Chapter 10 #2
Evan nudged Sam’s boot with his toe under the table. “So am I. I like watching you work already.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of sad I don’t get to watch you play a game. Although I have watched some of your YouTube stuff.” Sam gave him a wry sort of look, kind of waiting to see his reaction, he thought.
Evan snorted. “Yeah, which one? Like when I got hurt or…”
Sam frowned. “Yeah, I saw that one. That wasn’t fun at all.
There’s one of you having a fight, and I have to say you have good form.
I’ve seen a lot of bitch-slapping in the stuff I’ve watched on hockey, but you were really going for it, like that baseball pitcher, Nolan Ryan. You ever looked at that one?”
“Hell, yes, that’s an epic one. Cleared the whole bench, and he’s just kidney-punching the guy. Bang.”
“Yeah, that was kind of how you looked when you were fighting.” Sam winked at him. “It was a little hot.”
“Just a little huh?” Evan had to laugh at that. Of all the things Sam could think was hot.
“There’s also a montage of all your best saves. That was great. You’re skilled.”
He shrugged. “I used to be, that’s for sure. Just takes the one injury.”
Sam tucked into his lunch. “Yeah, that sucks man. I mean, we all got that, don’t we?
I know guys who broke their necks three-four times before they retired.
One guy got disemboweled in this arena, honest to God, they had to put him back in, after they washed the dirt off, of course.
It’s a hard damn life sometimes working our kind of jobs. ”
“You’re not serious.” He’d seen a lot of gross things—fingers, deep cuts, at that—but Jesus…
“As a heart attack. I didn’t see that one. I wasn’t there, but yeah, we play with animals that have horns and hooves and outweigh us ten times. Like anything else, it’s not if you get hurt, it’s when, and then it’s how bad.”
He shook his head, licked his bottom lip. “How about you? Is that like what happened your head?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yep. I caught a hoof, right behind the base of my skull. It was all nasty. Doc said he couldn’t believe that it didn’t just crush my skull like a cascarón, an eggshell, si?
I imagine it was the hand of God. I had a little girl I had to raise, no?
But yeah, I’ve had all sorts of broke shit. ”
Sam shrugged like it was nothing, and he got it, sure, but…well, he didn’t want to think about this man that he was just getting to know being hurt, losing the shot to know his grandbaby.
It made him a little queasy.
Obviously it didn’t show, though, because Sam kept on. “It’s no different than what y’all do, eh? I’ve seen some of the bruises, some of the scars. Sucks, but what are you going to do? It’s our job, it’s what we do.”
“It is, and I wouldn’t have traded hockey for anything, I have to admit. So who am I to say boo?”
Sam spread his hands and grinned and then went back to his burger.
They finished up pretty quick because Sam wanted to get back on the road, and they were heading out again in no time, both of them with a drink they got to go.
This was so normal for Evan. He loved being on the road.
He loved the hum of the motor and the view of everything going by.
Sure, he’d been a big-time player with a team that chartered planes for most of his career, but there had been a time when he’d been injured and he had to go down and do conditioning in one of the AHL teams. They traveled by bus. It had been kind of a hoot.
“So, you have to work tonight, tomorrow night, and Sunday afternoon?”
Sam nodded. “It’s an outdoor rodeo. It’ll be warm. I highly recommend the corny dogs and the funnel cakes, but the tacos are also pretty damn good. We’ll get fry bread up in Flagstaff.”
“And so, do you like this event?”
“It’ll be fine. It’s just me and Kacey. I’m not sure who the barrel man is, but I’ve worked with them all.
The nice thing is that as opposed to somewhere that’s just doing bull riding, he’ll actually be more than an entertainer.
So, whoever it is, he was a safety man first, then they found out he was funny and deserved more money because he could talk to the crowds. ”
“That’s really cool. So you have somebody else in the pinch if something happens.”
Sam shrugged. “Kacey and I can usually take whatever’s going on at these smaller rodeos and deal with it. But yeah. And we’ll have somebody on horseback too with a rope. The safety man.”
“It’s just so crazy to me. I’m really interested in learning all the moving parts.” He liked sports. He liked to learn about sports. He liked to be knowledgeable. So he was going to pepper Sam with questions, he was sure.
“Fair enough. My big knowledge of hockey is put the puck in the net, and also goalies are cool.” Sam managed to keep his face straight for about half a second before he got a shit-eating grin.
“All right, all right.” Evan snorted out a laugh of his own, willing to take his lumps. “I’m gonna teach you some things. You wait, I will get your ass out on an ice rink, and we will talk about hockey.”
“Just bring it on.”
Uh-huh. That was a brave face, but that was about it. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Sam, at this point, had still not agreed to get out on ice. He had the sinking suspicion Sam didn’t have the slightest idea about ice skates. It was cute as hell.
“I will. I’ll bring it, but not for a while. You have to work first.”
Thank God for small favors, Sam did reach over and grab his leg, squeezing a little bit. So he took Sam’s hand, figuring he would take it back if he needed it to drive.
This was gonna be so damn much fun, and he couldn’t wait to see what happened next.