Chapter 14
Louis
Tanner doesn’t just react; he anticipates. He pushes off his post to cut down on the angle, but instead of dropping into the butterfly too early, his bad habit when he panics, he stays tall and keeps his glove hand high.
The puck snaps into his leather webbing so loudly I can almost hear it through the TV. Thwack.
“Fuck, yeah!” I yell, scaring the shit out of Cookie. “He kept the hand up!”
Last night with Tanner was amazing, but because we’re both weirdos, I think we both enjoyed the hockey talk that came after the sex nearly as much as the sex itself. Man, goalies really are weird.
Cookie puffs out his beard, shooting me a glare that seems to say keep it down, cowboy, or I’m gonna poop on your shirt, but I ignore him. I grab my notebook sitting on the coffee table to jot down the timestamp so we can go over it later. 18:42, 3rd. Glove discipline.
The horn goes a minute later, locking down the win.
On-screen, Rylan is the first one to the net, tapping Tanner’s helmet.
He’s followed quickly by the other guys, surrounding our rookie goalie on stealing those two critical points from a top-tier team.
Tanner, of course, is doing that thing he does, nodding seriously, not showing much emotion, but inside, he must be screaming for joy.
The feed cuts to the commentators, so I hit the mute button. Silence crashes into the condo instantly.
A week ago, I would have been there, smelling the sweat and the ice and the rush of adrenaline in my chest. Now, I’m just a guy in a sling, watching TV in an empty apartment with a very judgy lizard.
The pride I had when Tanner made that save is still warm in my chest, but it’s mixed up with an ache that has nothing to do with my stitches.
I miss hockey. Fuck, I miss it so much I can barely breathe.
But looking at the silent TV, where Tanner’s drinking from his water bottle as he skates off the ice, I realize the truth is even scarier: I miss him.
I reach for my phone. My thumb hovers over the text app. Great game feels weak. Proud of you feels weirdly parental.
18:42 in the 3rd. You stayed tall. Kept the glove up. Textbook.
I stare at the screen, waiting. The guys are probably still celebrating. Coach is probably giving his speech. He won’t see this for twenty minutes.
But three dots appear, and my heart does a stupid flip. He checked his phone before he even took his skates off.
Tanner: Could hear your voice in my head telling me not to drop early.
I smile.
Good. Keep listening to those voices. As long as they’re mine.
Tanner: Always. Wish you were here to break down the rest of it.
I stare at those four words. Wish you were here.
The text blurs for a second. I toss the phone onto the cushion beside me, the screen going dark. My condo suddenly feels colder than it did a couple of minutes ago.
“Me too,” I whisper to the empty room.
Cookie climbs up my shirt, his claws pricking through the cotton, and stares me dead in the eye.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, scratching him under the chin. “I know. I think I’m fucked.”
He lets out a long, reptilian sigh and closes his eyes.
Looking out the window of the video room, you’d think the sky is trying to drown the entire Pacific Northwest out of spite. It’s February in Seattle, which means fifty shades of gray, none of them sexy, and enough rain to make me seriously consider building an ark.
I shift in the expensive, ergonomic chair that manages to feel like a torture device. The ice pack strapped to my left chest and shoulder is doing its job, numbing the deep, rhythmic throbbing that’s become my constant companion since surgery, but the cold is starting to seep into my bones.
PT. Ice. Video. Repeat.
My life used to be full of adrenaline spikes and screaming fans. Now, it’s measuring range of motion in millimeters and watching my teammates fight for their lives on a screen while I sit in the dark.
We just dragged ourselves back from a very mediocre four-game road trip with two wins and two losses.
We’re clinging to the second wild card playoff berth like a cat hanging off a curtain.
Our claws are dug in, but gravity is a real bitch, constantly pulling us down.
This is always one of the toughest parts of the season, leading up to the All-Star break.
Everyone’s exhausted, the weather is shit, so traveling is stressful as fuck, the holidays are a distant memory, and while every single point matters, we’re not close enough to the playoffs that we can run on adrenaline yet. Every day is a grind.
Tanner walks through the door, looking more than tired; the poor guy looks eroded.
He’s wearing the same Sasquatch hoodie he’s worn every day this week, and his blond hair is longer than usual and sticking out like he’s been running his hands through it.
His normally bright blue eyes are a little duller than I’d like them, with smudgy dark circles underneath.
It isn’t physical. I know Tanner’s conditioning; the guy’s a machine. This is mental exhaustion. He’s carrying the weight of the team, the expectations of the city, and his own perfectionism on shoulders that are slumping a little.
“Hey,” he says, his voice gravelly as he drops into the chair beside me.
“Don’t you look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today,” I tease, adjusting my sling.
Tanner snorts. He smells like the locker room shower gel and that familiar chemically treated ice scent that never really gets out of your pores. “I feel like I got hit by a Zamboni driven by a blind guy.”
I chuckle as I pull up the video of last night’s game against the Kodiak. We lost 4-3 in overtime, but everyone played well, including Tanner. But there are always things to be learned for the next game.
I start to pull up a sequence from the second period, but he stops me.
“Wait, can we start with the OT winner?” Tanner asks.
“Sure.” I push my laptop toward him, and he pulls up the camera shot he wants. It appears on the wall-mounted video screen in front of us.
Three-on-three overtime is pure chaos designed to drive goalies to the brink of insanity. I watch as Kodiak enters the zone, Tanner moving smoothly between the posts. He’s sharp, tracking the puck well. Then the shot comes from the high slot, beating him on his blocker side.
Tanner watches, his jaw tight. Then he rewinds it and watches again.
“I’m too deep,” he mutters, sounding like he’s diagnosing a terminal illness. “I lost the angle. If I’m six inches further out, that shot hits my shoulder.”
He goes to rewind it again, but I reach out with my good hand and cover his.
“Stop.”
He freezes, looking at my hand, then up to my face. His blue eyes are stormy with his frantic need to fix this.
“Play it again, but slow it down,” I say.
He does it, frowning. The play unfolds in agonizing slow motion. The drop pass. The wind-up.
“Freeze it,” I command. “Right there.”
The video stops right as the puck leaves the shooter’s stick.
“What do you see?” I ask.
“I see me being too deep in my crease,” he says, his words clipped with frustration.
“Look at Miller,” I say, pointing to our defenseman. “His left skate.”
Tanner leans forward, squinting.
“He turns his blade,” I explain, tracing the line on the screen with the mouse.
“Just as the shot releases. He’s trying to block it, but he actually screens you.
For a split second, you lose visual contact with the puck because Miller’s skate flashes across your sightline.
You weren’t too deep, Sinc. You reacted a half second late because your brain had to fill in the gap where the visual data went missing. ”
Tanner stares at the screen. He clicks forward one frame, then back. Forward. Back.
His shoulders drop away from his ears as he lets go of some tension.
“Shit,” he whispers. “I didn’t see it.”
“You couldn’t. Miller drifted into the lane for a fraction of a second.” I lean back, my chair creaking. “You didn’t fuck it up, Tanner. You weren’t too deep. It was because of physics.”
He lets out a long breath, rubbing his face with both hands. “Technically, everything is because of physics, Lou.”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
A warmth spreads through my chest. Even stuck here with a busted wing, I’m not useless. I see the game. I see Tanner. And sometimes, I can make him see himself the way I see him. I like this version of me: the guy who has the answers when Tanner’s brain is starting to spiral.
The room falls quiet, the only sounds are the hum of the computer and the relentless tap-tap-tap of rain on the window. It’s weirdly intimate, but it’s got nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being understood.
Tanner slumps back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.
“My brain feels like it’s going to melt,” he admits quietly. “I just want to turn it off for five minutes. Not think about points, or angles, or the standings.”
“All-Star break is in a week. I think we all need it.”
“Not soon enough,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.
I reach out with my right hand, needing to touch him. The nape of his neck is warm, and I massage gently. He lets out a soft groan, melting back into my touch.
“Fuck, that feels good,” he whispers.
I squeeze gently, trying to ground him. I’m here. I’ve got you.
We stay like that for a long moment, the silence wrapping around us like a blanket. It’s dangerous, doing this where anyone could walk in. But right now, with the rain sealing us in, the rest of the world feels far away.
Tanner leans into me for one more second and then straightens up, his mask sliding into place. He’s back to being the stoic, serious rookie goaltender.
He stands, grabbing his water bottle. “I’m going home to sleep for about twelve hours.”
“Do it,” I say, letting my hand fall back to my lap.
One corner of his mouth ticks up, and that tiny smile feels like a major victory. “See you tomorrow, Lou.”
“Night, Sinc.”