20. Christopher
Iskate into the neutral zone next to Cole, who passes me the puck, but I miss it, and the defenseman steals it from me. I’m so frustrated I slash his stick with mine, and I see the referee”s hand go up in the air. “Motherfucker,” I mumble while I lift his stick and touch the puck with mine, stopping the play.
“Number eight Pittsburgh, minor penalty, slashing,” he says, chopping his right arm.
“Fucking bullshit call, Pete,” I bark when I skate by him.
“Dude, are you okay?” Cole asks when he skates over to me, pushing me to the box and making sure I don’t go after the referee.
“I’m fine,” I huff, going into the box and slamming the door. I remove my helmet and gloves, grabbing the green Gatorade bottle and squeezing it, squirting water into my mouth.
I watch the Jumbotron while they replay the slashing play, and all I can do is shake my head. It’s a horrible, fucking rookie mistake, and I shouldn’t be fucking taking stupid-ass penalties. It takes the team one minute and four seconds to score the goal. I put my helmet back on and my gloves, skating with my head down from the penalty box over to the bench.
“Stone,” my coach says from behind me, “cut that shit out.” He glares at me, and all I can do is nod. I look at the game, trying to hide my disgust that I let my team down. We end up losing five to two, and I barely listen to what the coach says in the locker room. This road trip has been disastrous, to say the very least. Our last game against Nashville was even worse. I got three penalties that game and even dropped the gloves to fight. Now this game, I got two. Anyone who knows me knows that isn’t the way I play. I think I got a total of eight the whole last season. Now I have six in two games. It’s been a long fucking week, to say the least.
I head out to the bus waiting to take us to the plane and head straight home. It’s a three-hour plane ride, so we will get home after one o’clock. The plane ride home is pretty much silent. No one is really talking, as a couple sleep while others watch shit on their phones. I sit with my head against the plane, looking out the window, thinking about this whole week.
How I went from being on top of the fucking world to walking with the biggest chip on my shoulder. I don’t even know what to say. All I know is that I’m fucking miserable. Actually, I’m worse than miserable, but I can’t come up with a word that would make it feel worse. It’s been five fucking days since I last saw or spoke to Koda, and it feels like an eternity. I fucked up in a way that I don’t think I can come back from. There was nothing I wanted more than to take her in the house and kiss the living shit out of her, but I couldn’t cross that line. Benji bought her that house. They made a life for themselves in that house. He kissed her good morning in that house. He kissed her good night in that house. I know it’s probably stupid, but I can’t fucking help it. It’s enough that I have this guilt I’m with her, making it feel like I’m being disrespectful to him. I just couldn’t do it. I just can’t do it. Closing my eyes, all I can see is the hurt on her face, making my chest tight. She was straight-up pissed the fuck off, and she let me know it. She told me to go fuck myself and slammed the door in my face. I got back in my car and pulled away, driving to my house, but I couldn’t even go inside. Instead, I drove back over to her house and sat in my car for about an hour, trying to convince myself to call her or go and knock on the door. Each time I would get the courage, the guilt would creep up and grab me.
In the end, I went home and lay in bed all night long, watching the hours creep by. The next day, I busied myself with working out in my home gym for hours, trying to tire myself out so I could just crash that night. Even though I crashed early, the dreams were all of Koda. Her smiling at me and then her with tears running down her face. The days following weren’t much better, and now I was returning home to an empty house.
We touch down a little after one thirty in the morning, the wind gushing through me hair as I walk from the plane to my parked truck. Tossing the bag onto the seat beside me, I make my way home. Taking the new route I do now, which includes driving past her house, the pressure on my chest makes it really difficult to breathe. My house is dead quiet when I arrive as I make my way from the mudroom off the garage toward my bedroom, not turning on a single light.
I toss my bag in the closet as I strip down, leaving everything in the middle of the floor. I lie on my side, hoping sleep comes to take me, but only when the sun rises do my eyes give in and shut. When I wake up, I turn to the side, seeing it’s past one o’clock in the afternoon.
I grab my phone, and I have over forty missed texts. I blink my eyes a couple of times, opening up the text app and checking to see if any are from her. My stomach sinks yet again when I don’t see her name.
The top of the text thread starts with my uncle Viktor.
Viktor: You want to give me a call?
I sigh when I go to the next one from my father.
Dad: Call me when you get up. And I mean today and not in a week.
“Ugh.” I roll over from my side to my back, feeling like I’m ten again, and my father is going to ream my ass.
The next one is a text chain with my uncles Matthew and Max.
Matthew: What the fuck was that play?
Max: That was a peewee move if I ever saw one.
“Thanks for that,” I say and make the mistake of clicking the cousins group chat.
Michael: The fuck is in your head?
Stone: That was so bad.
Dylan: Like you guys haven’t made dumb plays before. STFU.
Chase: Why am I in this group? I don’t even play hockey.
Stefano: I don’t even watch hockey.
Romeo: There was a game????
Xavier: Can we just not jump down his throat?
Tristan: I can’t leave this chat nor can I comment on anything because I’m married into the family.
Stone: But seriously, what is wrong with you?
Michael: He threw down his gloves. The fuck was that all about? Who does that?
Dylan: He was protecting his player.
Michael: Can someone please kick him out of this group chat?
I laugh at the end of that but don’t reply to any of it. I get up, going to the bathroom, washing my face, and brushing my teeth before heading downstairs to make myself a coffee. I’m taking my first sip of coffee when my phone rings. Looking down, I see it’s my dad.
“Hello,” I answer, putting it on speakerphone as I walk toward the couch.
“Hello, my ass,” he snaps. “I told you to call me when you got up.”
“You didn’t even give me a chance.” I lean back on the couch. “I just woke up.”
“It’s the afternoon.”
“Yeah, I had trouble falling asleep,” I admit.
“I bet you did after those last two games.” He stops talking, and I don’t have anything to add, so he continues. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Dropping your gloves, what are you… five?”
“Wilson drops his gloves every fifth game,” I point out about my cousin Franny’s husband, Wilson.
“He’s not my kid,” he hisses. “What the hell is going on with you? You have never been that type of player.”
A heavy sigh comes out of my mouth. “I don’t know, Dad,” I say softly. “I mean, I know, but I?—”
“What is going on?” His tone changes. “Do you need me to come out there?”
“Yes,” I reply but then quickly change my mind. “No. Fuck, I don’t know, Dad.” My throat feels like it’s closing in on me, and I can’t breathe. I sit back up, putting my coffee down on the table in front of me. “Dad, I don’t know what to do.”
“Whatever it is, we can get through it.” The worry in his voice makes me feel even worse. “Just talk to me.”
I put my phone down on the table so I can rub my face with both my hands. “I don’t know how to say this.”
“Christopher.” His tone is tight. “Whatever the fuck it is, we are here for you.”
“I don’t know about that.” The thought that he is going to be disgusted with me is almost too much to bear, but I also know if I don’t tell him something, his ass will be on a plane within the hour, and then he’ll be in my face, making me tell him.
“Wow,” he says. “After all this, you think I don’t have your back?” His voice is almost broken. “You don’t think we have your back?”
“It’s not about having my back, Dad. It’s about the fact you might be disappointed in me.”
“Never,” he quickly adds, “I could never.”
“Never say never.” I try to laugh, but it comes out pitiful.
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath in and then slowly let it out when I say the words, “I think I’m falling for Koda.” My eyes close when I say those words, waiting for his reaction.
“You think you are falling for her, or you already fell for her?” Fuck, I should have known he would see right through that.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve one thousand percent fallen for her,” I confess to him. “It’s so fucked up, I know. She’s Benji’s wife.”
“She’s not anyone’s wife,” he points out. “He’s not here.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, but I also need you to see what I mean.” He doesn’t give me a chance. “If Benji was still here and he was married to her, would you be falling for her?”
“Probably not,” I say, shaking my head. “I would never cross that line. She’s a beautiful woman with a heart of gold, and I’ve always thought that, but I also knew she was off-limits.”
“Exactly.”
“But…” I sigh.
“But nothing.” His voice is soft again. “You don’t get to choose who you love”—I close my eyes—“or who you fall for. Look at your mom. I knew without a doubt I should have stayed away from her, but I also knew that it would have killed me to do that. I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was no way I would ever love someone the way I love her.” He trails off. “But, son, it’s not just her you have to think about.”
“I love those girls like they were my own. That is for damn sure.”
“Okay, so I don’t know what the hang-up is.”
“Dad, he died seven months ago.”
“Is there a rule book that says when it’s a right time to fall for someone?” He laughs at his own joke while I roll my eyes. “If this happened two years from now, would that be better?”
“Yes,” I reply, but then I think about her maybe falling for someone else in those two years, and I feel like I’m going to be physically sick. “No. I don’t know.”
“What does she have to say about all of this? Surely, this isn’t coming out of the blue.”
“I might have fucked up.”
“You might have?” He laughs. “Well, now I know why you sucked so bad on the ice. What happened?” he asks. I leave out the whole going down on her in public because he’s still my dad, and it’s awkward, but I definitely tell him about not going into the house.
“Shit,” he says. “I mean, I get it. I don’t think I would have been able to do that, but did you talk to her before that?”
“Dad, I just admitted to you for the first time that I’m falling for her. You think I’ve admitted it to her? What if she thinks I’m a creep?”
“If she thought you were a creep, she wouldn’t stick her tongue down your throat.” I groan. “You need to put your big-boy pants on and have a conversation with her. She needs to know what you are comfortable with, just like you need to know what she’s comfortable with. Nothing will be solved if you run away from her.”
“I’m not running away. I was away for work.”
“Did you call or text her?”
“I was giving her space.”
“You were being a scared punk-ass bitch.” He doesn’t skip one single beat. “And then you took it onto the ice and let your team down.”
“This pep talk is amazing, Dad. We should really do this more.”
“Just keeping it real, son.” He laughs. “Now I’m going to let you go so you can call her and talk to her. I’m also coming down there this weekend.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’ll give you until next weekend, and then I’m coming down.”
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’m going to let you go.”
“Talk to her and not in a punk-ass-bitch way. In a way that is actually communicating.”
“Again, Dad, you really should do motivational speaking.” I chuckle. “Love you,” I say, hanging up. Then I take a big breath before pulling up her number and calling her.
I don’t even know if she’s going to answer me or not. I look down at the phone, willing her to pick up and then making a plan for going over to her house. I’m almost going to hang up when the phone connects. “Hello,” she breathes heavily, as if she ran to the phone.
“Hey,” I say softly, my heart feels like it’s beating normal for the first time this week, “it’s me.”
“Hey.” Her voice stays neutral.
“I was wondering if I could come over and we could talk.” I look down at the phone, wishing I would have FaceTimed her so I could have seen her face.
I wait for what feels like an eternity, waiting for her to tell me to go fuck myself, but instead, her words shock me. “We’re gone.”