Andrew
“I’m good, dude,” he says, “just took me a minute to remember where I was. ”
Roscoe sniffs him one more time, and then jumps off the bed, satisfied with his assessment.
He unplugs his phone from where it’s charging and sits up, stretching his arms over his head and listening to his shoulders pop. He had torn his rotator cuff three years into his career, and it still bothered him some days.
It had also left him with a nice scar along the front of his shoulder, the first of many. Especially since they hadn’t perfected the art of arthroscopic surgery at that point, so his whole shoulder had to be sliced open and explored.
His rotator-cuff was also one of his well-known flaws people chose to lean into when he had lost his team the Stanley Cup. Even though it had been the better part of a decade since it had happened, and he had been well past the point of recovery.
Reporters at ESPN and all of those podcast hosts would cling to anything. Anything that would give them a reason, but there wasn’t a reason for this. Bad luck happened to everyone.
It just happened to be Andrew’s turn .
At least that’s what his therapist told him two days after the game when he had called an emergency session to try to get his head back on straight. She had listened to him pour his soul out, let him process what he could, and then sat back in her chair with a thoughtful ‘hmm’, which he hated.
Bad luck happened to everyone, she had said. What mattered was if he chose to rise from the ashes or fall victim to the flames.
He tugs his t-shirt over his head, careful of his just-healed tattoo on his left collar bone, and checks the time. Noon. He’d slept a full seven hours, which was more than he’d gotten in a month. Funny what driving thirteen hours will do to a person.
Catalina: wtf, dude?
Andrew: not you, too
Catalina: is there a reason you didn’t tell me you got egged at PNC yesterday? I had to hear about it from Petrov.
Catalina: and you know he gets in trouble for texting me
Andrew: I was driving
Catalina: for thirteen hours ?
Andrew: I’m at JT’s. Don’t know when I’ll be back
Catalina: shit
Andrew: don’t tell anyone
Catalina: I keep secrets, dick
Andrew: like those secret feelings you have for Mikhail?
Catalina: I hope you fall off a mountain.
Andrew: you and everyone else in North Carolina
Catalina: ouch
After brushing his teeth, he heads up the stairs to the kitchen.
He’s only been to JT’s house once since he’d built it, but it’s familiar.
Ainsley is standing at the kitchen counter, buttering a slice of toast. A podcast that Andrew recognizes as Pucks Away is playing at full volume from the TV in their living room.
JT is sipping a cup of coffee, looking at the newspaper like he’s geriatric instead of in his early thirties .
“Heading south of the Mason-Dixon, now,” the main host, Brad, says “Carolina captain Andrew Fisher was egged leaving PNC Arena yesterday after the final team meeting before the off-season.”
Five things you can see. Four you can touch. Three you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste.
“You know,” his co-host, Chad, says, “normally Carolina fans are pretty chill, even if their team is losing. But this was a big one, so I think they have a right to be mad.”
“Yeah, but egging someone?” Brad says. “That’s a little extreme. He could have gotten seriously injured, and shots going wide happen to the best of them. Remember when it happened to Crosby?”
JT’s eyes cut to Ainsley, who turns to him, eyes wide. Neither of them has noticed Andrew standing there, yet.
“Yeah, but it didn’t happen to Crosby in the Stanley Cup Finals, Brad,” Chad says. “You can’t play at that level, on a breakaway no less, and have a shot go wide when the net is practically wide open. ”
“Makes you wonder if you’ll see a trade,” Brad says. “The window has been wide open since March, and there’s been a lot of moving and shaking.”
“I don’t know what they would have to gain by keeping him,” Chad says, “he’s a great defenseman, sure, but there’s a hundred of those on farm teams across the country waiting for a shot.”
Andrew swallows hard.
“Can you shut that off, please?” he asks. JT’’s head snaps in his direction and he reaches for the remote. “I came here to get away from that stuff, not hear it again.”
“Sorry, Andy,” JT says, pressing pause. “I didn’t expect them to cover it today.”
“It’s all they’re going to be talking about until the trading window closes,” Andrew says, sitting down at the counter. “That’s what coach says, anyway. It’s the only thing I’ve been hearing for almost a month.”
“That bad, huh?”
“They started talking about it about an hour after I missed the shot,” Andrew says as Ainsley sets a mug of coffee and a plate of toast in front of him. “Thanks Ainsley. ”
“So, how did you miss? That’s not like you.” Jamie asks, letting his fingers trail across Ainsley’s back as she walks by him. “You’re one of the best scoring defensemen in the league.”
“I don’t know,” Andrew says, scrubbing a hand over his face, “even if I did I couldn’t tell you. I shouldn’t have missed it. You watched the game. The net was practically wide open. It just… didn’t happen.”
“Team take it hard?” JT asks.
“Not as hard as the fans did,” Andrew nods towards the TV. “Clearly. Egging me isn’t even the worst of it. They’ve been hanging effigies of me out of apartments downtown for two weeks. They set one on fire at my front gate.”
“Are you serious?”
“Why would I lie about something like that?” Andrew says. “Landry says I’m staying with the team, though. He told me at the meeting yesterday he has no plans to trade me.”
“I don’t know why he would,” JT says, “you’ve been wearing red and black so long you would look wrong in any other color.”
“I’m glad you’re not getting traded, but can we rewind to the effigy thing for a second?” Ainsley asks .
“What about it?” Andrew asks taking a sip of coffee.
Ainsley looks at him, eyes full of concern. “Are you okay?”
“Does driving thirteen hours in the middle of the night so that I can feel safe say ‘ okay ’ to you?” Andrew asks with a snort. He takes a sip of coffee. “I’m not okay. Not even close. But, I’m here and trying.”
Sokka chases Roscoe through the living room and up their stairs before running back downstairs with a bark.
“Fans have all but said they want me dead, so if me disappearing is what everyone wants, I might as well give it to them for a while.” He stands up, coffee in hand. “If you need me, I’ll be downstairs, wallowing in self-pity.”
He pushes off the counter, grabbing his plate of toast and taking another sip of coffee, ignoring the glance that JT and Ainsley exchange.
“Feel free to help yourself to anything that’s in the fridge,” Ainsley says, “if you come up and we aren’t here. We have a funeral in a couple of hours that we have to get ready for. ”
“I’m sorry,” Andrew says, eyes moving between the two of them. “Who was it?”
“Someone we went to school with,” JT says, “and her husband.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” JT replies. “They had a daughter. She’s five.”
“Well don’t I feel like the world’s biggest ass,” Andrew says. “Are you guys okay?”
“I’m more worried about Danielle,” JT says, Ainsley scoffs from the counter. “Relax, hot shot. Emerson was her best friend, you’re worried about her, too.”
“Worried isn’t the word,” Ainsley says, biting into a slice of toast. She’s layered it with eggs and bacon and Andrew’s stomach rumbles. He looks down at his own plate, wondering if he can take a bite without having to free one of his hands to do it.
He’s already stood up, sitting back down two minutes later would just be embarrassing.
“Alright, but you do care.”
“Yeah, I care,” Ainsley says, heavily.
“See? Progress.” JT says, offering her a smile .
“I’m worried about what’s going to happen to their daughter.” Ainsley says, sighing heavily. “She’s such a sweetheart, I’d hate for her to leave Lake Placid.”
“I doubt that’ll happen,” JT says, “but I guess we’ll find out.”
“Is someone going to try to take her away?” Andrew asks, unsure why he cares about a woman and child he’s never met before. It’s not like it matters in the grand scheme of the dumpster fire that is his life.
“Emerson and Jack’s parents aren’t really… around.” JT answers. “No one knows who’s going to get custody of her. Emerson has a brother who would probably be the logical choice, but the town has been in a tizzy because of it.”
“Why is it such a big deal?”
“If you knew this little girl, you’d understand,” Ainsley says.
“Jack and Emerson were really big influences around here. I’ve only been back for two years, and I knew it.
If Harper wanted, she could run for City Council and win, and she’s only six.
Everyone loves her, and everyone knows her.
If she leaves Lake Placid, I don’t know what people will do. ”
“Fall into depression, probably,” JT says with a shrug. “I’m going to go get changed. Andy, I’ll see you when we get back? We can go to the rink and shoot around if you want?”
“Landry said he would personally end my career if he heard I was skating,” Andy says, shaking his head. “And to be honest, I don’t know if I’m ready to get back on ice, yet.”
“That’s a pretty Landry thing to say,” JT says, rolling his eyes. “How about a tour of Lake Placid instead?”
“Yeah, sure,” Andrew says with a nod. “You know where to find me.”
“In the basement,” JT says in a terrible British accent, “making no noise and pretending you don’t exist.”
“There’s only so many places you can go in this house,” Ainsley says with a smile. “If you need a map, I can draw you one.”
“This is nothing compared to his place,” Jamie says, nodding his head in Andrew’s direction. “He’s got seven bathrooms.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“I swear on my life. ”
“It’s not seven,” Andrew says, huffing and shifting his coffee so it’s balanced on his plate of toast. “It’s four full bathrooms and three half baths.”
“Pretty sure four plus three is seven, jackass,” JT says, but there’s no malice in it.
“Not in real estate,” Andrew replies, “It’s four point three bathrooms.”
“If you have seven toilets, you have seven bathrooms,” JT says, rolling his eyes. Andrew cuffs him on the back of the head as he walks by. “You’re just mad because I’m right!”
Andrew spends the rest of the day with Roscoe and Sokka, playing fetch in the basement and contemplating every single decision he’d made that brought him to this point.