Chapter 9 Jacks #2
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I think everyone feels like that sometimes, like they’re supposed to want things they don’t want or feel things they don’t feel.”
Skyler studied me for a moment. “You felt that way?”
“Sure, especially after my injury.” Now it was my turn to offer a bitter laugh and stare into his whiskey from across the table.
I ran both hands through my hair and tried to tamp down emotions I’d thought long buried.
When I spoke again, my voice sounded so small, so distant, even to my own ears.
“It’s . . . I had this whole life planned out, you know?
I was going pro, following my dream. It was all coming true.
After all the doubts and fears and . . .
and everyone telling me I was stupid for wanting . . . and then . . . it was just gone.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I had to fight—really fight—to keep them from falling. I could feel Skyler’s gaze, intense and assessing, as he watched me fidget with my fingers.
“It took me a long time to figure out who I was without football. I think my dad put a ball in my hands before I could walk, and all of a sudden, it was ripped away. Only then, it wasn’t just a ball stolen from me; it was a whole life, a whole future.
I had no idea what I should do then, what I should want.
Hell, what I actually wanted versus what I thought I was supposed to want. ”
Skyler never stopped me or interrupted. He sat there, quiet, listening. I dared not look up, but his sympathy wrapped around me. How that happened, how he did it, I had no idea.
His voice quiet, almost drowned out in the murmuring noise of the bar, he asked, “And did you? Figure it out, I mean?”
I thought about Barbacks, about Finn and Mark and Benji, and about the life I’d built from the wreckage of the one I’d lost.
“I think so. Maybe . . . mostly,” I said, looking up and letting him see the pools threatening to spill over. “It’s all still a work in progress, but I’m happier now than I was trying to force myself into a shape that didn’t fit.”
Football. I was still talking about football. Fuck.
“A shape that didn’t fit.” Skyler nodded, turning that over like tasting one of Rod’s new dishes. “Yeah. That’s what it feels like.”
We sat with that for the longest moment, listening to everything but hearing none of it.
“Sorry,” Skyler said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to get all heavy on you. I came here to not think about stuff, and instead I’m dumping my existential crisis on a guy I barely know.”
“We’ve exchanged DMs. That makes us at least moderately acquainted.”
“One DM exchange makes us mates?”
“Are you trying to slip an Aussie-ism past me?” We exchanged a much-needed grin. “Besides, it was a very meaningful DM exchange. You admitted to almost vomiting in my parking lot. That’s basically a blood pact.”
Skyler laughed, and this time it sounded real. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Absolutely not. It’s my favorite piece of Skyler Shaw trivia. I’m saving it for when you’re famous enough to have a biography written about you.”
“I’m not that famous.”
“You have a blue checkmark and over two million followers. You’re a little famous.”
He waved me off with a scoff. “The followers are mostly hockey fans and people who think I’m hot.”
“Ah yes, the two genders: hockey fans and people who think you’re hot.”
He grinned. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
The words came out before I could stop them. For one horrible second, they hung in the air between us, charged with a meaning I hadn’t intended, but everything I truly felt.
Skyler’s grin faltered, and something shifted in his expression, quick and unreadable.
Then he laughed again, and the moment passed.
“You’re funny,” he said. “I forgot how funny you are.”
“Forgot? We talked like two days ago.”
“I know. I . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. I’m being weird. Just ignore me.”
“It’s hard to ignore you when you’re sitting right there.”
“You know what I mean.” He took another sip of his whiskey, and when he looked at me again, some of the heaviness had lifted from his expression. “I don’t know why, but I feel better, you know, being here and talking to you.”
“It’s the booth. Faux leather is very therapeutic.”
“First, it’s Naugahyde. Many valiant naugas gave their lives for your ass’s comfort. And second, I’m serious. There’s something about this place. About . . .” He gestured around us. “I don’t know. It’s easy here. I don’t have to be anything.”
I understood what he meant. Barbacks had that effect on people. Maybe it was the found family energy or the lack of judgment. Or maybe it was that sense that whoever you were when you walked through that door was exactly who you were supposed to be.
Whatever it was, I felt it, too, and it made an odd sort of sense.
“That’s kind of the point,” I said. “Mark and Finn built this place to be a haven, somewhere people could exist without all the outside world’s bullshit.”
“They did a good job.”
“I’ll tell them you said so. Better yet, you should tell them. Finn will pretend not to care but will do a secret happy dance in back. Mark will have your words scripted in calligraphy, framed, and hung by the door.”
Skyler smiled again, another real one, not the tired, hollow thing he’d walked in with.
We talked for another hour. The conversation drifted into safer territory: his disastrous practice that morning, my ongoing battle with the dying ice machine, and the increasingly elaborate pranks Murph had been pulling on his teammates.
He told me about the maple syrup incident in detail, complete with sound effects and hand gestures, and I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my water.
Around midnight, Finn caught my eye from across the bar and tapped his wrist. Whatever break I’d been gifted had lasted two hours—and was now over.
“I should get back to work,” I said. “Finn’s giving me stank face.”
“Stank face?” Skyler chuckled.
“The ‘you’ve been sitting on your ass for two hours while the rest of us worked’ look. It’s very effective. He should be an Italian mother instead of a bar owner.”
Skyler glanced at his phone and winced. “Shit, it’s that late? I have practice tomorrow morning.”
“Then you should stop drinking and go home like a responsible adult.”
“Probably.” He didn’t move. “This was nice, though. Talking.”
“Yeah.” I stood, hovering awkwardly beside the booth. “It was.”
He rose, standing close enough that I caught a hint of his cologne and the sweetness of the whiskey he’d downed.
“Thanks,” he said. “For listening. I needed this more than I realized.”
“Anytime. That’s what bartenders are for. Barbacks, too. We’re basically the same thing except less respected and worse paid.”
Skyler smiled. “I’ll see you around?”
“I’ll be here. That’s the thing about working at a bar. Very predictable location.”
He laughed, soft and warm, and something in my chest ached in a way I didn’t want to examine.
“Night, Jacks.”
“Night, Sky.”