ELEVEN
Max
I get to morning skate, and Coach tries to keep me off the ice, but I fake being one hundred percent. I’ve pushed away the dizziness and ignored the headaches. I get slammed against plexiglass walls on a nightly basis, land flat on my back, and I’m expected to get up and skate away.
Why is what happened any different?
The ice is the only place that invigorates me. The only place I feel like myself. The version of myself that I know best. The guy I trust the most. The eager, greedy defenseman who crushes hopes and dreams of centers and wingers coming at me with their pucks.
After a trainer looks at me, he approves short rounds of ice time. Just to keep my legs loose. Christ, that sounds dirty in my head. I never realized how so many innocent words to describe the game can be turned around.
A sense of dread washes over me, thinking of Luca and the hell I’ll pay for sneaking out early. Okay, sneaking is an exaggeration. I quietly left my bedroom, packed my cooler bag with Gilda’s high protein shake, a wrapped egg breakfast, and my special electrolyte waters.
The full security staff doesn’t show up for morning skate. To be honest, I have no clue what their rotation is. Only, as Luca pointed out yesterday, they dress in suits during a game, and team jackets for practice. Some post behind our benches, some monitor the corridor near the owner’s boxes, and there’s usually a guy hovering over the penalty box .
Are they short a man now that someone is guarding me? Am I putting my team or owners and their families who watch the games from the boxes at risk?
Lost in thought, I skate right into Troy Madison, my already sore wrist exploding in pain.
“Fuck, Ryan. Watch where you’re going. You okay? Should you even be on the ice today?”
I’m ready to throw down my gloves and ring Madison’s neck for talking to me like that when I realize I’d zoned out before we collided. I’m still skating drills while everyone else is done and stretching on the ice.
Nearing the first break, a whistle blows. I wave off Madison, clearly, he’s not hurt.
The locker room buzz is palpable. We’re looking forward to the game tomorrow and heard one of Cape May’s wingmen got injured last night. We have a whole coaching department who strategizes based on that information, but we’re the ones on the ice, so it’s hard to ignore.
The scent of male sweat warms my chest, as it has my whole damn life, but I don’t dare glance around. It’s been that way since my high school teammate and I started messing around.
That ended badly enough.
Then it got worse.
After Jake broke it off with me, his father called my mother and said I forced myself on him. I felt so alone and betrayed. I waited for days for cops to show up, but they never did. Maybe Jake came around and told the truth.
But the damage was done as far as my parents’ disappointment in me. I tried to explain to my father that I wasn’t interested in girls. He told me I was confused, and chose to deal with my ‘confusion’ another way.
Feeling I had no one to talk to, I broke down and confessed to Coach Avalon about Jake and me. We had an intense one-on-one. He didn’t judge me, but brushed off what happened between us as kids experimenting.
Even back then, I knew what we were doing was more than experimenting.
But I respected Coach A’s advice and tried to move on.
The first rule of sport is Coach is God. You listen to what he says no matter what. My first coach, whose name I don’t even remember, made me skate until I cried from the pain in my ankles.
His words never left me...
Pain is part of sport.
No pain no gain.
Everything I tell you to do is for your own good.
Everything I tell you to do will make you a better player.
The following year, drills included body checking. I went home with bruised ribs and aching hips every damn day.
Trainers taught us how to treat the pain. Ice. Heat. Stretching.
Mostly?
Sucking it up.
Pain builds character and trains your brain to tolerate discomfort. The physical challenges to my body have created a blueprint on my brain, a catalogue of aching limbs and throbbing muscles.
I spent an entire clinic one holiday break from school getting pummeled. That was it. No playing strategies. No skating lessons. Just enduring hits and how to recover.
“Ryan,” one of the athletic trainers calls out to me, knocking me from those memories. “In the treatment room before the break is over. I want to see that wrist.”
These guys watch us like hawks and sometimes catch things we don’t even register. There’s so much happening on the ice. Hits, shoves against the boards, and getting tripped are part of the game.
“Nah, I’m good.” I’ve been playing hockey since the second grade. I know what I need better than anyone.
“Don’t make me talk to Beck and get you benched,” he threatens.
Trainers have license to do it, too. They know most of us are stubborn, proud mules. All while I live with aching worry that the secrets I’m hiding will come out.
I faked not being injured for years. Waited until I was in utter agony and needed a crane to get it up. Having a trainer massage my sore muscles used to terrify me, worried I’ll get hard under any male’s touch. After making it to the big leagues where it’s completely unavoidable, I learned to get through it.
That further confused me, though. Maybe I wasn’t gay?
I strut through the locker room, past my teammates. And damn I feel like I’ve been a terrible captain, focusing on my own problems for a few days.
Coach gave an update to the team yesterday. Said I’d be getting additional security. He didn’t tell the team about Richmond being responsible for my attack, though.
“Ryan will need a bodyguard from me if he doesn’t do his job and keep the puck out of my crease,” a voice from the back snickers.
Jaw tight, I turn in that direction. Kane Plesser, the second relief goalie chides me. He’s new, traded from Atlanta before the deadline. He could have easily said it lower, but he wanted me to hear it.
As the team captain, I can’t haze anyone, but jerks need to be taught a lesson. Only, before I stomp over there and give my wrist a reason to be sore, Damien Carter chuckles darkly .
“They assigned Sheppard to his detail?” Carter snorts. “When will someone beat me up so that hot bodyguard can be up my ass?”
He’s openly gay, but just to us on the team. And apparently, he finds Luca attractive.
A surge of jealousy rages inside me, stopping me in my tracks. I keep thinking Luca hates me. He never smiles. I didn’t help matters, leaving without him this morning. God, will he punish me? And how?
The rest of the team heads back onto the ice for the second half of morning skate exercises. They file past me, and I hold my breath, not wanting to smell anyone.
Carter smirks at me and slaps my shoulder. “Ha ha. Just kidding. He’s all yours.”
I spin around and wait to see shocked eyes glaring at me. Nothing.
Exhaling in relief, I wipe sweat from my face absentmindedly, the banged-up wrist zinging me with a bite of pain.
Carter’s comment about sucking dicks and fucking around is typical locker room talk. If you’re straight, you laugh it off.
If you’re confused...
Fuck, I’m confused. Or worse... I’m still confused. After twenty-plus years and countless hookups with chicks. And guys.
I’ve never been in a relationship. Always used hockey as an excuse. During the season, I have to concentrate. Stay focused. The off-season is for training.
That’s what I’d told all the women who tried to get close to me. It’s what I told myself when I’d watch other guys date, get married, and have families.
Why them and not me?
Maybe I want success more. Maybe I take sport more seriously. The Crushers made me captain for a reason.
“Ryan!” Philly, the trainer says. “Wrist. Now.”
My stick nearby, I grab it and shake my head. “Next break.”
On the ice, I’m fighting to get out of my head, doing drills the offensive coach put together to play against Cape May. They’ve been on fire, the way a team lights up when that magical cohesiveness sets in.
Football players make one pass per play. The quarterback throws the ball once to one guy. Or hands it off to one guy . Hockey players pass the puck hundreds of times to different players over the course of a fifteen-minute period. Sometimes the puck gets passed to every single position, including the goalie.
We watch for dilated pupils, nostrils flaring, shoulders tensing, and body angles to know what another player will do. Without cohesiveness, the puck feels like it’s coated in cooking grease, constantly slipping away.
A shock of dark curly hair that hangs low in the eyes catches my attention. The set of shoulders, strong cheekbones, sexy scruff over a square, cut jaw glues my eyes in that direction.
Luca.
Frowning.
He’s pissed.
Good.
So am I. But for reasons I can’t explain and don’t understand. Mostly all these feelings he’s dredging up inside me. Shit that I’ve worked really hard to stuff down deep and ignore.
Carter likes dick, but I have zero desire to give him mine. So, what is up with these feelings for my bodyguard?
For the life of me, I can’t break eye contact with Luca, sending my co-defender, Miles Hayden, who’s nearly seven fucking feet tall and three hundred pounds, right into me doing ninety.
I go flying and land on my back, the force of the impact knocking the wind right out of me. Luckily, my helmet took the brunt of the impact when my head connected with the ice.
Through one fluttering eye, I watch Hayden skate off.
“Thanks, Miles,” I shout, but I’m ready to snap back up to my feet when shaved ice flies into my mouth.
Who the heck stopped abruptly right by my face causing layers of ice shaving to cover me? That’s a freaking massive violation of team etiquette and trust. Sure, as soon as we all learned to do that as kids, it’s all we did. Coaches made us skate laps till our toes were ready to fall off, though. Snowing was so rude to do to a teammate.
So who...
I shake the powdered ice from my eye sockets and follow the jet-black, matte leather skates under finely pressed trousers and all the way up to that square jaw I couldn’t drag my eyes away from earlier.
Luca.
On skates...