Chapter 18 Practice
PRACTICE
The next day, I called in sick. Even before I remembered that Hannah had made plans for us. Holidays? Late to work? Sick days? Who was this person? This was not my usual style. Also, the idea that had been hatched last night had lost all of its appeal in the light of the morning.
A ping from my phone made my fragile head wince.
Drool’s driving us. Pick you up at three.
Okay, Lucy. Get it together. All you’ve got to do is show up, see him one last time, then tell your brain to forget him forever. I claimed a coconut water from the fridge and put it up against my head, pleased at the momentary soothing sensation.
“I love you coconut water,” I cooed.
It was ten past three when my doorbell rang. I trudged to the door to open it, finding Hannah looking back at me through dark glasses, a cup of coffee in a dripping paper cup in her hand. Next to her stood the grinning Doctor Drew.
“Are you ready for some… Hock-ey!” Hannah tried to say with fervor, but it fell flat.
“I think I’m still hungover, Han. This feels like a really bad idea.”
“Same. You think they’ll open the bar for this? I could really use something to take the edge off the throbbing hell that is inside me.”
“I highly doubt it, Han.”
“Well, I bought some seltzers just in case.”
“Hi Drool,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster.
“Oh, hi there.” He raised his hand in recognition, ignoring that I’d gotten his name wrong. “You can call me Doug. It’s Lucy, right?”
‘Dog drool’ was the first thing that came into my head, and I tried to hide a smile as I nodded and we headed to the car.
The practice rink was a smaller space next to the main arena, perhaps a few hundred seats surrounding the ice.
As we stepped inside, the soft chill from the ice felt pleasingly soothing on my sore head.
For a moment, I closed my eyes, letting it tingle my skin, feeling certain it could heal me.
Then a puck slammed into the plexiglass right next to my face, making me jump and screech.
The sound of sharp steel scratching across the ice, the clack of wood on vulcanized rubber pucks, the shouts and shots rattling off the plexiglass, none of it was lost under the swell of the crowd here.
The sounds echoed out and felt more real than I’d ever heard at any game.
It was raw and unfiltered, harsh-sounding in the air.
As if all the music had been stripped away and there was just a bass line and a clunking rhythm guitar left.
All the other people there, maybe twenty or thirty in total, were scattered in a stand to one side, and we went to join them. As we did so, a group of women, some adorned in Ice-Hawks shirts or caps, immediately gave us suspicious looks, wondering who the outsiders were.
We took our seats and watched the rush of movement below.
The players seemed huge up close and padded up, giant man mountains rushing about with a mix of exquisite balletic skill and raw violence.
Each drill was so quick and intense. Shots ricocheted, ice sprayed, and there, right in the middle of it all, was Randall Jackson.
I honestly don’t know what I expected to feel when I saw him again. On the surface, he looked like the same man I’d briefly known that past summer. But in this setting, it was odd to see none of his cockiness or cheekiness on display. Just a man playing a game of hockey with ice-cold focus.
The coach called the players into a sudden skating drill, sprinting from line to line on the ice.
A couple of the players rolled their eyes, but Randy didn’t hesitate.
He gave everything to get to the line first each time.
His chest billowed and burst with exertion, but still he pushed harder and harder.
Before we arrived, I’d wondered what would happen when he saw me.
But now, I knew that he wouldn’t see me at all.
While some of the other players occasionally waved a glove at people in the seats by us, Randy just chased puck after puck, panting, sweating, working.
And he was working. Like his life depended on it.
I overheard one of the women behind me talking, “What’s gotten into Randy? He’s always taking it too seriously. He used to be kind of funny.” Then she stood up and hollered, “Get ‘em, Dan!”
My intrigue made me look over and follow the voice, and my eyes locked with those of a woman in lipstick-red sunglasses and a matching loud dress with huge shoulder pads that both looked like they could have been props from an 80s movie.
She grinned back at me, then pointed over my shoulder to the ice, saying proudly, “That one’s mine, the juicy one.”
As my eyes returned to the ice, the goaltender lifted his stick back at her. Behind him, a player rattled a shot into the roof of the net while he was distracted.
“Janek, what the hell!” The coach screamed. “Blue lines now! Go!”
Janek dropped both his head and his stick and started skating to the lines, while another goaltender seamlessly slotted in to his position for the shooting drill.
“Booo!” The woman called out toward the coach, her hands shaped into a makeshift megaphone. She gave the coach a thumbs down, and he shook his head in disbelief at her, before she turned her attention back to me.
“You’re new. Are you with one of these guys?”
“Oh. No. Not really.”
She squinted her eyes at me, unconvinced. “Hmm, Reese? No? Jake then!”
“Leave her alone, Kensy,” the woman next to her said, laughing.
“Well. You just keep your hands off my Dan,” Kensy said to me.
“I guess I sort of know Randall,” I told her. “But I mean, not really.”
The two women looked at each other, then turned back to me with shining eyes. Both their mouths opened and, at the same time, they uttered the same word in a way that made it sound awe-inspiring…
“Mexico.”
My face instantly reddened. How could they know that?
When all I did was gawp back at them, they leaned in, giving a quick glance over their shoulders.
“Don’t let the other girls know,” Kensy told me. Before the other one added with a serious expression, “They don’t keep secrets, and they’re not subtle.”
A small boy, small in age but not in size anyway, came running along toward us holding a plush tortoise that had seen better days.
“Sarah, is it okay if I get snow cones for me and Pascal?”
“Sure, Maiden. Just come right back, okay?”
“Cute kid,” I said, as he hurried off.
“Oh, yeah. He’s not mine. I mean, not exactly.” Sarah told me.
Kensy chimed in, “See that big ogre in the middle?”
We looked at the fierce-looking giant player in the middle of the ice, and I nodded.
“She’s with him,” Kensy gushed. “That one is the mini-version.”
“That’s Hayden, right? The captain?”
“Yes. And he is obsessed with her!”
“Kensy, stop, please.” Sarah laughed, embarrassed.
“He is, though.” She added triumphantly.
Hannah chimed in, “Seltzer, anyone?”
“Heck, yes,” Kensy replied, and Hannah handed her and Sarah one.
We sipped our seltzers and watched the players flying around for a while longer, until the coach blew a whistle that echoed over the ice, and all the rushes of activity stopped.
“Be back here at 10 am tomorrow for the team meeting.”
As the other players began to leave the ice, I watched Randy skating around, picking up the training cones and sweeping the pucks into the net.
“Oh. Now here comes trouble. Good trouble.” Kensy said with a wink as the team captain made his way toward us.
“Daddy!”
“Hey Champ!” He smiled at the little boy.
“You doing okay?” He asked Sarah.
“Yeah, we were just chatting to Lucy here.”
The way she said my name indicated something more than a normal introduction.
“Well, hey.” He said as he turned his attention to me.
Hayden Raynor wasn’t just big. He was gigantic.
His frame was only part of it, too. The shadow that fell from him seemed to cover everything in its path and made him even more imposing.
My heart almost froze as he stood in front of me.
So this is what it feels like to face off against the man they called the ‘Hellraiser’.
Despite his overwhelming presence, there was something oddly soft in his features.
A kindness behind that cold, steely stare.
“Wait… The Lucy? From Mexico?”
Ugh… Did everyone know? I felt awkward and embarrassed to find that I was a topic of gossip. What had Randall been telling them?
“Um, I guess.” I squeaked back at Hayden.
A big paw came up and scratched thoughtfully at his thick and dark stubbled chin. “Huh. Can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Me? I mean, okay.”
The gaggle behind us seemed to delight in this, as if I’d been pulled aside by the teacher in front of the whole class. I could feel them all watching as I sheepishly followed Hayden down to the tunnel leading out into the entrance.
Once we were out of the sight of prying eyes, Hayden turned and considered me for a moment.
“So, look. I don’t know what you’ve done to Randy…”
I crossed my arms defensively. After everything, I didn’t feel like taking the blame for him as well.
“Hey, I haven’t done anything to him! You know Randy. Everything that happens, he does all to himself.”
Hayden looked at me and grimaced.
“Yeah, I know Randy. But this Randy. He’s different.”
“So, what? I need to leave him alone? Because, trust me, I know.”
Hayden looked at me with a strange expression.
“That’s… Not what I meant.”
“Okay, so what is it?”
“Since he turned up to pre-season, he’s the first to training, the last to leave.
He skates harder than anyone on the team.
He’s stopped chirping and show-boating. He doesn’t do interviews, doesn’t stay out the night before games.
Doesn’t call me at two in the morning to tell me, well, weird stuff.
.. It’s like he’s still Randy, but better. ”
“So… That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, it is. And I know by the way. About that whole Mexico thing.”
“What is it you know, exactly?” I asked suspiciously, blushing as images of peaches rudely interrupted my thoughts.
“All I know is when I asked him what was going on, he said he met some kind of guru out there that made him realize some things about himself. Like, that he could actually care about someone other than himself for a moment. That it’s not all about him, and he wanted to try and give a damn about the people around him.
That it can be about what he can give, not just what he can take. ”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”
“Yeah. I nearly fell off my chair when he said it!”
“Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”
“I don’t know if I should say this, Lucy.
And it’s none of my business. But, I’ve been going through something myself, about trying to be better.
And I found someone who makes me want to be that every day.
I was always working to be a good dad and a strong captain.
I think I forgot that sometimes you have to show weakness to show real strength.
That love is stronger than anger. Now I want to be a good partner, a better person. So, it got me thinking.”
“I’m listening.”
“Love can change you, is all.”
“Pah!” I half spat back at him. “This isn’t love, Hayden.”
“Well, you know, sometimes you hear the truth in the words that aren’t said.
And from what I know from listening to Randy, whether he knows it or not, I think that’s what he’s feeling.
Randy hasn’t experienced a lot of that in his life.
It makes him nervous. He’d rather shut the door in your face than let anyone in. ”
Then he gave me a look that made me want to groan out loud, like he was a proud parent or something. “You might just be the exception.”
“You’re assuming I want to knock on that door.”
Hayden just smiled back at me. An annoying knowing smile that made me feel mad.
“You don’t even know me!”
“I’m starting to see why he likes you, though,” he chuckled back at my flustered face.
“Like me! I don’t think he even gives a damn about me, but thanks for your concern.”
“I’m just telling you that, if it’s what you want, perhaps you should go for it.”
“Sure, because it’s good for the team.”
“No. Because it’s good for Randy.”
“Well, thanks for the team talk, captain.”
I crossed my arms again and scowled at him, feeling like an angry field mouse negotiating with the hawk that was about to eat it.
Hayden reached into the glove that was nestled under his arm and pulled out a laminated pass.
“This is a pass for the players’ area. Randy’s usually last to leave, so if you did want to catch him, you’ll find him in the tunnel in about an hour. Up to you.”
He stretched out his hand, and I reluctantly took the pass with a swipe, feeling like I had little choice in it. Not that I would be hanging around waiting for Randy like some fan-girl.
Hayden shrugged and turned away, “Sometimes, just taking the shot is better than waiting for the right moment.”
Great. Even my mantle as “Love Guru” had now been taken by some hockey-playing monster who thought he was Cupid.
“What was that about?” Hannah whispered in my ear as I went back and sat with her and Drool.
I showed her the pass and rolled my eyes, “I guess you’re not the only person who thinks it’s a good idea for me to see Randall.”
“Oh, alright! We can finally find out what the heck happened with that chump. That was the point of coming here, right?”