Chapter Eighteen
Leo
Lachlan slams the locker shut. “We should’ve won that. It’s Philly. They’re ranked dead last. Fucking bullshit.”
Guilt and anger hold a pissing contest in my chest as I slump forward on the bench. I’ve been sitting here so long, most of the team has cleared out. Not Lachlan, though, unfortunately.
The loss is my fault. I know it, and everyone else fucking knows it, too. Vivi looked at me like I were a kicked puppy. Fallon, the trainer, asked me if I needed her even though I skated off the ice just fine.
But I’m not fine.
One wrong move tonight flipped the switch in me. My arm started screaming in agony and hasn’t let up since.
I could’ve made the save and kept us tied. Our shooters would’ve gotten the job done in OT.
But I slipped up when it counted. The pain won, my arm locked up, I let their puck past me. Anders was counting on me to be there, never would’ve expected me to freeze that badly, so he wasn’t ready, either.
That’s on me.
“We lost a hell of a lot more last year,” Nic says, trying to ease the tension. “We’ll get back on track tomorrow. Right now we’ve got a flight to catch, so quit your bitching and let’s go.”
While his words are appreciated, any words right now hurt my head. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, praying for relief. They’ll think I’m boo-hooing about the loss.
Let them.
This level of pain happens sometimes. Something slips out of place, or pinches, or whatever it is that triggers this level of intensity—this shooting, sprawling pain that makes it hard to breathe or move or think.
Liar.
It’s never been at this level.
I need a distraction so I can stop fixating on it long enough to get up and get out there—to the shuttle, and then the dark team jet.
Sadie.
I try to focus on thoughts of her to dull the pain, on the shade of her eyes, the warmth of her touch and laugh. Even though I don’t want her to see me like this—any more than she already has while I was on the ice—I wish I were going home to her tonight.
Right now, all I want is a hug and to hear her voice when it’s just for me, not shared with the whole team. That would be enough.
I am pathetic. In more ways than one.
The truth is, even if I could see her, I don’t think I should.
It’d be impossible to hide my pain right now.
I want the woman more than I want my next breath, but I want to keep playing hockey just as much.
Sadie is the answer to almost every one of my problems, but she’s also the one problem I can’t solve.
“Aren’t you going to say something, captain?” Lachlan snarls. “Something to motivate us after you cost us the game?”
“No.”
Breathe.
The pain has been almost this bad before. After I slept and iced it, it was manageable. It will be manageable again.
“Why not? You had plenty to say last week—”
A voice rumbles across the locker room. “Shut up, Lachlan.”
It takes me a second, but I lift my head to make sure I’m not imagining who it belongs to.
Sure enough, it’s Ivan.
He’s in Lachlan’s space, easily overpowering him with sheer size and intimidation. “Back off.”
“Why should I?” Lachlan snaps. “We have to sit through his dumb speeches. He holds us accountable to our mistakes in practice. I can’t do the same when it’s his fault?”
“Explaining our mistakes in practice is what he’s supposed to do so we improve, idiot. What you’re doing is kicking a man when he’s down. There’s a big fucking difference. Now get dressed and get out. I’m tired of your attitude.”
“My attitude? Have you met yourself?”
Ivan looms over him. “Excuse me?”
Lachlan cowers, mumbling under his breath as he changes, trying to give himself the last word.
It’s confusing enough hearing Ivan’s ire directed at someone other than me, let alone hearing him take my side. Maybe I’ll thank him when I can see straight.
I rest my forehead in my palms.
I’m not sure whether it’s been minutes or a half hour when the bench creaks beneath me.
“Hey, asshole.”
Opening my eyes, I clock Ivan still in my periphery. He’s sitting beside me, though he left a foot of space. The rest of the room has cleared out.
“Your shoulder,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees as he leans forward. “Is it dislocated?”
Not that.
Probably something worse.
He’s the last person I want to talk about my shoulder with, given he’s the one who injured me in the first place. But I won’t be rude after he put Lachlan in his place. I don’t have the strength for a fight. “I don’t think so.”
“What happened, then?”
I tell part of the truth. “I have a migraine.”
That’s all he gets. I leave out the rest. That movement is nauseating. Sounds hurt. Light feels like a blade to my eyeballs. And all the while my seized-up, angry shoulder keeps feeding the migraine like a generator, sending its pain upstream.
“You get those a lot?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I manage. Speaking isn’t the most comfortable thing right now.
“Where are your meds, in your bag? I’ll get them for you.”
I’m laying off the ibuprofen before my kidneys shrivel up and walk off the job. Tylenol helps, but I’m all out. I don’t mess with anything stronger. I don’t want to be a statistic—another athlete who fell down a pain med rabbit hole. I’ll take some Aleve PM on the plane and try to sleep this away.
And it will be an uncomfortable ride, because it’s a plane.
“I don’t have any meds,” I say.
“You want me to get Doctor—”
“No.” He can’t know the extent of the pain I’m in. “I don’t need help, Ivan. I just had—am having—a shitty night. I appreciate you shutting Lachlan up, but I just need to get up and walk it off.”
He tilts his head to look at me. “So get up.”
He’s calling my bluff.
An embarrassing sucker punch of emotion slams me as I think about moving. “When I’m good and ready.”
I’ve been sitting for too long after aggravating it. I should’ve been up and moving. When I stand up, I’ll be dizzy. I need to take it slow, and I don’t want him to see me.
I close my eyes. But not even thoughts of Sadie are enough to distract me from the way this feels, the anticipatory pain of walking, getting on the plane, playing again tomorrow as though nothing is wrong.
“Leave me alone, Ivan.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why?”
His pause is long, and then his words are measured. “It’s one thing to know I hurt someone. It’s another to see the damage up close.”
Fury wells inside me. I’m so weak that he can see it. He knows I never got over it—never bounced back.
Maybe he’s paying closer attention because of his own part in the injury.
Or maybe everyone can see it, and I’m not hiding it as well as I thought.
“I’m. Not. Damaged.”
Maybe it’s a stupid, pointless distinction when he sees me crumbling like this, but I don’t care. I can’t acknowledge the truth out loud, because that would make it true.
“Then get up, Leo,” he bellows, matching my anger. “Walk it off.”
It’s a challenge.
Challenge is a language I speak. He knows that because he speaks it, too.
I can get up, walk it off, and play through this just like I have been. The season isn’t over, but we’re getting closer. I can make it to the end, and then I will reevaluate. Maybe I’ll get scans—but not until summer.
I can do this.
I push up to my feet.
My head throbs at the change, the shift, the redistribution of blood flow.
But I stay still long enough that it rights itself. The pain doesn’t knock me down. It doesn’t go away, not even close, but I can function.
I lift my duffel bag with my good arm. I’m moving, but I by no means feel good. Get to the shuttle. Get to the jet. Go to sleep.
I side-eye the hell out of Ivan, but it’s less comfortable than staring straight ahead, so I stop.
He didn’t have to stay, and I have no idea what sparked this change in attitude, but he got me off the bench.
Will wonders never cease.
“What do you want from me in exchange for getting Lachlan off my back?” I bite out.
“Play better.”
I scoff. “Okay, dickhead.”
“I’m serious.” He turns to face me, all traces of his usual rage missing.
“One more choke, and I’m telling Coach Rivers you’re lying about your arm.
Frankly, I don’t know how you’ve managed to hide it as well as you have.
The team is doing better—tonight not withstanding—and we have a real shot at the playoffs this year.
Don’t put me in a position to call you out.
Call yourself out before it gets to that point.
But for what it’s worth, I hope you don’t have to. ”
His words hit like the threat they are. “I’m fine. And I’d be a lot more fucking fine if you didn’t fuck me up in the first place.”
He blinks, shaking his head fast like he’s trying to clear a thought. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry.
Two words I’ve waited for. Now, I wait for them to sink in.
I thought I needed to hear them.
I narrow my eyes to hide my utter shock. “I thought hell would freeze over before Ivan the Terrible would apologize to me.”
He shrugs this off. “Eh, making amends. Don’t make it weird.”
As he heads for the locker room exit, frustration crowds out the anger I’ve been clinging to, and not just because I have no idea why he’s doing this now.
Being mad at him was easy. Now that he’s apologized, I have no one left to blame. Nowhere to direct my bitterness.
I can only try to overcome it, same as I have every day since it happened.
While wondering what the hell got into Ivan Czernecki.