Chapter 18
Magnus
Cole’s sitting alone in a corner of the weight room, his knees bent and a hoodie covering most of his face, his head down. Our on-ice practice is over, but we still have video sessions and special teams meetings.
Guilt pricks at my chest. Though our team has a four-game winning streak going, he’s been in a slump. And not only that, he’s taken some hard hits since I laid into him. Kid’s been in an ice bath beside mine after the past three games.
I was way too tough on him.
Walking over, I keep my back to the rest of the room and look down at him, my arms crossed.
“Hey, man,” I say.
He looks up, taking out an earbud.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “When I lashed out at you, that was about me, not you.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re good.”
I could walk away. I apologized. But there’s something about being happy and content lately, for the first time in a long time, that makes me unable to.
“No one’s on every night,” I say. “This game is hard on our bodies, but it’s even harder on our minds. If you ever want to talk, I won’t be a dick like I was before.”
He shrugs half-heartedly. “Guess my cockiness caught up to me. I don’t know. I’m just waiting for the call-down.”
Being shifted back and forth from the minors is hard. I know that fear—one bad game could get you sent down and end your dream.
I squat down in front of him. “That’s not the right mindset. If you already think you’re going, you are.”
“I can’t do anything about it. I’m playing my hardest.”
“Are you, though? Are you really?”
He moves his hood back a little, looking aggravated. “Why the fuck do you care anyway? Me getting moved down will only be good for you.”
“We’re teammates. If everyone on this team saw each other as competition, we’d be in last place.”
“I’m getting my ass kicked out there every night. What else do you want from me?”
“I had dinner with my girlfriend and her kids last night and I wanted to stay and hang out with them for the evening, but instead I went back to my shitty hotel and went to bed early. I had to do that because I had a four thirty a.m. wake-up today for a session with my trainer and then I got here an hour before practice and did some shooting alone.”
“Nice job, Saint Magnus. You’re the most deserving fucker here, I guess.”
“No one said I’m the most deserving. But if I don’t get a solid contract, at least I’ll know I put in the work. I busted my ass to get back here after my injury. I’ve got a why, man. It’s my family. That’s what gets me out of bed on those early days.”
“Look, man. I know you’re trying to help, but it’s not helping.”
I shrug and stand up. “If avoiding hits works for you, go back to it. If wearing clothes that smell like rotting corpses helps your mindset, do it. If I fucked with your mojo, do what you’ve gotta do to get it back.”
“Don’t give yourself that much credit. You didn’t fuck with anything. My dad just started cancer treatment, so I’m not sleeping much. If I get sent to Hershey, at least I’ll be closer to home.”
I shake my head, feeling even worse about the outhouse thing. “I’m sorry.”
“They caught it early. His prognosis is good.”
“Good. Will he be glad if you end up back in Hershey?”
Cole scoffs, almost smiling. “Fuck no. My dad’s a youth hockey coach. He’s been at every game I’ve ever played until this cancer bullshit.”
“So fight, then. He’s fighting fucking cancer; you fight for your spot on this team.”
He gives me the finger, his smile spreading. “Don’t quit hockey to become a motivational speaker with that cheesy bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, you look like a cheesy movie character. The mouthy teenage son who got grounded for staying out too late. Get your ass up.”
He scowls, but stands.
“The film session starts in five minutes,” I say. “Be on time. Have a good attitude. Learn something.”
“I’m going to the film session.” He glares at me, sounding annoyed. “Get off my dick.”
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. I start walking toward the small auditorium we watch video in, and he comes, too.
“You suck at pep talks,” he mutters.
“You suck at emotional regulation.”
I hear his gasp. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from the guy who wanted to fight me over my nickname.”
“I boiled over that day, and I own it. But you will never, ever see me get emotional during a game. You showboat when you score, you yap at the refs, you slam the bench door, and you overskate your shifts.”
He doesn’t respond. Probably because any response would fall flat. Opponents can read him like a book, and coaches and teammates don’t want a guy they can’t trust on their team.
When we’re almost to the video room, I say, “Work on it. We’ve got a mindset coach who can help you with it.”
He looks sheepish for a second, and then he says, “When you push off, your back leg lags too long. Makes you slower. Even an old guy like you can drill that out.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but then close it. I shouldn’t assume he’s wrong.
“I’ll watch for it in my videos,” I say.
We go inside the video room and find seats. One of our assistant coaches, Shawn, leads the session.
We’re only about ten minutes in when Leo yells, “Oh shit! Mara’s in labor!”
Good thing I finished knitting their baby blankets.
Leo just gapes at his phone screen for a couple seconds, and then Coach Turner says, “Get moving, Abbott! Go be with your wife.”
Carter’s already halfway to the door, calling over his shoulder. “I’ll drive him.”
They both race out of the room and we return to the video session, but about five minutes later, Leo runs back through the door, looking panicked.
“The fucking parking garage door won’t go up! The security people are trying to fix it, but ... should I call an Uber? Is anyone not parked underground?”
“I’m in the outside lot,” I say.
My trainer had me park there so I could run sprints in the lot earlier.
“Can I borrow your car?” Leo asks me.
“The gearshift is weird. I’ll drive you.”
We run to the locker room, where I grab my keys. Carter finds us there, and the three of us race toward the exit.
My Trailblazer is the only car in the outside lot. The three of us get in and Leo tells me which hospital to go to. I start the car and shake the steering wheel while pressing the brake to shift into drive, which is the weirdness I was talking about.
“Jesus, man,” Carter says from the back seat as I drive toward the lot exit. “You probably leave this bitch unlocked in hopes someone will steal it.”
I laugh because I know this car doesn’t compare to the ones he and his wife drive. There was a huge knife cut running from the top of one of the back seats all the way down and across the seat part when I bought it, but I hardly ever have passengers, so I didn’t care.
“It’s reliable,” I say. “That’s all I care about.”
I roll my window down when we reach the security guard’s booth. Leo leans over from the passenger side and yells, “Mara’s in labor! Get that gate up, Billy!”
Billy lunges at the button, grinning. “Congrats, man! I can’t wait to see pictures!”
The gate goes up and I fly through it, feeling my phone buzzing in my pocket. When I take it out and look at the screen, I see that it’s my agent, Art. This call could be about a contract offer.
“You need to answer that?” Leo asks.
“No, I’ll call back.”
He exhales long and slow. “Okay, breathe. Ice chips, skin to skin, support the neck. Don’t look down there.”
“She’s the one doing the hard work,” Carter barks from the back seat. “You just need to stay calm and cool.”
“I will, but there’s a lot of shit to remember,” Leo says.
“Let the professionals handle it.”
Leo reads an incoming text on his phone. “She’s going to a room! Hurry up!”
“Women having their first kid don’t pop them out in ten minutes,” Carter says.
“My mom was in labor for twenty-eight hours with me,” I say.
“I don’t think I’m going to miss it, I just want to be there with my wife. She shouldn’t be alone when she’s in labor.”
“There are nurses,” Carter says.
Leo ignores him. “We want a seven to ten APGAR score. Seven to ten. Manifest that, boys.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” I ask.
“We don’t know. It’ll be a surprise.”
I can feel his excitement over becoming a dad. I was close with some teammates in Sweden who were fathers, but I hadn’t met anyone I’d consider having kids with.
It’s different with Blair. We haven’t been seeing each other long, but I’m imagining myself on the way to the birth of a child we’re having, and it feels amazing.
Her sons don’t have their dad around, and that’s his loss. I can see myself quickly thinking of them as my own, and if Blair and I never had more kids, that would be okay.
“Oh shit, there it is!” Leo cries when the hospital sign comes into view. “I’ve got smelling salts in the hospital bag. Let’s do this.”
“Suki beat us there,” Carter says. “She’s going up to the room now.”
“Don’t feel like you have to come in, guys. I know you’d just be sitting in the waiting room forever.”
“Of course we’re coming in,” Carter says.
“That okay?” Leo asks me.
“Hell yeah, it’s okay. I’d be honored to wait. I can go pick up anything you guys need.”
Leo snort-laughs. “I should tell Mara you’re bringing me a rack of ribs later. Just to see what she says.”
“You should not,” Carter says. “That’s one woman I would not fuck with while she’s in labor.”
I pull up under the portico at the emergency department entrance. Leo and Carter get out, Leo saying, “Thanks, Magnus.”
“Meet me in the OB waiting room,” Carter says.
“Will do.”
I park and turn off my engine, then call Art back.
“Hey, I’ve got good news,” he says in answer.
“Great, let’s hear it.”
“Seattle is asking for a firm verbal commitment. Their GM, Tammy, said you’re at the core of their vision for the next several years. We can get them up on the signing bonus.”
Six weeks ago, this would have been incredible news. The money from the contract Seattle is proposing, managed well, will more than care for Elin and my mom while also setting me up well for life. Money will never be an issue.
But Seattle is incredibly far away from Cleveland. I don’t doubt Blair and I’d never cheat on her, but three years is a very long time. That’s three years I’d hardly see Blair, Coop, and Eli outside of my offseason.
I don’t want to be another man who disappoints them. Blair is an adult, so she understands what a temporary long-distance relationship would mean and why we’d be doing it. But five- and seven-year-old boys wouldn’t.
“Cleveland could still offer,” I say.
Art pauses. “Yeah, but this is a bird in the hand. First line. They want to build around you.”
“It’s not a bird in the hand, though. They can’t sign me yet.”
“I trust Tammy’s verbal commitment.”
I’m a man of my word, and if I make a verbal commitment to sign with a team, I’ll honor it. If I agree to go to Seattle and Cleveland offers, I’ll have to turn Cleveland down.
I’m torn. There’s more at stake than there was before.
“I can’t commit yet,” I say.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. When do you want to revisit it? If we haven’t heard from Cleveland in a couple weeks, can we talk about this again?”
“Yeah. I’m not saying no to Seattle. I’m just saying I’m not ready to commit yet.”
“They might shop around for someone who is.”
“I understand. I have to go, Art.”
“Okay. Talk soon, kid.”