Chapter 14 Green #2
I told myself I wasn’t going to go, but Ash is already there, texting “get your ass over here, they’re trying to start beer pong with White Claw and I need you to save me.”
I show up late, wearing the wrong jacket because my usual one still smells like Ash and I’m not ready to risk that yet.
The apartment is a chaos engine, every square foot packed with bodies, the air dense with sweat and weed and bad decisions.
I make a beeline for the kitchen, where Ash is holding court with Kai and Tommy. He’s laughing at something, but his eyes track me the second I walk in.
He raises his can in salute, like we’re just teammates, just bros, but I see the smile that’s only for me.
We get sucked into the party. Someone shoves a Solo cup in my hand, and O’Doul tries to tell me about the time he saw Zdeno Chára at SeaTac and got his autograph on a pack of Marlboros.
Ash stands just close enough that our shoulders touch every now and then, but never lingers long enough to draw heat.
It’s perfect. It’s hell.
At midnight, Kai wants to do shots. Ash looks at me, eyebrow cocked, like he’s asking permission.
I nod. I’d follow him anywhere.
We end up on the balcony, alone for a second, the city spread out below. It’s cold, the air sharp and salty.
Ash leans on the railing, stares out at the lights. “You ever think about telling anyone?” he says, voice low.
I look at him. He’s nervous, picking at the label on his beer. I want to pull him in, to say “yes,” to say “fuck it, let’s just be real for once.”
But I say, “It’s not safe. Not yet.”
He nods, but I can see he hates it.
“I just…” he says, then stops. Starts again. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier to just get caught. Let the world sort it out.”
I almost laugh, but he’s serious.
“You’d be okay with that?” I say.
He shrugs. “I’m already the sub. The nobody. You’re the one who has something to lose.”
I hate the way he says it, like his whole life is an apology.
I step closer, just enough that our arms touch, careful in case someone’s watching.
“You’re not a nobody,” I say, and it comes out rough. “You’re the best thing I’ve got.”
He looks at me, and for a second I think he’s going to cry, but instead he just grins, crooked and true.
“You’re such a fucking sap,” he says, but the way he says it makes it a secret, a promise, not an insult.
We stand out there until the cold drives us in. Inside, the team is watching a YouTube clip on the TV, a compilation of hockey fights with our own practice brawl spliced in for comic effect.
I see my own face, blood on my jersey, yelling at someone I don’t even remember. Ash is sitting on the floor, knees up, arms wrapped around them, watching the screen with a weird, sad smile.
I sit down next to him. The room is so loud nobody notices. But our knees are touching, and neither of us moves away.
———
The days blur. We practice. We run. We meet in the dark or the rain or the anonymity of the city.
Every time I see Ash, it’s like the air in my lungs doubles, like the world is letting me have something I never thought was allowed.
But the secret’s getting heavier, not lighter. Every time a teammate walks by, every time Coach Vasquez calls us into her office, every time a reporter asks about “chemistry” and “team dynamics,” my skin goes cold.
The final straw comes at the end of a brutal away game, the team half-drunk on the bus ride home, the city rolling past like a glitchy video game.
Raz is in the back, singing along to a pop song none of us have heard, and O’Doul is passed out in his own lap, but Tommy is wide awake, staring out the window.
He glances over at me, then at Ash, who’s two rows up, slumped against the glass, earbuds in.
“You two good?” Tommy says, voice low.
I freeze. “Yeah. Why?”
He shrugs, but his eyes are sharp. “Just seems like you got his back a lot, is all.”
I want to deflect, make a joke, but the words catch.
“He needs it,” I say.
Tommy nods, slow. “So do you.”
He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel the weight of it all the way home.
———
I can’t sleep that night. I stare at the ceiling, counting cracks, listening to the city moan through the old walls.
I think about what it would be like to just tell the truth, to stand in front of the team, the coaches, the world, and say “Yeah, it’s us. Yeah, we’re together. If that’s a problem, you can find another fucking goalie.”
But I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I don’t know if Ash is.
At 3:07 a.m., I text him: "You up?"
He replies instantly: "Always."
I say, "Meet me at the pier?"
Thirty minutes later, we’re on the bench, the same one where it started, the water black and endless, the city just a smear of light.
He sits down next to me, hair wet, jacket zipped up to his chin.
“You okay?” he says.
I want to lie, but I don’t.
“I don’t want to hide anymore,” I say.
He leans back, closes his eyes. “Me neither.”
We sit there, side by side, the world just as dangerous as ever. But for the first time, I can see a way through it.
I can see a future where the truth is lighter than the secret, where the people who matter will understand, and the rest can get bent.
I turn to him, take his hand, and this time I don’t care who sees. I squeeze it, hard.
He squeezes back.
We watch the ferries crawl across the water, the lights flickering in the rain.
Tomorrow will be hell. Tomorrow we’ll have to make a decision.
But tonight, right now, we have each other.
And it’s enough.
The first thing you notice when you come off the ice isn’t the stink or the heat or the way your jersey fuses to your back.
It’s the sound, a relentless, bone-shaking, turbocharged version of white noise that never fucking stops. Media scrum.
Every game, every loss, every win, there’s a fresh wave of reporters waiting to jam microphones into your teeth and ask if you "feel like you let the team down." Usually they go for Raz or O’Doul, maybe Tommy if he’s scored.
Today, though, they’re lined up outside the showers, a salivating, highlighter-wielding army of them, waiting for Ash.
He’s not even out of his gear yet.
They’re at the door, waiting for him to towel off before they descend. I watch from the bench, helmet in my lap, hair still wet, heartbeat trying to slow itself down after a triple OT grinder that should have killed all of us but instead ended on a tip-in by the “eternal sub” himself.
Ash is first star of the game. First star.
The kid who spent two years as the eternal sub, the warm body they slotted in when someone else couldn't go, is now a starter, promoted to the first line three weeks ago when the tournament began and for the first time in his life, everyone gives a shit.
The captain tries to shoo the reporters away, but they herd him out like he’s a sheep dog that forgot its own name.
O’Doul starts up with the “press pass privilege” jokes, but even he shuts up once the wall of recorders and ring lights closes in.
The team mostly bails, scattering to the showers, letting the circus run itself.
I watch it from ten feet away, striping off my pads, trying to stay invisible, but not really missing a thing.
Ash is calm. The last four months have sandblasted most of the fear out of him. He sits on the edge of the bench, towel around his neck, nodding along as the first wave of local guys ask the classics.
How’s it feel to finally get your shot? What was going through your head on the winning play? How’s the hand? Are you ready for the next round?
He handles it better than I ever did. Gives the right quotes, gives the credit to the team. “I just had to finish what Darius started. Without the pass, there’s no play.”
He says my name like it’s a borrowed word, like he’s still not convinced it belongs to him.
The questions circle back, ratcheting tighter every round.
You ever think you’d get this far? What do you say to the people who wrote you off? Do you think you’ve proved you belong?
The edge in the questions is new.
Normally the press would rather interview a blender than a third-liner, but today they’re on him like he’s the next viral sensation, which in a way, he is.
There’s a beat.
Then, out of the mess, someone new steps forward. Not one of the old beat writers, not even the intern with the selfie stick, but a guy in a tailored jacket and an intensity to his face that makes him look like he’s either about to solve your murder or commission one.
“Vincent Chen,” he says, pushing in through the crush, every syllable of his name sharper than the last. “The Backcheck.” Nobody’s ever heard of it, but it doesn’t matter; he holds the room like he’s got a badge and a warrant.
But it's not the questions that get me.
It's the way he watches Ash, eyes locked, body angled in, everything else in the room dismissed. I recognize the look, because I've felt it on my own face.
Possessive interest.
He doesn’t ask about the play. He doesn’t ask about the team.
He looks right at Ash, cocks his head, and says, “What drives someone who’s been overlooked this long?”
There’s a pause, one of those rare silences in a media scrum, the kind where everyone wants to see if the target will flinch.
Ash doesn’t. He lifts his chin, wipes a trickle of sweat off his face, and meets the stare. “Just happy to be here, man. I know what I bring. I’m not flashy, but I don’t break.”
Vincent doesn’t blink. “But do you think that’s enough? To stick? Or is this just another season of being the sub?”
It’s a punch, and everyone feels it. Half the team would have folded. Ash shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out. Maybe I get lucky. Maybe someone up top realizes I’m not going anywhere.”
He tries to laugh it off. It’s not nervous, just raw. Honest.
Vincent smiles, but it’s not friendly. “Seems like you thrive on low expectations. Maybe that’s your superpower.”
Ash’s mouth twitches. “Better than having none at all.”
Some of the press peel away, heading for the captain or the coach. But Vincent stays, leaning in, gaze locked.