7. Theo #2
Jax, at a water break, stands next to me at the bench with his mouthguard out and does not say anything, which is a thing Jax does with a person he has decided is okay.
Magnus does not look at me again.
I do not look at Maddox.
Maddox does not look at me.
It is the loudest not-looking I have ever been part of.
In the tunnel, after Paul blows the final whistle, I walk with Phoenix.
Not on purpose. He is ahead of me. The tunnel is narrow. He slows down enough that he is beside me. I understand that he slowed down on purpose. I also understand that I am not supposed to say anything about the slowing down.
“Laurent.”
“Captain.”
He adjusts his bag on his shoulder.
“You good?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say it like a guy who is and not like a guy practicing.”
My mouth moves before the rest of me catches up. It picks the answer.
“I'm good.”
Phoenix looks at me sideways as we walk. He is a tall man. He has a scar along his jaw the shape of a seam.
“Anything you want to tell me?”
“No, sir.”
“Anything I should tell Coach?”
I almost stop walking. I do not stop walking. Whatever in me wants to stop walking is not in charge of my body right now.
“No, sir.”
“Okay.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder briefly at the top of the tunnel.
He does not do it where Paul would catch it from the bench, even if he were on the bench, which he’s is not, because he’s in his office already.
It is a captain's hand. It is Phoenix telling me, I am here, and I am not going to make you say a thing about it.
It is the first piece of kindness I have had on this team since I arrived.
I do not cry in the tunnel.
I do not cry in the locker room.
I do not cry.
My stall is on the far wall.
Maddox's stall is on the opposite wall.
I sit down. I take my helmet off and hook it on the peg. I put my gloves in the stall on the shelf where gloves go. I start the slow peeling of pads that is the post-practice ritual. I do not look across the room.
I can feel him looking.
I do not look back.
Around me, men are doing the things men do in locker rooms. Magnus peels off his jersey and says nothing to anyone for once.
Jax is humming something. Grayson is on the phone.
The trainer is moving between stalls with his cart.
A second-liner I have not memorized the name of is telling a story about his mother and the story makes half the room laugh, which is the sound that means the tension of the six AM is breaking.
My phone is face-down on my bag when I hear it buzz.
I pick it up.
I hold it under the jersey in my lap as if the other men in this room care what message I am getting, which they do not. I turn the phone over.
The message is from a number I do not have saved.
Waterfront. West pier. Seven tonight. M.
My face is hot.
The locker room goes on around me at the usual volume and I am in a bubble where the usual volume cannot reach.
My hands are cold. My ears are hot. My chest is doing something I will not describe to myself.
I am in full pads and base layer and my shoulder pads and half of my jersey, and I am sitting in a locker room with twenty men, and I have a text from Maddox Creed.
I look up.
I do not mean to.
He is across the room.
He is down to his base layer, shorts and a compression shirt. His hair is still wet. His phone is in his hand. He is not typing. He is watching me.
He does one thing with his face. His eyebrow, the one with the scar, goes up an eighth of an inch. That is all. No smile. No corner of the mouth. No mocking.
Just the question.
Yes or no, sweetheart?
I am holding my phone with both hands.
I feel the button under my thumb before I think about pressing it. I type yes. I look at the word yes for two full seconds. I delete the y and put the y back. I look at it again. I press send.
He looks down.
He reads it.
His face does not change in any way anyone else in this room would catch.
His shoulders move. A breath. Just a breath.
He looks up at me.
He nods.
It is the smallest nod a man can make. It is a quarter of an inch of chin. It is the whole world.
I look down at my skates.
I breathe four in. Seven hold. Eight out.
I breathe four in. Seven hold. Eight out.
I do the ritual. I get the skates off. I get the base layer off.
I get the towel off the hook. I walk to the showers with my eyes on the tile because if I look at Maddox in this room one more time today I am going to do something I am not supposed to do, and I do not have a map for what that thing is, and I do not have a map for what any of today is, and I am twenty years old and I have a text in my phone from an enforcer that says seven tonight, and seven tonight is in ten hours, and seven tonight is the rest of my life.
I turn the water on hot.
I stand under it.
I do not cry.
I do not cry because if I start here, I will not stop.
I wash. I rinse. I get out. I towel off. I dress in my street clothes with hands that are not shaking in any way the men around me can see. I pack my bag. I zip it. I sling it.
I walk out past Maddox's stall without looking.
He does not look up at me either.
We are both pretending.
We are both pretending very well.
Outside the rink, the morning has turned into whatever morning turns into at eight forty AM in late September. The sky is high and blue. My breath is a little cloud. The parking lot is full. Paul's car is in the coach's spot.
I text Paul from the sidewalk.
Going for a walk. Back for lunch.
Three dots. A pause. A response.
Be back by one. We are working on your stickhandling this afternoon.
Yes, sir, I respond before putting the phone back in my pocket.
I walk away from the rink in no particular direction.
I walk three blocks. Five. I do not think about seven tonight.
I think about seven tonight. I do not think about seven tonight.
I think about seven tonight. The inside of my head is a metronome, and the metronome is set to one beat per second and the beat is seven tonight.
I sit on a bench at a bus stop.
I do not take the bus.
I watch the buses come and go for fifteen minutes.
My phone is in my hand. The message is still there.
Waterfront. West pier. Seven tonight. M.
The M is a single letter, which is the version of his name a man uses when he does not want to write his whole name in case the phone gets picked up by somebody who is not supposed to be looking.
The M is love-letter protocol, but he is not writing a love letter.
The M is because he has thought about what would happen if Paul saw the screen.
He thought about what would happen if Paul saw the screen.
He thought about me.
He thought about protecting me.
That fact is a fact I do not know what to do with. I have not been protected in a long time, not in the way that costs the protector anything, and Maddox Creed threw a signed M into a text instead of his name because he did not want to cost me anything on a screen.
I sit on the bench.
I put my head back against the plexiglass of the bus shelter.
I smile.
It is a small smile. It is a smile I have not smiled at anything since I moved to this city. It is a smile no one can see, because no one is looking at a kid at a bus stop in a nylon warm-up jacket with his bag at his feet.
I smile at the inside of my head.
Seven tonight.