7. Marshall
CHAPTER SEVEN
MARSHALL
I was supposed to focus on hockey; we had a game against Philadelphia in four hours, and instead of going over plays, the only play I was going over was the way her mouth had opened under mine.
That was the only thought while I laced up my skates.
It had been four days, and I still hadn't been able to get that kiss out of my head.
We had flown in this morning. Normally we'd make the trip by bus, but since we had a game the next night in Pittsburgh we'd decided on the flight.
I should have been studying plays on the plane.
I should've been visualizing my positioning, running the sequences in my head the way Coach Briggs taught us.
Instead, I sat on the plane staring at the back of the seat in front of me, thinking about the sound Lillah had made in the back of her throat when I'd pressed her against the wall.
That small, sexy, involuntary sound I hadn't been able to get out of my mind.
The thing about the kiss was that it shouldn't have been as good as it was.
It was against a brick wall, outside of a very loud party, with a woman who'd told me to stay away from her more than once in three separate conversations.
It was messy and unplanned, and it lasted all of ten seconds.
By any objective metric, it was a mediocre kiss in mediocre conditions.
Yet, I couldn't forget the feeling of her hands, the way she'd gripped my shirt, the way she'd pulled me closer instead of pushing me away. The way she'd kissed me back, like she was angry at herself for doing it, which only made the kiss hotter, more charged.
I couldn't shake it. I'd tried. I'd done extra conditioning this week, gone for a run through the neighborhood at six in the morning, and even called my brother, which I do whenever I was trying to distract myself.
Chase had a way of talking for an hour about absolutely nothing, making you forget whatever was bothering you, but none of my usual tricks worked.
My brain kept looping back to the porch and her face in the porch light, to her words "that will never happen again" as her voice cracked.
"Get your head right, Hayes." I muttered to myself.
The game started at seven. I hit the ice for my first shift with Ashford on my left and Jeremy on the right. I tried to find the focus I'd had during my first home game, but it wasn't there.
I misread a pass and drifted too far into the neutral zone, giving their center a two-step head start on a zone entry.
During my second shift, the puck came to me on a breakout.
Jeremy fed it to me from behind our net.
It should have been a simple transition, but I held it for half a second too long.
That was all it took. Their defensemen read my hesitation and stole the puck.
Philly turned that steal into a two-on-one rush on the net that Ryan barely stopped.
Coach Briggs didn't say a word, but I saw his jaw tighten from the corner of my eye when I sat down, which was worse than anything he could have said.
The second period was the same. My passes were arriving late, and the decisions I was making in the offensive zone were awful.
I'd read the play, see the opportunity, but then I'd hesitate.
I took a hit along the boards during the second half of the second period, one I should have been able to avoid.
I'd seen it coming, all six-two, two hundred and fifteen pounds of him coming right at my left side.
Instead of moving or pivoting, I stood there as if my skates were glued to the ice.
The hit drove me into the boards, shaking the glass. He hit me so hard the air punched out of my lungs, and it felt like he had broken my ribs. The same spot that had been hit during the home game. I shook it off and skated to the bench.
"Get your head in the game, Hayes!" Briggs barked from behind me. His voice cut through the arena noise like a blade, and two guys on the bench flinched. His face was red and I could see the disappointment.
I nodded to him, but said nothing. When I got back on the ice, I tried to be better.
I wasn't.
During third period, I had one scoring chance.
A breakaway that I rushed into. I took a weak wrist shot, and the goalie caught the puck clean.
We lost the game four to two. I knew that I'd played the worst sixty minutes of my professional career because I hadn't been able to stop thinking about a woman who'd told me to leave her alone.
The locker room was heavy after. Nobody wanted to be the first person to say anything, so everyone stayed quiet. Coach Briggs walked in and made his way around the room. He looked at each of us, said nothing, and walked out.
I sat in my stall and peeled off my gear. My ribs were sore on the left side, the bruising had deepened from yellow-green to a darker color, and my right knee was aching again. But those were physical things, and those healed. What bothered me most was the fog I was under.
The late-night flight to Pittsburgh was quiet. Most guys had their headphones in or were sleeping, heads tilted against windows, the exhaustion of a game and a loss settling into their bodies.
I sat by the window, my forehead against the cold glass, my reflection staring back at me. Unfocused and distracted.
Jeremy dropped into the seat next to me. His headphones hung around his neck, and he had a bag of almonds and two bottles of water, one of which he handed to me.
"Thanks," I said, opening the bottle and taking a swig.
"Welcome. Want to talk about it?" he questioned.
"About what?"
"About whatever's got you playing like it was your first day on the ice."
I rubbed my face with both hands. "I'm fine. It was a terrible game."
Jeremy nodded.
"Yep, you're allowed to have those. Every rookie does.
Martinez had a stretch in his first year where he went six games without a single point.
Briggs barely looked at him." He paused, cracking an almond between his teeth.
"But you're not allowed to have terrible games because your head's somewhere else.
Briggs can tell the difference. He watches your eyes.
If your eyes are on the ice, he forgives the mistakes.
But if he notices your concentration is off, then he questions whether you're worth the investment.
I can tell you right now, Marshall, your eyes were somewhere else. "
I looked at him. Jeremy had a way of being honest without making you feel you were being attacked.
He delivered hard truths as if he were handing you a glass of water.
That was why so many of the guys trusted him, why the coaching staff used him as a bridge between the bench and the locker room, and why I trusted him even though I'd known him for less than six months.
"It's nothing," I said. "It won't happen again."
He studied me for a second. Then he shrugged.
"Okay. But if it's a girl—" He held up a hand before I could protest. "—and I'm not saying it is, but if it is, we've all been there.
Ashford had a thing with a yoga instructor his second year that had him playing like he was skating through mud for two weeks.
Even Ryan, steady, calm, the-ice-is-my-home Ryan, went through a stretch when his girlfriend was pregnant where he couldn't stop worrying long enough to track the puck.
I think that was his worst season ever."
"What happened?"
"Well, Ashford figured his shit out. Ryan talked to his girlfriend about it, and once everything was out in the open he came back stronger than ever.
The point is, it always works out better when you deal with whatever's bothering you instead of pretending it's not happening. Pretending only makes the fog thicker."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Do, because you have talent, real talent that this team needs. Don't allow something temporary to fuck it up."
He didn't wait for my reply. Instead, he put his headphones in and leaned back, closing his eyes, leaving me alone with his advice.
We landed in Pittsburgh in the early morning hours.
We went straight to the hotel which was the usual road-trip setup: two queen beds, a roommate I barely knew, Chambers, the quiet right wing from Ontario, who fell asleep within five minutes of walking through the door, and a minibar I vowed I would not touch.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my body aching from the game and my mind refusing to shut down.
I kept thinking about what Briggs had said.
Get your head in the game. A simple instruction in sports.
Be where you are, think about what's in front of you, and let everything else go.
I'd been doing it my whole life. I'd played through a strained hip flexor in college without missing a shift.
I'd played through the stress of the draft and the uncertainty of free agency and the pressure of moving across the country.
I'd always been able to compartmentalize, to put the non-hockey things in a box and close the lid and not open it again until the game was over.
But Lillah Winters wasn't fitting into any compartment.
She was leaking through the walls and seams. Through every gap I tried to patch, she came through, and I couldn't figure out if it was because she was that hard to forget or because some part of me didn't want to forget her.
I closed my eyes. Tomorrow's game against Pittsburgh, I'd play better.
I'd focus and be the fast and aggressive player that the scouts had flagged and that the Enforcers had invested in.
I would prove to them that tonight was a terrible game, then after this road trip, I'd figure out what I was going to do about Lillah.
We flew back to Boston two days later after beating Pittsburgh two in a row.
I'd played better, still not great, though it was enough to earn a nod from Briggs, which was better than the alternative.
The fog had lifted, or at least thinned.
I'd spent the morning before the game watching replays in my hotel room, watching my tape from the Philly game, forcing myself to see every mistake and every hesitation.
It was almost eleven when I pulled into my driveway. The neighborhood was quiet, and most of the homes were already dark. I was tired and climbing out of my car, gym bag over my shoulder and keys in hand when I heard her behind me.
She was walking Cooper, her phone pressed to her ear. She was talking to someone as she walked by, laughing at something they'd said. Every single interaction I'd had with Lillah up to this point had been some variation of conflict, but I'd never once heard her laugh.
Cooper trotted alongside her on his leash, his tail swaying. Lillah hadn't seen me yet. I was standing beside my car in the dark, hidden in the shadows. I knew I should go inside and stop watching her like some kind of creep, but I couldn't move.
She was in her usual attire: sweats and an oversized hoodie.
Her hair was down, hanging loose. I watched as Cooper pulled her toward a neighbor's yard, as if he were following a fresh scent trail.
Lillah tugged him back gently and said something into the phone that made her laugh again as she rounded the curve at the far end of the street.
I was about to go inside when something caught my eye.
Across the street, a woman was walking a Rottweiler. She was fumbling with her phone, texting with one hand while the other held the dog's leash. She was so focused on her phone she wasn't paying any attention to the dog.
The dog drifted toward the front yard two houses down from mine.
The leash slipped out of the woman's hand, and the dog trotted over to the edge of the yard, sniffed the grass, circled once, and squatted.
The dog did its business on someone else's lawn.
When the woman looked up and saw what was happening, she glanced around the street and then, without even pretending to reach for a bag, she grabbed the dog's leash and kept walking.
She rounded the corner and disappeared as if nothing had happened.
I stood there, keys in hand, with my mouth open.
Lillah was right. It wasn't Cooper who did his business in my yard.
It had never been Cooper. It had been that Rottweiler, and Lillah had told me all about her, how she barely holds the leash half the time because her face is always in her phone.
She had given me the answer, and I'd been too stubborn to listen.
My stomach dropped. I'd pounded on her door at ten at night and accused her dog while she stood there telling me the truth that I refused to believe. I owed her an apology. A real one, not the half-assed kind I'd offered after I spilled coffee on her in the coffee shop.
I went inside, dropping my bag in the hallway, and headed to the kitchen. The house was quiet, and the Ring camera I'd installed was blinking its blue light. I pulled out my phone and checked the footage from the past four days. Not a single frame of Cooper in my yard.
I was going to have to apologize to Lillah.
Maybe I'd find out what she looked like when she wasn't mad at me.
Plus, I wanted to hear that laugh up close.
I wanted to know if there was a different version of her than the one I'd seen the night I showed up on her porch, which started the war between us.
I wanted to know.
And wanting was a problem I was going to have to deal with. But first, the apology.