Chapter 5
Chapter five
Roe Monroe
The Bench Social Media Group
Stanley “Stan” Gordon: Benji O’Rourke seen dragging Roe Monroe through Main Street like a lost puppy. Reports say they were looking at the “old bar,” emphasis on “old.”
Patti Jensen: My husband says Monroe asked about the permits to renovate. Do we think he’s thinking of buying it?
Riley Novak: I think the better question is, has anyone warned him the pipes in that place haven’t worked since the Obama administration?
It’s time for Jamie’s first game since he’s been working with me, and I’m nervous as hell.
Thatcher doesn’t sit with anyone at the game. I don’t know why this surprises me; he has a lone-wolf vibe. From my vantage point at the top of the stairs, I can look down on the ice and the gaggle of parents.
He talks to them, waves and up-nods and exchanges pleasantries. The thermal shirt he wears stretches across his broad shoulders, and I can trace the faint ripple of muscle down his back as his waist tapers to his jeans-clad ass. Yep, Jamie’s dad is hot as fuck. Sexy voice too.
Still, Thatcher sits alone, like there’s some sort of invisible bubble between him and the rest of the world. A bubble I don’t hesitate to burst by sliding right up next to him. If you ask me, Gabe Thatcher needs someone to burst into the bubble he wants to place around himself more often.
“Hey, man. Jamie’s looking good in warmups,” I say as I sit. I love the startled look that crosses his face before he schools it, and I smile as he frowns. Maybe he thinks he’s shooting daggers at me, but frankly, it’s endearing.
I rub my hands together. Teasing Thatcher is exactly what my nerves need.
“I figured you’d be down there.” Thatcher gestures to the players and coaches.
“I’m not his coach, and if my advice would conflict with his coach, I wouldn’t want to confuse him. Jamie doesn’t need to worry about who he should be listening to.”
Thatcher gives me a long look out of the side of his eye, as if my answer surprises him, but he doesn’t say anything. Alex sees us together from where he’s running the scoreboard and gives us a big smile and wave, and I up-nod him, but Thatcher ignores him completely, which makes me chuckle.
“Besides,” I tell him. “I’ve never done lessons or mentorship like this before. I have no way to know how I’ll react to him in a game.”
Thatcher gives me a little chuckle, not much more than a puff of air. “It’s just a game, Monroe. Pre-season.”
He may be right, but for the first time in my life I act like an absolute lunatic hockey fan. I mean, for fuck’s sake, who made hockey games this long? And should the kids really be able to hit each other that hard? I thought there were rules about that kind of thing.
Every time the puck hits the ice and Jamie is out there, I can barely watch. I’m holding my breath at every play, yelling at the top of my lungs in cheers when things go right, and shouting encouragement when they don’t.
And God help the refs when they don’t call it the way I see it.
My throat is raw and I feel a little unhinged at how serious it all seems to me, but I can’t stop myself.
Beside me, Thatcher is quiet, his focus intently on the game, and the only tell he has for how closely he’s following the action on the ice is the clench of his hand and how he holds his breath when Jamie touches the puck.
When the puck is against Jamie’s tape, I think he quits breathing altogether.
Jamie’s team comes back onto the ice from their break before the third period when Thatcher finally speaks, but I don’t think he realizes he’s speaking out loud.
His voice is low, more like he’s muttering to himself than speaking to me.
“Come on, Jamie, he’s been favoring the left all game. Take the five-hole. Angle right.”
It takes a few plays and turnovers, but Jamie does.
He gets the shot, and it’s the exact shot I would want him to take—slap-shot, six inches off the ice.
Masterful. Executed with skill and a little bit of burgeoning artistry as well.
Just like Thatcher said, the goalie executes well with his left, quick to cover the five-hole, but leaves too much space to the right—the exact place Jamie puts it.
There are a few players in the league who are known for deadly accuracy—if that’s a skill Jamie can develop, it’s a big one.
Thatcher lets out a breath like he and breathing are finally getting reacquainted, and I walk down a step or two from our seats to high five another parent just so I can turn around and see Thatch’s face.
I’ve never, in all my life, seen such a sweep of love and pride and hope battle with fear and dread. Emotions run like ticker tape across Thatcher’s handsome face. Thatcher may be a quiet, brooding, lone-wolf type, but he feels deeply. About Jamie. About hockey. About Jamie and hockey.
I look at the score, and in truth, the game was never really close. Jamie’s team dominated the entire time. Yet Thatcher’s pulse is visible in his neck.
I slip back next to him, and I spend the rest of the game watching Thatcher’s reactions more than the ice.
After the game, when Jamie comes out of the locker room, his eyes immediately go to Thatcher’s and they hug, Thatcher not caring as he wraps strong arms around a sweaty Jamie. They share a silly handshake that makes me smile as I lean in to speak with Jamie’s coach and Alex.
When Jamie comes over to give me a high five, there’s a quiet sort of pride in Thatcher’s green eyes as he watches his son. I tell the kid he did a good job and that tomorrow we can watch film.
Of course, Jamie’s first game signals the beginning of the hockey season, which means my own season is set to start soon enough.
Over the next few weeks, The Keep is all decked out in new finery.
Pendants of past wins are bright and colorful, new paint is on the upper deck where the concessions and entrances are, and there’s constant noise from Thatcher and the rest of his crew who are working quickly to make the updates necessary in the visitors’ locker room.
I’m on the ice, in the gym, and with the trainer, in a never-ending loop of hockey. The Keep will host an exhibition game with a European team first. It’s low stakes, but still the first game setting I’ve had in a year and a half. No pressure or anything.
And then there’s The Freeze. It’s coming, and Coach has already mentioned more than once that we’ll be expected to take part in it to some extent. Something about the Iceguard and the community.
The Freeze looms in the back of my brain because it’s a no-win situation. There’s very little for me to gain by winning a skills competition at a local festival. On the other hand, if I don’t perform—or take part in it—that could become a news story.
I hate a lose-lose scenario. All I can hope is that after our games start in earnest, my confidence will return too.
Between that and working with Jamie on the ice, I should be community member of the year in spite of my lack of desire to become a permanent Fox River Falls resident.
***
Finally, I wake up on the morning of the first game of my career comeback.
I’m up early, out of my apartment, and hopefully also out of my own head.
I start to walk the distance to the coffee shop, pausing along the way at the old bar that’s somehow gotten a hold on me in the weeks that I’ve been here.
I like to stop by when I’m walking to and from The Keep, to look in the door when the light is right and think about all the good times the place must have seen.
Doing it this morning centers something in me.
Maybe it’s routine or some sort of phantom nostalgia for a place like that old bar—a place of community, which I’ve never really had outside of a team.
And if I am being honest, hanging out with Benji and the rest of the Iceguard is more team time than I’ve ever had.
I was always either too young or too busy partying to form those kinds of bonds.
I finally make it to The Blue Line, where I grab my coffee. Riley knows my order now, and I can admit I don’t hate it when it’s waiting for me, and instead of having to order I can just pay and go.
Despite all of that, I’m on the rink earlier than anyone, running some light drills in minimal gear, just getting into the zone. Slowly, The Keep comes to life around me, and the smells and sounds of fans and hockey start to creep into my senses, so I head to the locker room to finish suiting up.
Diggs gives me a fist bump, and Benji waggles his eyebrows and up-nods me, his earphones in and his stare a million miles away. Yeah, I’m not the only one with something on the line here.
Every game matters.
Seems to matter more down here. In the NAPH, a bad game is more forgivable.
No one wants to have one, but they happen and everyone knows that.
Here, though, the pressure to be perfect, to prove you have what it takes to go to the next level is immense.
More than I could have imagined, and something I think only makes sense if you’re in it.
Someone who hasn’t been here wouldn’t understand.
I go through my pregame rituals, but they don’t do as much to calm me as being on the ice does. It’s all a blur until that puck drops.
The European team is no joke. They lead us after the first period, but Benji and I are just synching up. He up-nods me—still not forthcoming with words today—when we hit the ice for the second period.
Now we’re more coordinated.
The game moves fast, the refs not calling as much as I’m used to in the NAPH.
By the time we hit the ice to begin the third, we’re tied.
I look up when I come off the ice for the other line to take over, for the first time noticing the sizable crowd at the rink.
Jamie’s smile is a mile wide, enjoying the game with a group of his teammates.
Thatcher is there too, sitting with the other parents a few rows up from Jamie and his team.
His bubble is smaller—he actually looks like part of the group—but the distance he keeps is still there, or at least, it’s noticeable to me.
In the last minutes of the game, Benji lights the lamp with an assist from me and it’s too close to the end for the Europeans to come back, although Diggs would have kept them out of the net. They didn’t get near as many shots on goal as they wanted, and when they did, he covered.
It was a solid game and I’m proud of it.
I’m proud of Jamie and his team cheering me from the stands too.
It’s different, they way they yell for me.
Like they know me personally, not just because I help the team they support come home with the win or because there’s team merch with my name sewn on the back.
But after I shower and dress and I’m ready to leave the locker room, I have to admit my knee hurts like hell. I know better than to ignore it, but still, it hurts my pride to have to limp, however slightly, out of the locker room.
Benji drives, and we go to a casual Italian place on the square—Volpe—where the team has secured tables for post-win dinner and drinks . . . along with half the town it seems. I slide into a seat with a wince, and Thatcher and Jamie are in my line of sight.
Jamie jumps up and comes to tell me good game, and I high five him, then we recount my best moments. When he leaves, Thatcher gives me a nod, and for a second I can’t help but wonder why he’s here of all places. Volpe is loud—one big open room that’s about as crowded as it gets.
Thatcher is still in his bubble, and this is the busiest place in Fox River Falls tonight.
He’s in the far corner of a booth with some other parents, and I see Jamie slip back into his seat at another table near his friends.
Thatcher’s eyes follow his son, watching him with his friends, and I get it.
Thatcher is here for Jamie. He wants Jamie to have this kind of community, even at the expense of his own comfort. That might seem like a small thing, but I know many men who wouldn’t bother with the inconvenience.
His eyes meet mine across the restaurant, and I smirk in his direction, raising my mocktail in a salute.
Those hazel eyes darken enough to be seen across the room, but I swear there’s a ghost of a smile that crosses his lips.
Good. Maybe I am wearing him down.
He’s going to do more than look at me and grimace. One day.
The connection snaps when an attractive woman, one of the moms of a kid on the team, leans over and asks him a question. She’s fully in his personal space, and he smiles politely.
For some reason, that makes my stomach flip.