Chapter 22 - Landon
Landon
The barbell rested across my palms while I lay on the bench, staring up at the ceiling tiles I had memorized back when I’d first signed with the team. I pushed the weight up, arms burning, breath rough in my throat as I counted the reps out loud. Because counting gave my head something clean to do.
The TV on the far wall caught my eye again. Green, gold, and white jerseys clashed with our blue. Even muted, I read everything loud and clear in a single glance. Surge versus Dallas Stars. Game one. We were painfully outmatched.
“Don’t,” I muttered, though I wasn’t sure if I was talking to my arms or my eyes.
A few more pushes, and the set ended with my triceps shaking, so I racked the bar and sat up, wiping my face on the hem of my shirt.
The screen showed Dallas cycling the puck deep, our defense scrambling to adjust. I stood up before my brain could start narrating plays that I wasn’t part of anymore, and crossed the room to the dumbbell rack.
The weights were lined up with military precision, untouched, waiting. And with everyone away, I had the pick of the litter and all the time in the world.
I grabbed a pair and started curls, elbows tucked, forearms beginning to protest on the third rep. The TV stayed in my peripheral vision, a flicker of movement that refused to be ignored. Grayson missed a pass at the blue line, and Dallas surged the other way.
“Get it back,” I snapped at the screen. The words bounced off the empty walls and came back to me sounding more foolish than when I’d said them.
I set the dumbbells down harder than necessary and moved to the leg press. Something had to work. I didn’t care if I had to move through every piece of equipment in this gym, but I wasn’t leaving here until the sick, twisted tangle in my gut was gone.
Sitting at the press, feet planted against the plate, I drove the weight away from me, thighs working, breath coming short.
This was supposed to help. It always had.
When my head got loud, my body usually knew what to do with it.
Tonight, though, every push just fed the pressure. A loop with no exit.
I glanced up in time to see the camera pan over the crowd. Everyone on their feet, mouths open, fists and flags waving. Then the ice was back, in time for me to catch the puck slide past Hunter and hit the back of the net.
The scoreboard changed. One nothing Dallas.
I slammed the plate back into place and stood, pacing once across the gym before catching myself.
“You don’t care,” I told the empty space. “You’re not in the game. There’s nothing you can do.”
With that reminder sending a renewed burst of determination through me, I got back to work bouncing between machines. Sweat dripped down my spine, every muscle engaged. I hit the cable rows, then moved to the pull up bar, forcing my body to obey even as my mind drifted. Especially then.
Dallas pressed again. Tucker swept in hard, taking on two attackers at once. Cash Money filled the gap and grew roots.
“Good man,” I whispered, forgetting all about the dead hang I was supposed to engage.
But right when a Dallas player slammed into our defensive play, the ref’s arm went up and brought a stop to it. The string of curses pouring out of me echoed off the mirrors.
“What a joke.” I flung my towel at the TV. “Open your eyes, ref. Goddammit.”
I dropped to the floor where I stood, and knocked out push ups until my arms shook. All I had to do was keep going until it started to hurt. The distraction would guarantee a better end to my night.
The second period started without me noticing, the clock ticking on while I fought a losing battle with gravity and my own head at the same time.
I told myself this was discipline, this was what a team player did when he couldn’t be on the ice.
He stayed ready. He didn’t sulk. He didn’t turn back into the guy everyone used to side-eye in the locker room.
And he sure as hell didn’t prove all those reporters right, the ones calling him the only thing worse than a Has-Been—a Never-Was.
I collapsed in a heap of failure and sweat, panting to catch my breath with my cheek plastered to the rubber mat. To my dismay, this was the optimal position to catch a glimpse of the TV without even having to lift my head. I groaned when Dallas potted another goal. Then another.
“Fuck my life.”
Their guys crashed into each other on the ice, waving their sticks around and slapping helmets in celebration. The Surge looked out of it, and out of the game.
Something inside me snapped. I crossed the room in long strides and jabbed the power button, exhaling when the screen went black.
The silence that followed wasn’t the peace I was after, though. It was heavy and useless and stoked my agitation worse than before.
I stood there for a beat, hands on my hips, sweat dripping onto the rubber floor. “This is bullshit.”
Giving up on the workout seemed like the natural next step.
My body was tired, but it hadn’t touched what was eating me alive.
I sat on the edge of the bench and stared at my hands, still taped out of habit, knuckles scabbed from drills I hadn’t been allowed to finish.
All that work. All that change. I had learned to pass when the shot was there.
I had learned to shut up and listen. I had learned that winning meant something bigger than my name on the back of a jersey.
None of it mattered tonight.
I gave up pretending the game didn’t exist and decided I didn’t have to watch it die in real time.
The sauna sat at the end of the gym, cedar and heat and a kind of punishment I could choose for myself.
I peeled off my shirt as I walked, then my shorts, leaving a trail I didn’t bother correcting. Nobody was around.
I grabbed a towel from the stack by the door and pushed inside.
The heat hit hard and immediate, thick enough to press against my skin.
I cranked the dial without ceremony, turning it past the point of comfortable.
The bench waited, darkened with old sweat, and I laid the towel down before sitting.
I stretched out with my legs extended, breathing out slowly as my muscles allowed the warmth to take over and do its thing.
This would work. If the iron hadn’t bled it out of me, the heat would. That was the theory, anyway.
Sweat gathered fast, beading along my ribs and running down my sides, collecting at the hollow of my throat. My lungs worked harder, every inhale thick and weighted. I closed my eyes and draped an arm across them, forearm slick, skin already flushed. My pulse beat loud enough to feel in my ears.
“Get it out,” I muttered, the words swallowed by the room. “I want it out.”
Nothing moved except my breathing and the slow roll of heat over my body. The bench burned, but my muscles stayed tight, coiled instead of easing. The pressure inside me didn’t budge. It just sat there, stubborn and familiar, a mean motherfucker.
The door clicked.
It cut clean through the haze, sharp enough to pull my arm down as I lifted my head.
The heavy wood swung inward and Nicole stepped inside, a towel wrapped high across her chest. Her hair was piled up, careless, loose strands already clinging to her cheeks and the curve of her neck as steam curled around her.
“Thought I’d find you here.” Her skin glistened within seconds.
I lifted my hips enough to free the towel from under me, and pulled it over my lap. “What are you doing here?”
There was a specific tinge of sadness in her smile. “I was worried about you. Game one, and all that.”
“I’m a big boy, Nicole.”
She meant well, but I wasn’t in the mood to be coddled. This was something I had to work out for myself, no matter how good her intentions were.
“With everyone in Dallas,” she said, closing the door behind her, “sneaking back here was pretty easy.”
I shifted, the bench hot enough to bite. My gaze raked over her body, and I felt a twitch under my towel. “But how did you know to find me in here?”
She shrugged, waving at my feet. I moved them off the bench and pushed up to sit, my arms still a little shaky after my earlier torture session.
“The gym was empty.” She sat down beside me and fixed her towel when one flap revealed too much skin on her thigh. “I was about to head back out when I noticed the breadcrumb trail of clothes you left leading to the sauna.”
I wiped sweat from my jaw, but it came right back. “But you didn’t come here to judge my habits of organization.”
“No,” she said, and her voice softened without losing its edge. She searched my eyes intently. “I came to see if you’re okay.”
The question sat between us, heavier than the heat. I stared at the wall behind her, at the dark knots in the wood, the way the grain twisted and pulled.
“I’m not,” I said finally.
Her expression didn’t change. She moved closer, the bench creaking under her weight. Her towel brushed my thigh and I went still, every nerve awake. If she felt it too, it didn’t show. Her focus was absolute, and glued to my face.
The expectation was full honesty, and I wasn’t going to let her down.
“It feels like all this junk is stuck in me,” I said, the words dragging their way out of my throat. “I can’t skate it off. Can’t sweat it out. Usually the ice works perfectly. Being out there. Doing the thing I’m good at.” My jaw set. “But that’s out of the question. Indefinitely.”
Her hand hovered, then settled on my knee, steady and warm. “Landon—”
“The only thing that came close to that feeling was putting my fist through James’s face, but that’s not gonna happen.” I laughed once, short and humorless. “As much as I want it to.”
She stood.
The movement pulled my attention whether I wanted it or not. She reached for the edge of her towel and let it fall to the floor at my feet. Heat slicked over her skin, the lines of her body bare and unguarded.