JEREMIAH
Chapter playlist:
La Bomba — Ricky Martin
The anthem’s last note hasn’t even finished dying before fifteen thousand people at National Arena try to out-scream each other, and my brain, running on a completely different schedule than the rest of me, picks that exact second to drift into thoughts of… her. To wonder if she’s okay.
I haven’t seen her in three days. Not since that guy and his badge and his comb-over planted himself in her personal space and said something to her that turned her face a color I never want to see on her again.
Not since I felt her shaking against my ribs while she told me, straight-faced, that he was nobody.
Nobody doesn’t make a grown woman go that quiet.
Colt leans over during the anthem’s last bars, doesn’t even bother whispering. "You've had a faraway look all warmups. Is it a girl?"
I scoff. “It’s always a girl with you.”
“Because it’s always a girl, period.” He taps his stick against my skate and lines up. “Go win the thing. Therapy’s after.”
Houlihan wins the draw clean over Levi, and my night officially starts, because unlike Colt, the game does not care what I’m thinking about.
We came in confident. We should. Monday’s blowout over these guys had the whole team walking taller in the hallway all week, rookies doing a strut they think nobody’s noticed. I noticed. I did it too, a little. Apparently I’m still capable of a strut.
Jake takes the puck up the wing early, all elbows and purpose, and gets stuffed by their goalie, Davis, who I happen to know is playing tonight in a pair of lucky lime green socks under his gear because Bryce spent all of warmups trying to get a look.
We cycle back to the bench for a change, and Bryce is still going on about it two seats down.
“He’s not going to let anything in with those socks,” Bryce says, dead serious, like this is science.
“They’re socks, Bryce.”
“They’re lucky socks.”
I don’t have time to argue superstition with a grown man, because we hop back over the boards for our next shift. Jake breaks in alone, snaps one top shelf, and the whole building comes up out of its seats like we just won the whole thing instead of one goal in a whole five-game tournament.
I got the secondary assist on that one, a saucer pass that found Stone’s stick before Stone found Jake, and Stone skates the length of the ice just to slap my helmet before we settle back on the bench.
“That’s a filthy little pass,” he says, dropping in next to me, breathing hard, grinning wider.
“You made it look good.”
“I make everything look good.” He says it without a shred of irony, which is exactly why it’s funny.
For about ninety seconds I let myself feel something uncomplicated.
It lasts exactly until Houlihan ties it off a cross-ice feed, snapping it past Josh before he can square up.
“Rocket” is what they call him, and he skates the celly like he invented hockey. I skate back to the bench next to Levi, who lost that draw and has been chewing on it since.
“You good?” I ask him.
“I will be.” He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Houlihan. “That guy’s insufferable.”
Get in line. There’s already somebody ahead of him tonight.
Second period, they take the lead. Sullivan one-times a feed from the left circle before anybody can get a stick on it, and just like that we’re down 2-1, and I’m standing at the blue line replaying a museum sidewalk instead of watching a scoring chance develop. A guy could get benched for less.
We get two power plays off their penalties, back to back, holding and tripping, and on the second one Bryce gets a clean look from the slot and fires it wide, wide enough that he immediately turns to the bench and mouths I know before anyone can say it.
“Lucky socks,” I tell him when he sits down.
“Don’t.”
Late in the period, it gets chippy. Dante takes a slashing minor, Houlihan answers with a roughing call thirty seconds later and we head to the room down one, 4-on-4 waiting for us at the top of the third.
Badaszek doesn’t raise his voice between periods. He just stands at the whiteboard with a marker he doesn’t uncap and looks at us until the room goes quiet on its own.
“We won Monday. Today, we’re playing like we just learned to walk.” He caps and uncaps the marker once. Twice. “Nobody in this room gets to be tired tonight. Precio.” He looks straight at me. “You’re half a step slow on the forecheck. Whatever it is, leave it in the room.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“Good.” He almost smiles, which for Badaszek is the equivalent of a standing ovation. “Go get it back.”
Two minutes and twenty-one seconds into the third, Dash slides me a pass off the half wall. I one-time it, slap shot, top corner, and the net moves before Davis does. We’re tied, and I have hope we can turn this game around.
And then my goal song hits.
“La Bomba” comes through the speakers, Ricky Martin at full volume, and somewhere in the upper deck a cluster of Mexican flags unfurl like they’d been waiting all night to do it, and I stand there getting mobbed by my own teammates.
And even though I was born in Miami, I’m laughing, thinking one clear, stupid, proud thought.
Mexicans. We’re everywhere.
Dash tackles me into the boards, screaming something I can’t make out over the song, and half my teammates are pointing up at the flags like I personally arranged for them to be there.
Somewhere in Arizona, Abuelo is watching this on a delay and standing up out of his recliner right about now, and somewhere closer, in a building I can’t see from the ice, I hope a certain brown-eyed girl is watching too, even though I have no reason to think she would be.
For four seconds, I forget about everything else entirely.
The lead doesn’t last. Marchand puts them back ahead with a snap shot off a feed from Houlihan, who has now scored, assisted, and taken a penalty in the same game. A Gordie Howe hat trick, like that’s supposed to make it hurt less.
Later in the game, it gets desperate in both directions.
Nobody on either bench is sitting anymore.
Tyson drives the net hard enough to earn Davis’s full attention and gets robbed point blank, glove side.
At the other end, Brady fires a wrist shot that should go in, and Josh drops flat and kicks it out of the air. Yes!
Dante picks up a ten-minute misconduct with under three to play, which brings his night to fourteen penalty minutes and a look on Coach Badaszek’s face that I would not want directed at me.
We pull Josh in a desperate attempt to win with an extra attacker, but with the empty net, Reeves puts it away from center ice with sixteen seconds left. The horn goes off, and that's the game. 4-2. We lost, but the series is tied. We have to prove ourselves next match.
Downtrodden, we just skate off, and don’t stick around for the three stars, but I hear my own name over the tunnel speakers on my way to the locker room instead of on the ice.
Second star. One goal, one assist, and I still can’t stop thinking about her.
The locker room is quiet. That loss didn’t have to happen. Dante sits by his stall peeling tape off his stick, fourteen penalty minutes’ worth of regret on his face.
“Fourteen minutes, man,” Stone says, shaking his head and dropping onto the bench beside him. “You trying to set a record?”
“He hit me first.”
“Only because you chirped.” Stone claps him on the shoulder pad. “Ice it. We’ll get ’em Friday.”
Badaszek doesn’t say much on his way through, just a hand on a few shoulders, mine included, and a low “Two points tonight. Good game” that I’ll take, because I know for a fact he doesn’t say it when he doesn’t mean it.
Levi drops down across from me, still half in his gear, unwinding tape off his wrist in one long strip. “Houlihan again,” he mutters, mostly to himself.
“You’ll get him Friday.”
“I better.” He balls the tape up and throws it, missing the bin by a foot. Somebody two stalls down floats a whole game plan for Friday that boils down to “let Josh block everything again,” and nobody in the room has a better idea.
My phone lights up in my stall, the CC Boyz group chat lighting up with it.
Fletcher: 2-2 slapper?? traitor’s still got hands I guess
Hartley: told you leaving us would make you soft. clearly did not
Mitchell: proud of you man. Still on my honeymoon, in case anyone forgot
I type out a reply about the absolute bedlam that was Mitchell’s wedding, delete it, type out something about the goal instead, delete that too, and put the phone away without sending anything, because there’s exactly one person I actually want to talk to tonight and she isn’t in this chat.
I sign autographs outside in a hoodie and sneakers, hair still wet.
A line of nine-year-olds who want signatures on programs is waiting for me and the other players.
The line snakes halfway down the block, parents holding phones up like torches, somebody’s little brother asking if I know Josh personally like Josh is the famous one tonight.
I like this part. I like it even tonight after a brutal loss.
A guy in a flag-print polo waits until I’ve signed his kid’s jersey to lean in like we’re sharing a secret.
“Heck of a season for America’s birthday, huh?” he says. “Funny, though. During the celebration. Flags going up in the stands that weren’t exactly, you know. American.”
I keep my expression exactly where it’s been all night. “I saw those. Nice to have fans from all over the world.”
“I’m curious about your goal song.” He says it like it’s the mystery of the century. “Didn’t catch the words. What language was that?”
“Spanish.” I hand his kid the pen back. “It’s a Ricky Martin song. You should look up the lyrics, they’re actually about dancing.”
I decide not to open the can of Ricky-Martin-is-technically-American worms. That flying to Puerto Rico is considered domestic travel. That it doesn’t matter anyway because I was born in Miami to Mexican parents and I love both countries.
“Just seems like a strange choice,” he says, not letting it drop. “During the two hundred fiftieth."
I just smile. That media smile I’ve seen my mother do a thousand times during TV interviews. “Have a good night, man.”
He doesn’t take the hint. “I’m just saying, some of us take the anniversary pretty seriously.”
I move on down the line and sign the next kid’s program, and the one after that, and by the time the line thins out, flag-polo guy is gone, and I offer up a little prayer for that poor kid of his.
When I arrive at the Four Seasons, the bar is still rockin' full of hockey players and league people. I take a table in the corner, order a seltzer because I don’t want anything blurring tonight, and down it in one go.
I’m contemplating ordering another when Jayce Brady stops by with a beer in hand.
“Mind if I join you?” He tips his chin at the empty chair.
I gesture at it instead of answering, a quiet nod to the unspoken code back in Milan. Other Olympians are always welcome to the table. Even though we’re on opposing teams now, the code still stands.
Brady drops into the chair and lifts his glass. "Congrats on second star." Then he snorts a barely-concealed snicker. “Even though your team lost tonight.”
“Felt that one, did ya?”
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “That save Josh pulled didn’t hurt either.”
“Good guy. Doesn’t get enough ice time.”
Quiet settles for a second too long, which is usually when Brady starts fishing.
“Heard you’re headed to Irvine,” he says. “Brand new squad. Met anybody yet?”
“Not till camp starts. Right now it’s a bunch of press releases and an ungodly amount of merch left in my room.”
“Been there. Nonstop since the Olympics, for me too.” He turns his glass on the table without drinking from it. “My agent’s already texted twice about a date for the gala.”
There it is.
“Mine too, actually.” I stop, wondering why we can’t just go stag.
Then he asks if I have someone in mind, and the first face that pops into my head is her. Dangerous. Sticky Fingers. America. Or whatever her name really is.
“There’s this girl,” I say, almost to myself. Like my subconscious brain is control of my mouth now, and I have not been consulted.
He takes a sip of his beer, urging me to go on and I just word vomit. How she keeps turning up everywhere I go. How at this point I don’t know if the universe’s setting me up or messing with me.
“I asked her name once. Pretty sure what she gave me was made up on the spot.”
Brady laughs, short and rough. “Man, that’s not exactly a strong foundation.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I get it, though.” Whatever’s loose and performing about him drops for a second. “There’s somebody I might’ve already blown it with. Long story. I’m working on it.”
“That’s the worst kind of tough.”
“Yeah.” He studies me for a second like he’s about to ask something he shouldn’t, and I brace for a question about my mother I’m not going to answer tonight.
Instead, my eyes catch the lobby past his shoulder, and every other thought in my head clears out at once.
I’m on my feet before I’ve decided to stand, pulling bills out of my wallet and dropping them on the table.
“You good?” Brady asks.
“It’s her.” I’m already backing toward the lobby. “If I don’t go now, I won’t get another shot before we leave DC. Catch you later?”
“Sure thing.” He lifts his glass, more amused than offended. “Try not to lose to us again.”
I don’t have a comeback for that. I don’t have anything, honestly, except the sight of her standing at the edge of the lobby like she just belongs everywhere.
Her choice of clothing is… interesting. A black pantsuit, a tie knotted sharp at her throat, hair twisted back into a fierce bun. For a second I don’t even recognize her.
Then she shifts her weight and it’s unmistakably her, and none of it makes a single lick of sense. Her eyes move fast around the lobby, door to elevator to the concierge desk and back again, but she hasn’t seen me.
And I go to her, drawn to her flame.
For three days I’ve been rehearsing exactly what I’d say to her the next time I saw her face. Something calm. Something that would let her know I hadn’t stopped thinking about her for one single hour.
I stand there, and every rehearsed word goes straight out of my head.
“Hey,” I say, which is apparently the best I’ve got.
She turns, and for a second before she remembers to arrange her face into something breezier, I catch the real one underneath it.
There she is.