16. Maddox
MADDOX
Phoenix texts me at five in the afternoon. Boiler. Twenty minutes. Don't be a dick.
I type back, Busy.
Phoenix: No you're not. Twenty minutes.
I drag a hand down my face. The Boiler is six blocks.
The kind of place with a sticky floor and a jukebox that only plays songs from before I was born.
The team uses it because nobody under forty does, which means no phones, no chirping, no owner's daughter on her third whiskey sour trying to sleep with a defenseman.
It's where Phoenix goes when he wants to be serious.
Which means he wants to be serious.
I stand up. I pull on a clean shirt. I don't shower. I want to still smell like Theo. I don't interrogate that. I grab my keys.
The Boiler is three-quarters empty at four-thirty on a weeknight. Two old guys at the bar. A woman I vaguely recognize playing pool by herself. Phoenix in the back booth under the dead neon sign that used to say OPEN and now just says OPE.
He's got two beers in front of him. One is mine. He didn't ask. He knows what I drink.
I slide in. “Make it quick.”
“Hi to you too.” Phoenix pushes the beer across.
He's got that face on. The one where his jaw is doing a thing.
Phoenix Reyes, when he's about to tell you something you don't want to hear, gets a muscle going right under his ear like he's chewing on the sentence before he lets it out.
I've seen the face three times. Once before he told me my first season was going to be my last if I kept fighting.
Once before he told me my mother's voicemail sounded bad and I should call her back.
Once before he benched himself on a dirty hit and took the fine rather than cheat the kid.
I drink.
Set the glass down.
“Say it.”
“You're fucking the coach's son.”
There it is. No run-up. That's Phoenix.
I don't answer. I drink again. The beer is cold and bad, and I drink it anyway because the mouth needs a job.
“Creed.” Phoenix leans forward. The muscle under his ear is going. “I'm not asking.”
I lift the glass.
Set it back.
“Then don't ask.”
“I'm telling you I know.” He taps a knuckle on the table between us, twice. “And I'm telling you the guys know. Not all of them. But enough. And I'm telling you Paul is going to know in a week. Maybe less.”
I set the beer down.
The condensation has made a ring on the wood and I watch it bleed into the grain instead of looking at his face.
“Who?”
He doesn't blink.
“Who knows, or who told me?”
I finally look up.
“Both.”
Phoenix sits back. Folds his arms across his chest. “Park saw Theo leave your building this morning. Said he was walking like he'd been run over by something he liked. Park told me because Park is not a complete shithead. Not because Park wants you caught. He wanted me to get to you first.”
Park. Fuck. I knew Park lived two streets over. I forgot to care. I forgot to be careful. I haven't been careful about this since the day it started, which was maybe the point.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?” Phoenix's eyebrows go up. He rubs his jaw. “That's it?”
I turn the glass in a slow quarter-circle.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say fuck, Phoenix, thanks for the heads-up, I'll cool it.” He picks up his beer and doesn't drink it.
Just holds it. “You got Paul. I was there when you decided to do this.
I was there in the locker room when you said you'd ruin the kid for him.
I laughed. I thought it was you being a dick.
I thought it'd last a weekend. You made Paul lose his mind on the bench for a month.
You won. You got your revenge. It's done. Walk away from the kid.”
I stare at the table. The wood's got initials carved into it from twenty different drunk nights. Someone named DK loves someone named SM. 2019. I trace the 9 with my thumbnail.
“Creed.”
My thumbnail stops on the curve of the digit.
“I can't.”
Phoenix goes still. He sets the beer down. Careful, like a man defusing a thing.
“Say that again.”
I make myself look at him.
“I can't walk away from him.”
The muscle under his ear stops going. He's looking at me like I've grown a second head. Maybe I have. I don't recognize the guy saying this sentence either.
His mouth opens. Closes.
“You're serious?”
“Yeah.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth. Drops it.
“About the coach's son?”
“Yeah.”
He looks at me a long time.
“The virgin we were chirping in September?”
I put my hand flat on the table to stop it from doing anything stupid. The wood is cold under my palm.
“Don't call him that.”
Phoenix looks at my hand. Looks at my face. He takes a long, slow breath, like he's trying to count something down.
“Oh, Creed.”
I can hear my own pulse in my ears.
“Don't.”
“Oh, buddy.”
I close my eyes. Open them.
“I'm not your buddy right now, Reyes, I am telling you what it is.”
“I know what it is.” He rubs his face with both hands. Leaves them there. Talks through them. “I've known what it is for two weeks. I was hoping I was wrong.”
I drink. The beer is warming. I drink anyway because otherwise my hands will do something.
Phoenix lowers his hands. His jaw is going again. “Okay. You're not walking away. Fine. Then what's the plan?”
I drag the glass another quarter-turn.
“There isn't one.”
“Make one.”
I shake my head once.
“Phoenix.”
“Make one, Creed.” He leans forward again.
His voice drops. The two old guys at the bar can't hear us.
I still lean in because the habit of a decade says you don't say this shit loud.
“Paul is going to find out. Not a question.
A when. And when he does, it's not going to be a meeting in his office.
It's going to be him kicking your door in.
Or worse: him at the owner's office with a story. You know who wins that story. Not you.”
I know. I've known. And I also know that Paul knows. But I don’t think Phoenix can handle hearing that right now.
“What does Theo want?”
I look at him.
“You heard me,” Phoenix says. “What does the kid want? Does he want you to be his little secret until his dad dies of a heart attack? Does he want to go public? Does he want to run? What has he asked for?”
I haven't asked him. I realize it as Phoenix says it. I have been running this whole thing on my clock. On my want. Theo shows up, Theo stays, Theo leaves in my clothes. I tell him what he is. I tell him what he's doing. I have not once sat down with him and said what do you want this to be.
Because I'm a coward. That's the honest answer.
Because if I ask him what he wants and he says a full life with you and a dog and my name on a lease, I have to figure out how to be a person who can give him that.
And if he says just this, just fucking, and I'll marry a nice boy later, I have to figure out how to survive that.
So I haven't asked.
“I don't know,” I say.
Phoenix nods, slow.
“Yeah. Figured.”
I roll the glass between my palms.
“Don't.”
“I'm not doing anything.” He drinks finally.
Sets the glass down gentle. “Creed. You gotta ask him.
You gotta talk to him. Not fuck him until he's too tired to think.
Talk to him. About Paul. About what happens next.
Because the thing that's going to burn you is you two not being on the same page when Paul swings.”
My throat does something. I clear it.
“Okay.”
He tips his head, studying me.
“Okay okay, or okay shut up Phoenix?”
I almost smile. The almost is as much as my mouth can manage.
“Okay okay.”
He exhales. Leans back. The muscle under his ear stops.
“Fine. Good. I'm not going to keep hassling you. I'm not your mom.”
“Thanks, Reyes.”
“I'm saying this because I like you and I like my career and I'd like to play on a team that isn't combusting.” He waves at my beer. “Drink that. I'm getting another. You want one?”
I nod.
“Yeah.”
He slides out of the booth. Goes to the bar. I stare at the dead OPE sign. My hands are doing the thing where they're fine if I'm holding something and not fine if I'm not. I pick up the beer. Empty it. Set it down.
My phone buzzes.
I look down. It’s Theo.
Can you come get me?
The phone is cold in my hand. The text is three seconds old. I read it again because the brain wants to make sure.
Theo: please
Theo: paul is losing his mind
Theo: i can't do this by myself right now
Phoenix is at the bar waiting on the bartender. I'm already sliding out of the booth. I'm already pulling on my jacket. I'm already typing.
Where?
Theo: not home. bench at the reservoir. the one with the map
Me: 12 min
Theo: ok
Theo: thank you
I don't know what he's thanking me for. I haven't done anything yet. I'm going to, though. I'm going to do every single thing.
Phoenix turns from the bar with two beers in his hands and sees me on my feet with my jacket half on. His face drops.
“What?”
I zip the jacket the rest of the way up.
“Theo.”
“Is he okay?”
“Don't know yet.”
Phoenix closes the distance between us in three steps.
“You want me with you?”
I look at him. I mean really look. The jaw muscle. The hands on two beers he's not going to drink. The man who was just warning me and still offered to come, which is the Phoenix Reyes special. Yells at you for the dumb thing and then helps you do it anyway.
“No,” I say. “You've done enough. I owe you one.”
“You owe me ten.” He picks up one beer. Drinks it down in three swallows. Slams it. “Go. Text me when he's okay.”
“Yeah.”
I'm at the door before he's sat back down.
Cold outside. Dry cold, clear sky, the first real evening air of the season.
My breath goes white under the streetlight and I watch it for a second like it's a stranger's.
My car is parked a block down. I walk fast. I don't run, because running in this town gets you noticed, and the last thing I need is a bar regular remembering the night Maddox Creed tore out of the Boiler like a man on fire.
I unlock the car. Slide in. Hands on the wheel. They're fine now. They're fine because I have something to hold. I flex them once on the leather and they obey. Good. That's what I need tonight. Hands that obey.
I pull out of the space. Merge. Don't speed. I want to speed. I don't speed. If I get pulled over, I don't get to him. I drive like a person who wants to arrive.
Me: on my way. 8 min.
Theo: ok
Me: are you safe right now
Theo: yeah. outside. alone.
Me: did he hit you
Long pause.
Theo: no. he said other stuff.
Me: okay. hang on.
I drive. Stoplight. Drive. Stoplight. The part of my brain that has always known what to do in a fight is online now.
Clear. Calm. No adrenaline. Adrenaline is for the first twenty seconds and then it's gone and the guy who can still think is the guy who walks out.
I am the guy who walks out. I have always been the guy who walks out.
Tonight, I am going to be the guy who walks out with Theo.
There's a version of tonight where I don't drive to him.
Where I text back, can't right now, and finish the beer, and sit in that booth with Phoenix, and in two weeks I don't remember his face.
That's the version of me that existed mere weeks ago.
That version is gone. I killed him somewhere between Theo's first kneel in the shower and this afternoon in the clearing, and I don't miss him, which is the part that should scare me and doesn't.
Phoenix's voice is still in my head. You gotta ask him. What does he want? I'll ask. Tonight. After I get him somewhere warm and listen to what Paul said. I'll ask him.
I think about Paul. I try not to. I fail.
I picture his face. He does the thing where he makes his mouth small when he's holding something in.
I picture him with that face turned on Theo.
Inside Theo's house. With nowhere for Theo to go.
I grip the wheel and tell myself, not now.
Not in the car. If I get there angry, I'll help nothing.
Me: 4 min
Theo: im sitting on the bench
Theo: i can see the lot
Me: okay
Me: im coming
The reservoir turn comes up. I take it clean. Gravel lot. Two other cars, both empty. Trail people, gone home. I pull in and kill the engine and I can see him from the car. Hoodie. Hood up. Hunched. Both hands wrapped around his phone like it's the only warm thing he has.
I get out. I shut the door quiet. I don't want to startle him. He hears anyway. He turns his head.
His face is wrecked. Eyes red. Lip split fresh, not a hit, the kind you get from biting down on it for an hour trying not to cry in front of someone.
Cheeks wet. He sees me and something in his face breaks open and closes again in the same second, which is Theo—the boy who was taught to put his feelings away the moment someone else is in the room.
I walk over. I don't jog. I don't sprint. I walk, because if I sprint he'll think something is wrong that isn't. He needs to see me arriving calm. He needs to see me arriving like I knew I was going to arrive.
I stop in front of the bench. He looks up at me.
“Hi,” he says. It comes out small.
“Hi, sweetheart.” I sit down next to him. I don't touch him yet. I put my arm along the back of the bench behind his shoulders and wait. “Tell me.”
He doesn't, not yet. He leans. He puts his head on my shoulder and he shakes, just once, a full-body shake like a dog coming out of water, and then he's still.
I drop my arm down around him. Pull him in.
“Take your time,” I say.
He takes it. I let him. The reservoir is black and flat in front of us.
The sky is going that deep navy where the first star shows up if you know where to look.
Somewhere behind us a car passes on the road and keeps going.
A late bird calls from the pines, one short note, not an alarm, the kind you get when a bird has decided the world is safe enough to speak into.
Theo's breath is warm through the shoulder of my jacket.
He's stopped shaking. He's tucked the top of his head under my jaw like that's where it lives now. Maybe it is.
I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going back to the Boiler.
I'm not going home alone tonight. I'm going wherever he needs me to go.
If it's my apartment, it's my apartment.
If it's a diner at the edge of town where nobody knows either of us, it's a diner.
If it's a motel two hours north with the heat on high and a door that locks from the inside, that's where we'll be at midnight.
Phoenix was right about one thing. I'm in too deep. I'm so deep I can't see the top anymore. That used to scare me. Tonight, sitting on a cold bench by a black reservoir with a crying boy tucked under my arm, it doesn't. It's the calmest I've been in a month.
“Okay,” Theo says into my shoulder. “Okay. I can talk now.”
“I'm listening.”
And he starts.