CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Harriers played one more game on the road before flying home. They came back just in time for a dump of snow to smother the city of Boston. It was so bad by the following day that practice got cancelled.
“Fuck yes!” Tanner said to his roommates when they found out. “Snow day!”
They went out for a walk to a nearby park to go sledding.
That ended with a snowball fight and they were still laughing about it by the time they got back to the apartment.
Mickey made hot cocoa—or hot chocolate, whatever the fuck he called the shit he made with real chunks of chocolate and whipped cream, and then they played video games.
Other than breaks to pee or eat, they were pretty much glued to their controllers.
“This is the best day ever,” Tanner said around a mouthful of the chicken and spinach pasta thing Mickey made for dinner.
Tanner and Rafe had pretty much just grabbed stuff from the fridge and pantry cabinet and tried to stay out of Mickey’s way while he worked.
Although Tanner had promised he’d load the dishwasher after dinner. Ugh, that reminded him, he needed to do laundry soon too. He was running out of underwear.
It was late, long after dark, when Tanner’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
He ignored it because he was behind in Mario Kart and there was no way he was letting Mickey win again.
Thankfully, Rafe crashed his motorbike a few moments later and slowed Mickey down enough for Tanner to speed ahead in his go-kart.
He crossed the finish line just ahead of Mickey, tossed his controller aside, and whooped.
“I am starting to think that you bribed Rafe to do that just because I won the last three rounds,” Mickey grumbled. “You are a sore loser.”
“I’m not the one bitching right now, bud,” Tanner pointed out. He dug in his sweats pocket for his phone and grimaced when he realized Leif had called three times. He’d blown right past their agreed-on call time.
“Rematch?” Rafe said hopefully. “I promise, even if Tanner did offer to bribe me, I wouldn’t take it. Not against you.”
He gave Mickey a soulful look and Mickey leaned in to kiss him. Tanner rolled his eyes at his roommates. He was happy for them and all, but they could be really gross sometimes.
“Uh, probably not on the rematch, dude. I should go to bed,” Tanner said, rising to his feet.
Mickey shot him a sidelong glance. “It’s nine thirty pm, Tanner. This is early for you.”
“I didn’t say I was going to sleep,” Tanner pointed out with a wink.
Mickey sighed heavily. “If you have someone over, please try to keep it down.”
“I will!” Tanner said. “But I’m not having anyone over.”
Even Rafe frowned at that. “You shouldn’t go out tonight. The snow is still coming down. It won’t be safe.”
“I’m not going out either!” Tanner protested. Oh my God, sometimes it was like he was living with two eighty-year-olds. “There’s, um, someone I’ve been doing dirty video chats with lately is all.”
Mickey raised an eyebrow and Tanner hid a wince. He felt like he’d already said too much. “Annnyyyway,” he said, stretching. “Going to my room now!”
“Don’t forget the dishes!” Mickey called after him.
Tanner cursed under his breath and quickly gathered the dishes on the coffee table and carried them into the kitchen where he jammed everything in the dishwasher, tossed in one of the pod thingys, then slammed the door shut.
He jabbed at the buttons and sprinted for his room, his socks sliding on the hallway floor.
At the end of the hall, Mickey stared at him with a raised eyebrow.
Tanner cursed under his breath and shot him a jaunty salute before he darted into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
He nearly tripped over some clothes and he cursed again—louder this time—as he simultaneously tried to strip off his shirt and kick the clothing out of the way. Yeah, he really needed to do laundry.
He was just reaching for his phone when it buzzed again.
“Shit,” he muttered and dug it out of his pocket. He accepted the call and as soon as it connected, he said, “Hi, sorry!”
“Hi.” Leif narrowed his eyes. “Do I want to know why you were so late and look all flustered?”
“Oh.” Tanner laughed. “Uhh, honestly, just playing games with the boys. I beat them at Mario Kart.”
“Okay. Do you want me to let you go?”
“No,” Tanner said, pawing at the mess on his nightstand to find his earbuds. “I want to talk to you. Just … running behind. As usual.”
“Tanner,” Leif said firmly.
He lifted his head to look at the screen. “What?”
“Take a deep breath. I don’t think you’ve breathed properly since you answered this call.”
Tanner sighed, deflating. “Sorry, I was rushing and—”
“It’s fine,” Leif said. “Just … you seem really flustered.”
“I guess.” Tanner set his phone down. “One sec, okay?”
“Okay.”
Tanner found the earbuds, popped them in, made sure they were connected, then took a couple of deep, slow breaths.
When he no longer felt like the hamster in his brain was running full tilt on the wheel, he picked up his phone again. “I’m back. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.” Leif certainly looked calm enough. “Is something wrong or were you just running behind?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I was just in the middle of the game and then you called and I realized I was running super late and had already missed a couple of your calls.
And then I had to explain to Mickey and Rafe why I was abandoning them.
Without like, giving away what we’re doing,” he said with a small laugh.
“And just as I was leaving, Mickey reminded me that I’d agreed to do the dinner dishes, but I hadn’t stuck them in the dishwasher yet and then I remembered I need to … ”
“I think you better take another deep breath,” Leif said.
Tanner flopped back against the bed with a sigh. “Anyway, this is my life.”
“It looks stressful.”
“Sometimes,” Tanner said. “I mean, mostly shit is really fucking good, you know? Like I get to play hockey on a fucking awesome team, and I have great friends and roommates and get laid whenever I want, pretty much, and it’s just … you know, I feel super fucking grateful that this is my life.”
“That’s good.”
“And stuff was hard for my mom and me growing up, you know?” Tanner said, surprised that his throat suddenly felt a little thick. “After my dad bailed. If Jeff hadn’t stepped up, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Because you couldn’t afford gear and coaches and stuff?”
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “That. But mostly because—because I was a fucking mess. I was starting to hang out with these guys—and look, I fucking know hockey culture has its problems, like we saw all that shit that went down in Evanston with Jack Malone and there are other dudes in the league who are probably just as bad if not worse—but like, back then, I was hanging out with some bad dudes.”
“On the Furies?” Leif wrinkled his brow like he was trying to remember who they’d played with who was problematic.
“Nah, most of them were decent. It was before that.”
“Oh, okay.”
“They were—there was this hazing happening. And I went along with it. Didn’t say shit about it.”
Leif nodded, frowning.
“And like, I still feel bad about it. The kid was really fucking scared. He left hockey after that. I ran into him a few years later and he fucking flinched when he saw me. I already felt awful about what I’d done to him but that made me feel even worse.
I apologized but that only does so much, you know? ”
“Yeah.”
“Jeff was working with me as a private skills coach. I still don’t know how my mom managed to swing that. And I know you’ll say that she probably slept with him to—”
“I won’t. I swear. I know I said some things last summer, but I regret them now.” Leif looked weirdly earnest.
Tanner nodded and kept going. “So Jeff saw that I was struggling. He saw that I was starting to slack on hockey, that I wasn’t really focused the way I needed to be.
That I was hanging out with some guys who weren’t great and he sat me down and he talked to me.
And like, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to listen to anyone right then, especially adults. ”
Leif gave him a faint smile.
“But Jeff got through to me. And he just—he was that father figure I really needed back then. He got me back on track. That’s one of the reasons my mom was even willing to date him.
Because he’s a good dude, you know? He was so good to me.
And that’s why he wanted me on the Furies.
He’d be my coach and it would get me away from those guys and … ”
“It worked.”
“Yeah, it did,” Tanner agreed. “So every day when I wake up, I think about how fucking grateful I am for Jeff. Because without him, I might not have made it here, to the NHL. Or, even if I did, I might have—might have become like Malone or something.”
He glanced down and realized he’d been fiddling with the hem of his sweats.
“I don’t think you ever could have been like that,” Leif said.
That was probably one of the nicest things Leif had ever said to him and Tanner lifted his eyes to look at him. “Really?”
“Really. You—look, we both know you drive me crazy sometimes. But you’re a good person.”
“Even though you think I wrecked your chance at playing for Boston?”
Leif winced. “I don’t think that anymore.”
“You don’t?” Tanner sat up.
“No. I mean, it was easier, having someone else to blame, right?” Leif looked away. “The truth is, I was so fucking in my head back then. The pressure was getting to me, and I kept fucking up when the stakes were high. That’s always been my issue.”
“You’re not doing it now. You didn’t do it at the North Atlantic Tournament.”
“That’s because I have about five thousand coping mechanisms, thanks to my dad.”
“He’s the best.”
“Yeah, he is,” Leif agreed.
“So how do you cope?”
“When I get anxious and stuff?”
Tanner nodded.
“Lots of deep breathing. Meditation. Having routines.”
“And I fuck those up?”
Leif looked startled. “I mean, I suppose you make me have to—to be a little more flexible about them, yeah.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Would I be doing this if I did?”