Chapter 5
AVERY
Getting into the groove of training camp and now preseason practice helped me get my head together. I was still a mess, still reminded of Leif at every turn, but I had something to focus on. Little but little, that shook me out of my funk, at least when I had my skates on.
Hockey was a mixed blessing like that. It was a constant reminder of the man I was missing, but it was also a balm to my soul.
It was a lightning rod for my concentration and all my messy emotions, and gelling with my old and new teammates felt like moving toward normal.
Not back to normal by any means, but moving in that direction.
Whenever I was off the ice, I was a mess, so any time I wasn’t helping Rachel with something, I was a full-on rink rat. Here as much as I could, lingering after practice for as long as they’d let me.
Today, practice had ended, and I’d been lazily skating and chasing pucks, looking for some reason to stay longer.
My excuse came from an unexpected place:
“So.” Peyton—we were on a first name basis now—bounced a puck on the blade of his outstretched stick. “You in a hurry to go? Or do you want to practice faceoffs?”
I was at the bench for a swig of water, and I paused to consider the question.
Practicing faceoffs with the man I was supposed to have a crush on—Hello, libido? Anybody home?—sounded more enjoyable than what I’d do as soon as I got home. A lot healthier too. And I was down for any excuse to keep my skates under me for as long as possible.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
In my past life, the way he smiled would’ve made me miss an edge and land on my ass. Today, there was an unexpected zip of… something. Like the faintest ghost of a thrill. Not excitement, but the promise that I still had the capacity for excitement, I supposed?
Either way, I didn’t argue with it. I returned the smile, ready to suggest we get Davis to join us, but… was I imagining that blush? The way his gaze darted away from mine?
Yes. Yes, I absolutely was. Because he was my teammate, and my sanity was a distant memory.
Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Should I get Davis? Might not be a bad idea to have a few of us.”
Peyton looked around the rink at our remaining teammates. “Yeah, why not?” Then he frowned. “I think Coach LeBon is busy, though.”
He was right—our offensive coach was busy doing some work with some of the guys from the bottom six. Fortunately, we had other options.
“Actually,” I said, “Jayson coaches faceoffs too.”
“Oh, does he?”
I nodded. “I’ll grab him if you can get Davis and some of the other guys.”
Jayson, our skills coach, was in the locker room, but he hadn’t taken off his skates yet and he wasn’t in a hurry. Though faceoffs were usually the domain of the offensive coach, Jayson had been amazing at them during his playing career, and he was a really good coach.
When Jayson and I returned to the ice, Peyton had wrangled Davis, Baddy, and Willie, and we all gathered around one of the faceoff dots.
“Calds, Hall.” Jayson gestured at the dot. “You’re up first.”
Great. So I had to go up against one of the best in the League at faceoffs? Eh, it would be good for me. Humbling, if nothing else.
And yet another very welcome distraction from the world that existed outside this rink.
As I positioned myself, I flicked my eyes up, and I forgot all about the puck, faceoffs, hockey.
Looking at those piercing blue eyes in an interview or across the ice was one thing. Up close like this? Holy hell.
Movement in my peripheral vision reminded me a second too late what we were doing, and by the time I went after the falling puck, Peyton had already won the faceoff.
“Goddammit,” I laughed. “See? You’re way faster than me!”
Jayson huffed. “Well, for starters, you need to watch the puck. Not your opponent.”
My face was instantly on fire, and I refused to read anything into the way Peyton ducked his head and bit his lip as he skated a circle.
“Right,” I said. “Watch the puck. Got it.”
“You sure?” Jayson deadpanned.
“Fuck you.”
He snorted.
Peyton and I both skated back to the dot. I focused on the puck Jayson was holding.
Despite my best efforts, though, I glanced at Peyton again, and we both immediately burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” I said through my laughter. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why that—I’m sorry.”
Peyton just let his head fall forward and shook it.
Jayson rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve never heard of anyone getting kicked out of a faceoff for giggling, but there’s a first time for everything.”
That didn’t help at all.
Ironically, that got us both kicked out of the circle, and we got out of the way so Willie and Davis could set up. They started snickering, too, and the exasperated sigh from our skills coach had all of us laughing.
Maybe we were just slaphappy and tired. That happened sometimes during the preseason when we were all still getting back in the swing of regular practices. And at least some of us were a little extra tired lately because—
Because nothing about this preseason had been normal.
That thought sobered me, but I tried to shake it off.
No, it wasn’t normal, but it could be. We could get there. Life went on, and that included hockey.
While Jayson gave Willie and Davis some pointers on their faceoff, I chanced a look at Peyton.
He was looking right at me, and his eyebrows rose. The corner of his mouth did too, pulling his lips into an uneasy smile.
I couldn’t help the quiet laugh that escaped, and it seemed to relax him, too. Hell, maybe that was what I needed today. What we all needed.
By the time we all headed back to the locker room, I hadn’t improved my faceoff much, but my mood was a little lighter than it had been recently.
On the way to the showers, I wasn’t sure how I felt about my interactions with Peyton during that impromptu practice session.
We got along well—we’d been linemates since the start of training camp, and we worked great together.
But working on faceoffs with him—being right in each other’s faces like that—had sparked some feelings I’d thought were dead and gone.
Those eyes had teased the edges of that dormant crush. His smile—his flirty smile?—had made something in me try to crackle to life.
And no, getting overcome by a fit of giggles might not have been the most professional thing in the world or the best example to set for the rookies, but… fuck it. It felt good. Better than anything had in a while.
I was still a long way from anything normal. Still miles from the person who could say he was moving past his grief.
But after laughing and joking my way through faceoff practice…
I was less numb than I’d been in weeks.
I ran my fingertips over the C on the jersey hanging in my dressing room stall. Somehow it messed with my head more than the memorial patch with Leif’s number on it. The blue and white 61 above the right breast carried the weight of the whole team’s grief, but that gold C was even heavier.
Leif had always said that if he ever left Pittsburgh, he’d tell anyone who’d listen that I should be the captain after him.
I’d laughed it off, figuring we had years before it would be an issue.
He’d been signed to a seven-year deal with a no-move clause, and he’d expected to sign another one after that.
Everyone—including Leif—had expected him to be captain of this team until he retired.
“Oh, you’re so generous,” I’d snarked after he’d said I’d wear the C eventually. “I’ll get, what? One season of being a captain before I have to retire because I’m old as shit?”
Smirking, Leif had shrugged. “Tell you what—I’ll retire when I’m forty, and then you can have—yeah, I guess one year. If you can keep playing that long.”
I’d rolled my eyes and flipped him off, and he’d cackled.
I swallowed hard as I ran my thumb over the slick fabric of the letter again.
I hadn’t given much thought to the pressure of the captaincy except to realize it was way more than I’d wanted to shoulder.
I’d had on one of the As for the past two seasons, and that had been enough.
Leif had the C and he could keep it. By the time he retired, I’d be in my mid-thirties, and maybe then I could handle that letter on my jersey.
But now, here I was. My teammates had unanimously spoken. Leif was gone, and his C was mine, and that thin piece of fabric was heavier than I’d ever imagined it would be.
I gazed around the room as everyone suited up for our home opener. All these men—all nineteen of them, plus the staff, plus anyone called up from the minors—expected me to live up to the captaincy. They expected a leader, and they’d chosen me.
Not for the first time, I debated asking the team to select a different captain.
I couldn’t do that to them, though.
Most of the guys had played with Leif, and they were all grieving him. Everyone was leaning hard on everyone else, trying like hell to be stronger for each other than we were capable of being for ourselves.
I didn’t think I was strong enough to shoulder the captaincy, but the men in this room needed me to do it. If I could wear the C and lead this team, if I could keep putting one skate in front of the other, then they could too.
I pulled on the C-laden jersey and finished getting my gear together for warmups. Tonight would be hard, but we could do this. I could do this.
Warmups weren’t too bad. Fans cheered. We tossed them some pucks.
We went through our usual routines. I mostly managed to ignore that I couldn’t shoulder check Leif tonight and he wouldn’t thread the puck between Eminem’s skates while he was stretching.
We’d always done those for good luck—not that hockey players were superstitious or anything—but I’d had similar rituals with teammates who’d left over the years.
It came with the territory; if your superstition involved someone else, you’d find a different one after that person left.
I shoulder-checked Baddy, earning me a shout of “Hey!”