during the time I was fighting for my life in the hospital.
However, something prompts me to pick up the phone again.
I re-start the video and notice that the dark blur that’s being escorted out by security does bear a certain resemblance to Riley.
To verify, I call Chris.
“Hey, man.” Chris’s voice sounds lethargic. “When you make it back to the league and get all those brand deals, you have to buy a private jet. I’m not kidding.”
I speak urgently, “Chris, was Riley at the hospital after my accident?”
“Huh?”
“Was Riley there?” I spit. “Was she there to see me?”
“I don’t remember. Probably, yeah.”
My heart pounds wildly. “What do you mean ‘probably’?”
“Given how she’s always felt about you, I can see her doing that. She called everyday asking for updates. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that she took time off work around that time too because…”
“Chris,” I blurt, “how long has Riley had a crush on me?”
My best friend goes silent.
Something clicks in my head. The hospital visit. The playlist. How else has Riley been quietly showing her feelings through the years?
“The journal,” I whisper.
Chris laughs guiltily. “Journal? What journal?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Chris. The poems we found that day. The one you said was about that other guy on our team. It wasn’t about him, was it?”
Chris hems and haws. “Well, I…”
“Riley wrote those poems about me.”
“I neither confirm nor deny that.”
Shock locks me in place. My mind wanders back to the past, picking apart the memories I have with Riley that seemed platonic and regular at the time.
“I was totally oblivious,” I breathe out.
Chris sighs heavily. “Let the record show that I did my big brother duties and didn’t say a word.”
I start the car, my pulse jackhammering under my skin. “I need to see Riley.”