Chapter 11
Eleven
Alex: The purple penis came off today.
Mitch: Any problems?
Alex: Nope. Don’t need rehab. Just strength training.
Mitch: Good :) Does it hurt?
Alex: No, it’s just weak. Also, it looks like an old wrinkly person.
Mitch: That’s the grossest thing you’ve ever said to me.
Alex: And it’s dry…
Mitch: Stop it.
Alex: My skin’s peeling off in four different places.
Mitch: Seriously, fuck you.
Alex: I’m sending you a picture.
Mitch: I’m blocking your phone number.
* * *
Mitch: I passed creative writing!
Alex: Knew you would :)
Mitch: Thanks for your help. Couldn’t have done that poetry shit without you.
Alex: Poetry is not shit and yeah okay, that was a joke. Ha ha.
Mitch: Not really. Poetry sucks. Who wants to read between the lines? Not me. You have something to say, just fucking say it.
Alex: Hahahahahahahahaha. This from the guy who’s so tight-lipped, I didn’t even know he had a brother until two weeks ago?
Mitch: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
* * *
Alex: Did you keep your creative writing elective next semester, or did you drop it for something else?
Mitch: Kept it. God forbid my college transcript doesn’t portray me as a well-rounded person. Fucking academic advisors.
Alex: You’ll thank her (him?) later.
Mitch: Doubt it.
* * *
Mitch: Kill me…
Alex: What’s wrong?
Mitch: What’s wrong? Where do I start? With the freshmen who don’t know how to do long division or the ones who can’t solve the simplest of polynomials? Or how about the senior who can’t solve a word problem? Fuck my life.
Alex: To be fair, I don’t remember how to do long division either. Haven’t done that since high school.
Alex: Also, I don’t remember what a polynomial is.
Mitch: You weren’t a science major.
Alex: Oh. OK then, yeah. That’s bad. Wait, you’re tutoring college seniors in math?
Mitch: I’m kinda smart.
* * *
Alex: I’m playing tonight!
Mitch: I thought your coach wasn’t putting you in until January. That’s still two weeks away.
Alex: My arm is mostly back up to strength and Coach is happy with the way I’ve been performing in practice so… I get to play! On the third line, but I don’t care.
Mitch: You’ll still see ice time.
Alex: Exactly.
Mitch: Nervous?
Alex: Kind of. The last time I was nervous on the ice was in the Frozen Four.
Mitch: Yeah, you guys lost in the first round.
Alex: Thanks for the reminder, jackass.
Mitch: Don’t lose this one.
Alex: How could we with the fancy new footwork you taught me during our Figure Skating for Dummies (And Hockey) sessions?
* * *
Alex arrived at Amalie Arena half an hour before he was technically due. It wasn’t part of his game day routine, but he needed the boost to his psyche that would only come from being alone in the locker room.
He’d already gone through his pre-game rituals: hung his suit jacket on the left hook in his cubby, then on the right; done ten pull-ups in the gym; visited the men’s room; located his lucky yellow socks; and eaten a Halloween-sized Kit Kat.
Sitting in the locker room in front of his cubby in his base layers, Alex was going through his final pre-game ritual—listening to Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” on repeat on his iPod—when the rest of the team started trickling in.
“Dude!” Yager dropped onto the bench next to him.
As big as Alex with hair prematurely gone to gray, Yager was Alex’s favorite person on the team.
Coach often partnered them together for a game.
“Coach has you on a different line than me.” A pout on a guy who was six-four and as big as a whale shouldn’t have been endearing.
Alex yanked his earbuds out. “Yeah, I think he’s trying to assess whether or not I’m really fit to play again.”
Yager grunted and stood. “Of course, you’re fit to play.” He removed his jacket and hung it in the cubby next to Alex’s. “You don’t just forget how to skate. It’s like riding a bike.”
“Yo, Bomb!” Masterson yelled from across the room.
Yager—whose nickname was Jagerbomb for obvious reasons, though it was more often than not shortened to Bomb—turned at the call.
“Catch!”
Yager caught a small mason jar. “Dean, you weren’t here when we picked names for Secret Santa.” He handed Alex the jar. Inside was a small folded up piece of paper. “So we picked for you. Here.”
Alex unscrewed the lid and fished out the paper. “When’s the gift exchange?”
“Tomorrow at the Christmas party at Mr. Awan’s. You know about it, right?”
“Yeah, I know about it.” Mr. Awan was the team’s owner.
Last year’s Christmas party had devolved into beer pong and karaoke in Mr. Awan’s enormous entertainment room right after dinner.
His mansion could hold not just the team and associated public relations staff, marketers, trainers, and coaches, but every team in the Eastern Conference and then some.
“You couldn’t have given me more notice?
” Alex grumbled. “Somebody could’ve looked at the name and texted me. ”
Jaws dropped all around the room. Yager clutched his chest. “And cheat ourselves out of the yearly tradition? What if you have me and I’d looked, huh? What then? No more surprise for ol’ Bomb.”
Alex held the paper he’d yet to read between two fingers. “What if it says my name?”
Silence.
“Well, shit,” Vidal said from the other side of the room. “It doesn’t, does it?”
“It couldn’t.” Greer’s head swivelled, eyes big. “Someone picked his name, right?”
Finally, Alex unfolded the piece of paper while his teammates tried to remember who they’d picked for Secret Santa.
Carlie was written in messy script. A few cubbies down, Carlie was already dressed in his goalie pads, “Carlson” spelled out on the back of his jersey.
All around Alex, men dug through cubbies, bags, and coat pockets, presumably trying to find their own little scraps of paper.
“I think I have Alex.”
“You had him last year.”
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t pick his name out of the hat again this year.”
“Fuck, I think I have him.”
“You don’t, idiot. I know who you have and it’s not Alex.”
Seriously, had nobody bought their gifts yet?
“Guys!” Alex’s raised voice cut through the din of chatter. “Crisis averted.” He held up the scrap of paper. “I don’t have myself.”
A collective sigh of relief sounded through the room.
Yager’s eyebrows bunched and he faced Alex with his arms crossed over his chest. “You did that on purpose.”
Alex tossed him a wide-eyed look of innocence and started pulling on his gear. He was lacing up his skates when he got a text from Mitch. Remember: don’t lose :) Cody and I are watching at home. See you on the ice!
His limbs tingled with some kind of awareness and nerves hit his belly that had nothing to do with hockey.
Yager punched his shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Huh?”
“What’s this?” Yager wiggled his butt on the bench.
Alex pulled on his gloves. “I don’t know, what is that?”
“That’s what I’m asking you, man. You were the one doing it.”
“You’re crazy.”
* * *
The game against Ottawa was ferocious. For both teams, this was the last game before they were off for a few days for Christmas. Tampa had home ice advantage, but that didn’t mean anything when Ottawa played as if their lives were on the line.
Coach McNab was usually explicit about how he wanted the lines of offense to work and there were clear delineations between all four.
Even though Alex wasn’t considered an enforcer, his current line, the third, was typically counted on to check, fight, and generally take up space while the better players took a rest. But this game was so neck-in-neck that Coach switched things up mid-game and sent Alex out on the first line with Yager.
Better. Much better. Alex was an offensive defenseman, not a fighter.
With minutes left in the third period, play stalled in Ottawa’s offensive zone for an achingly boring amount of time.
Alex followed the puck with his eyes and stayed at the ready at Ottawa’s blue line in case play moved toward him, as it likely would.
Behind him, Carlie yelled at their forwards from the crease.
Ottawa’s defensemen were also offensive defensemen, and once the puck finally crossed into Alex’s zone, it was all hands on deck for Ottawa as play moved toward Tampa’s net.
Alex and Yager kept them from scoring and somehow Alex ended up with the puck.
As he scouted to see who was open, Carlie yelled, “Breakaway!”
Alex didn’t hesitate. With his back to Ottawa’s offensive zone, he skated backward, fast, using the new moves Mitch had taught him.
Both his own teammates and players from the other team followed as if the hounds of hell were chasing them.
Heart racing, adrenaline flowing, Alex transitioned to forward seamlessly, crowing in triumph when he managed not to fall on his ass.
Ottawa’s net came closer and closer and he could hear people catching up to him, but he didn’t turn and look.
Don’t lose.
Mitch’s words played in his head and, as if knowing Mitch was watching gave him an extra burst of energy, Alex surged forward, sent a wrist shot that bounced off the top post of the net and—
The goal horn sounded across the arena.
Whooping loudly, Alex stopped next to the boards where, directly behind the Plexiglass, a TV news camera was mounted. Alex pointed directly into it and almost mouthed For you, stopping himself just in time from putting a media bullseye on his back.
The high of scoring his first goal in over two months lasted until they won 4-3, until he’d showered and changed, and until he was once again sitting in front of his cubby in boxer briefs, phone in hand.
He had a text from Mitch with an army of smiley faces and thumbs up emoticons, then You scored that for me, huh?
Alex was quick to reply back: You did tell me not to lose.
“Who you talking to?” Yager leaned over Alex’s shoulder.
Alex blanked the screen. “No one.”
“Mm hmm. No one makes you smile like that?”