Chapter 28 - Aleksey
The offer from Milwaukee came in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, three days after we had won the championship.
A dull ache still gnawed at my right thigh, but the bruise from that final hit had already faded to a sickly yellow-green. The pain had faded too, but it was enough to still make packing my old duffel bag take twice as long.
Most of the guys living in the house had already cleared out the morning after we hauled our gear off the team bus, scattering to waiting cars while I sat on the front steps with ice strapped to my leg.
The Ice House was a ghost now. Empty hangers rattled against the closet rod, the radiator ticked somewhere in the background, and the sour bite of industrial cleaner clung everywhere.
That’s when my phone buzzed against the bare floorboards.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Leadsom. Milwaukee Cranes?” The scout’s voice crackled through the speaker, brusque and familiar. “How’s the leg, Zotov? Looked like you took a beating in that final.”
“It’s holding together.”
“That’s good, because we’re not looking for guys who stay down.
” A short pause followed by the shuffling of papers in the background.
“Anyway, I’ll cut to it. AHC affiliate contract, two years.
And if you manage to keep your penalty minutes low and your plus-minus high, there’s a possible NHC call-up waiting on the other side. We want you at camp in July.”
The offer rocked me back like a slapshot.
Two years, and then a real path to the National League.
It wasn’t the Chicago dream I’d sketched out in my head as a freshman.
And it was not the massive contract with a huge bonus that would have solved every single one of my money problems at once.
But it was still something solid. Something earned.
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” The word scraped out rougher than I intended. Gripping my phone tighter, I forced my voice steady. “I’m in. July. I’ll be there.”
Leadsom snorted, a dry, knowing sound. “Try to sound a little excited, kid. Most guys at least crack a joke when they get their first offer.”
“Are we celebrating or negotiating?”
That pulled a short laugh out of him. “Fair enough. I’ll email the paperwork tonight. Welcome to the organization, Zotov. Try not to get into any fights before camp.”
“Absolutely.”
The line clicked dead.
For a split second, I was seventeen again, working the overnight stock shift at a grimy Food Mart on Michigan Avenue.
Scrubbing my hands raw with cheap soap after every shift, trying to scrub off the certainty that this was it, that this was all I’d ever get.
Back then, the future was a locked door, and I didn’t have the key.
Then the radiator in my room clicked off, and the sudden silence snapped me back.
My shoulders dropped. The death grip on my phone loosened. A breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for days dragged itself out of my lungs. Standing perfectly still in the middle of my stripped room kept the jinx away.
Smiling, breathing too deep, letting any of it feel real; that was exactly when things got snatched back. Signing the contract papers had to happen first. Then maybe the reality of it all would set in.
Lowering the phone to my side, I rolled my shoulders, making the tension in my spine relax a fraction.
With the Ice House mostly empty, I was used to voices bleeding through these thin walls at all hours, but now the silence felt strange. Not bad. Just strange.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, the familiar rhythm of worn sneakers on old floorboards.
And then Karter stepped inside my room wearing a gray t-shirt and old sweatpants, his hair pushed back and messy. The late afternoon sun slanted through the grimy window blinds, hitting his face and making his eyes appear even brighter than they usually did.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “OK, so you’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re trying to pretend that something really important doesn’t matter.” He raised a single eyebrow as a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He then jutted his chin towards my hand. “Was that the scout?”
The phone was still warm against my palm.
I’d been checking it every few hours since we got back from the tournament, a nervous habit Karter had clocked by day two.
He’d caught me staring at the blank screen over breakfast yesterday and said nothing.
He hadn’t said anything the time before that, either.
Karter just watched and waited, the same way he was watching me now.
“It was Leadsom,” I said. The next few words left my mouth like another piece of gear to pack. “Two-year affiliate deal. Camp starts in July.”
Karter didn’t play it cool. The grin that split his face was the kind that rearranged everything, and then he was crossing the short distance between us and grabbing two fistfuls of my shirt, the fabric bunching under his grip.
“I knew it. I told you.” He shook me once, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “I told you they’d call.”
“You’ve said that five times since Sunday.”
“Because I was right five times since Sunday.” He let go of my shirt and paced the cramped strip of floor between the mattress and the door. “Okay. Milwaukee. That’s what, four hours? Straight up I-94.”
“Four hours is a lot of gas.”
He stopped mid-stride and turned, one eyebrow cocked. “Did you just say no to me before I even asked the question?”
“I said it’s a lot of gas.”
“I didn’t ask you a question.” Karter held up a hand, ticking off fingers. “Friday practices end at four. I can be on the road by five, at your door by nine. If you’ve got a rest day Sunday, you drive down here. Or we meet in the middle. There’s probably a city halfway. I’ll look it up.”
He hadn’t asked if I wanted him there. He hadn’t asked whether this changed anything. He’d already drawn the route on a map that existed entirely in his head.
“Rockford,” I said.
“What?”
“Halfway. Rockford.” Shoving my hands into my pockets, I let the corner of my mouth twitch. “You’re not the only one who looked at a map.”
Karter stopped pacing. The smile on his face shifted into something warmer. Not the victory smile from the championship, not the sharp one he wore when he was about to win an argument. Again.
This one was private... and just for me.
“Look at you,” he said. “Already planning our weekends.”
A breath pushed out of my lungs, heavier than I meant it to be.
I gazed over at Karter, who stood there with that grin and his messy hair, waiting for me to confirm a travel schedule for next season like it was already a done deal.
Like of course he’d be there. Like the distance was just a number on a road sign.
No one I’d been with in the past had ever traced a highway across a map and pictured me waiting on the other side before.
“Don’t get sappy,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.” I grabbed the strap of my duffel and yanked the zipper open. “Anyway, I still have to call my mom before we do anything else.”
Karter didn’t push. He simply gave me a knowing nod, letting that smile stay right where it was, as he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door mostly shut.
The stripped mattress groaned as I dropped onto it. Cheap coils dug into my thighs. Pressing the phone to my ear, I listened to the line ring.
For the first time in a long while, there was no knot in my gut. No instinct to hang up before she answered. Calling home usually meant bracing for bad news, another bill, another crisis.
But not this time.
“Lekha?” My mother’s voice came through the speaker less than two rings later. A faint buzz of static hissed in the background. “Are you okay? Is it your leg?”
Leaning forward, my free hand rested on my knee. “My leg is fine, Mama. I have news. Good news.”
“Tell me.”
Without rehearsing a speech, I gave her the details. Milwaukee. The affiliate deal. The summer camp.
The line went quiet. A soft sniffle traveled through the speaker. It took me a moment or two to realize she was crying.
My grip tightened on the plastic casing of my phone. “Mama?”
“Bozhe moy,” she whispered. “I’m here,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m so happy, Lekha.”
Leaning back against the wall, my eyes drifted shut. Memories of all the night shifts she worked at the nursing home surfaced. The heirloom silver she almost pawned for my new gear crossed my mind.
“You did it, Lekha,” she said. “I am so proud of you, moy mal’chik.”
“We did it,” I said.
Her breath hitched. A soft sniffle followed, the kind I knew she often tried to muffle with her hand. Through the phone static, I could picture her standing at the kitchen sink, wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
“There is something else,” I said. “Someone else.”
She waited. The line hummed.
“Karter. The one I told you about a few weeks ago.”
“You already told me what he did for you, Lekha.” Her voice carried a knowing tone. “You told me everything when you came home.”
“I didn’t tell you absolutely everything.”
A pause stretched across the static. Mama knew when to wait.
“I love him.”
The words came out easier than I’d braced for. There was no tightness in my throat. And I didn’t feel the instinct to snatch the words back.
Mama exhaled, a soft, happy sound that crackled through the cheap speaker. “This boy must have the patience of a saint to put up with you.”
A short laugh scraped out of me. “He does.”
“When can I meet him?”
“This summer. I’ll bring him to Detroit.”
“That is good.” She paused. “You know, your father saw the championship on television. The prison has a common room. He called this morning. He said you looked happy.”
Hearing about my dad usually made my jaw lock up. But this time, nothing. Just the faint hum of the line and the weight of the phone against my ear.
“Tell him I made it.”
My words landed somewhere between a fuck-that-guy and a shrug. There was no anger behind them, or that old ache cracking open whenever dad got brought up. To me, nowadays, he was just a guy in a cell who’d never see the ice I skated on.