Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALEXIO
I hated admitting that my jackass coach was right, but I became profoundly aware of the fact that the PPHL was getting less than when I couldn’t find their games anywhere on even the most obscure ESPN. They had fucking hobby horse riding but not blind professional hockey? It was a pile of shit.
Luckily, the PPHL divisions had their own YouTube channels with live games. They made me subscribe, but I supposed if my money was going to go anywhere, I didn’t mind it going there.
The Legends were on a seven-day roadie, and when I wasn’t on the rink for games or practice, I was glued to my laptop, watching Jonah in the net. He really had lived up to the little pet name that had tumbled past my lips when I was talking him off in the bus bathroom.
Sparky, because he was a fucking spark, though on the ice, he was a blazing inferno.
It was near impossible to see his face beyond his goalie mask, but his body language spoke volumes. He was angry. He was stressed. He was tired. And he was using that to fuel himself to get through the game, three of the seven won in a shutout.
But I had a feeling he was collapsing at the end of the night because if Tiago was right when he texted me, Jonah wasn’t taking care of himself. He wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours, and he wasn’t eating apart from choking down protein shakes and nibbling the corners off protein bars.
He was going to ruin himself, and as much as he did piss me off with that smart mouth of his, I didn’t want to see that happen. He played good fucking hockey. All of them did. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole for not believing it was possible before now.
I was just like everyone else—every single person who was the reason no one took them seriously.
I didn’t think they could be good. I thought they could be okay in spite of their disability.
I didn’t realize that they could probably match us on the ice, even without half the accommodations their players requested.
Tiago was a goddamn freight train. There was technically no checking allowed in PPHL hockey, but half the players spent most of their ice time in the fucking sin bin because they wouldn’t stop slamming into each other.
And watching Matty tap his stick on the ice and then Tiago pass him the puck was fucking beautiful.
He caught it with an ease and a grace I never possessed.
And watching as he wove through the other players, spinning left and right, keeping the puck on his stick, and taking the perfect shot on goal…
Fuck, we should be taking lessons from them this year.
And that was the idea I had rattling around in my head when I made my way to the arena for morning practice.
It was quieter than usual. There was a massive snowfall over the city, and that always seemed to keep everyone a little subdued. I made my way into the gym and found Vanya on the treadmill and froze when I noticed he was wearing a blindfold.
“Uh. Vanny?”
He didn’t turn his head. “Wait, wait. Let me guess…”
“Van—”
“I said wait. Is…Sven. No accent too different. Not Kossy…” He took a deep breath. “Zeki?”
“What are you doing?” I asked, throwing my neck towel around the handle of the elliptical and stepping on. I punched in my code, which adjusted the settings, and then I got to a gentle jog before looking over.
Vanya pulled the blindfold off his face, and I could see then it had a Legends logo on it with some screen-printed braille dots. He must have stolen that from their locker room. “Was trying to see if I could run like little Jonah.”
“He’s not that little,” I reminded him. He was shorter and thinner, but he wasn’t tiny.
Vanya snorted. “He is little to me. Everyone is little to me. Even you, Zeki.”
I flipped him off before increasing my speed.
I needed to work up a sweat. I should have been watching tape for the last three days, and instead, I was watching the Legends’ old playoff games, jerking off after to the sight of a sweaty, grinning Jonah throwing his bucket across the ice and smacking a massive kiss to Tiago’s mouth when they won the cup.
“Why you so pissy this morning?”
“I’m not,” I grunted. I gulped down a few mouthfuls of Gatorade before turning to look at him. “You ever watch the Legends play?”
“Mm, yes. Been going to their home games for years. You watch too? Why you never call me and invite?”
“No, I—” I sounded like an ass. “I never had the time.”
He lifted a brow at me but didn’t call me on my bullshit.
“I was watching some of their old tape last night.” He didn’t need to know how many last nights I’d been glued to it. “I was thinking maybe—since we’re working on the rebuild—we should ask them if they want to train together a little.”
“Steal their plays. Is very dirty, Zeki. Criminal.”
“With permission,” I told him. I gritted my teeth so hard my temples ached.
He sighed and shrugged. “I mean, is not terrible idea. If we learn from their team, then our team’s not expecting, you know? Because their plays different. They listen.” He tapped his ear. “And they’re so fun. We have beers sometimes after long game nights. You should come. You would like.”
“Pass,” I said, but normally, when it felt good to ignore his invite, this time, something in me ached. “Does, uh…does Jonah go out?”
“Mm, no. He has so much going on. With his dad. You see Peter today?”
I shook my head. “No. Nikos is staying there for now. But I was going to drop by tomorrow and help him go through the pile of paperwork he found in his closet. He said there are a couple doctors on there, so we can make a few calls.”
Vanya shook his head. “Is so fucked-up what his wife did. And Jonah seems so sad about it.”
I bowed my head. I didn’t want to comment this time. It was too complicated, and I didn’t know enough. Only what he’d said out loud when he was interviewing the shitty home health nurse, and that had been enough to shift my entire perspective.
It didn’t mean I liked him any more, though I was starting to wonder about that because every time I saw his face, my guts started doing strange things. But it did mean I understood a little better. And having dealt with Peter for this long, I could see him being the man Jonah hated.
“Well, anyway,” I said, “I think I might talk to Noah about an additional practice with their team.”
“Okay. I tell Tucker. He’ll be saying yes though.”
I lifted a brow at him. “You think?”
Vanya snorted. “Yes, we good friends now. Of course he say yes to me. And if he tells me no, I just whine to his husband, and he make Tucker say yes.”
“You know his husband?”
Vanya looked confused. “Of course. Amedeo. Very small, very shy. He cook me delicious Italian dinner last night.”
“Jesus Christ, Vanya,” I muttered.
He blinked at me, his eyes wide and owlish. “What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He was so fucking weird, and I was so damn envious because I wished I could be like that, but I had no idea how.
It was easy to be a dick. It was easier to be friendless because then I didn’t have to try so hard, and I didn’t have to feel the stab of disappointment in my gut when people found me off-putting and rigid.
It was simpler to just keep to myself, play good hockey, and eventually retire into some kind of obscurity.
It was what I wanted.
Or, at least, what I told myself I wanted.
I could worry about the complicated shit after the NHL. For now, this was fine.
And with what I had going on with Jonah, maybe it was better than fine. Maybe, right now, it was pretty fucking good.
Peter was watching TV when I got to his place.
The apartment was overly warm, though there was a window open in the corner, and it smelled like Nikos’s cooking.
I found him and the long-haired friend of Jonah, Ford—I think—in the guest bedroom, sitting on the floor surrounded by a bunch of open boxes and stacks of paper.
My eyes caught on Ford, and I realized that he’d taken his leg off. He was in long sweats with one of the pant legs tucked into his waistband. I did my best to look away as quickly as I could, but I was pretty sure he caught me.
He didn’t seem uncomfortable though. He offered something like a smile and gestured to one of the boxes. “Dig in, if you feel up for it.”
My bones ached and popped as I sat, propping my back against the wall. I was bruised to hell and back from a nasty check I’d taken from one of San Diego’s fucking D-men. A giant-ass Finn in his rookie year who fought like he had something to prove.
He was tossed in the second period for high sticking and clocking Antero under the chin. He’d seen us walking out after the presser and blew a couple of kisses. Antero offered him double middle fingers, and he laughed his ass off all the way to his gigantic SUV.
“You good?” Ford asked, eyeing me carefully.
I grimaced as I pulled a stack of papers into my lap. “Not too bad. Getting a little old to be taking hits like the one I had last night.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Those SoCal teams are fucking brutal. Who would have thought, you know? Like, fuckers have weed and the beach. What are they so pissed about?”
Probably because their teams were shit and hadn’t seen a playoff game in about six years, but what the fuck did I know?
“Getting on a plane with my ribs swollen as fuck didn’t help,” I told them, trying to make sense of what I was holding. It looked like some kind of repair bill, so I set it to the side. “So, what am I looking for here?”
“Doctor office appointment notices or anything for neurology,” Nikos said. “A lot of this stuff looks like Peter’s wife had been using his closet for storage. I don’t even think any of this shit is what most people keep. Not even for taxes.”
“It definitely isn’t,” Ford said with a grimace. “No one is ever going to ask for a four-year-old receipt for dishwasher repair.” He tossed another sheet of paper away. “God, she’s such a fucking bitch.”
I winced. “Jonah’s mom?”