2. Mads #2
I knew that, because I’d followed him. Not like a stalker, or with a Google alert set up or anything like that.
I mean, I’d listened for the scraps of information out of Dallas, the mentions of Ten often as an addendum to what the great Tate Collins, Savior of the NHL, was doing.
I’d seen photos of skinny Ten growing up, holding that Dallas second line with a tenacity that had got him an eighty-nine points average over the three years.
I’d seen interviews after games where the reporters had wanted to ask Ten questions about his brothers.
He always smiled at those, and answered as best he could, but anyone who knew him could see the frustration in his expression.
“You looking at Arvy and Mac?” Alain Gagnon, goalie coach extraordinaire, a twenty-year veteran from the Canucks, interrupted my thought process. Arvy. Mac. Work.
“Yeah.”
Gagnon huffed. “Mac’s a definite. Arvy doesn’t finish his checks and wants to score goals.”
“Nothing wrong with a two-way defenseman,” I said. I was aiming for sarcastic, but actually it was nice to have validation from someone I respected that things weren’t quite right with Arvy.
“He’s good, has potential there. So, you’ll work with him,” Gagnon said, and skated off.
He did that a lot. The skating off thing.
Goalies are just weird, if you ask me—funny, talking to their posts kind of weird.
But then, if you’re the type of man who’s happy standing still with a puck heading for you at a hundred miles an hour, you’re a long way past weird.
The Railers weren’t looking for a new goalie this year—the two we had were what kept us from falling to the bottom of the tables.
In fact, they and a few of our more sparky forwards were the ones who’d left us only eight points away from a playoffs place in the first year since expansion.
“My office,” Coach called, and I skated slowly toward the door.
Part of me didn’t want to leave the ice.
This was my home. I felt good on the ice.
Everything was soft and smooth and cold, not jagged and ruined like my life outside.
And yeah, I’m aware that sounds dramatic, but the ice was, and will always be, my refuge.
That first jarring step when skate hits the rubber of the walkway, you feel the entire weight of your body on that tiny blade and everything is wrong for the shortest of seconds.
I didn’t know if any other skaters felt that way—I’d never asked them, limited as I was mostly to being fierce and chirping the guys I was shadowing.
I could just imagine it—up against an elite center, checking them into the boards and then asking them how they felt about the ice.
Not happening.
The meeting was shorter than normal, thank fuck—Benning had a way of talking until he was blue in the face and the rest of the room was losing the will to stay awake.
He was all team dynamics, pressure points, forecheck, backcheck, Xs and Os.
I was all “Let’s get lunch, because breakfast was a mess and I didn’t manage more than one bite of a cold Pop-Tart.
” Apparently, the meeting was short because he had a very important, official meeting with the new forward, Tennant Rowe, shining star, part of the Rowe dynasty, and so on.
He was looking at me the whole time he said that, and I think he was probably trying to say without words that even though I knew Ten, he was in charge. Who knows.
I share an office with Gagnon, but that’s okay, because he’s never in there.
Probably off doing goalie-type weird stuff.
That meant I got a chance to eat in peace, get a coffee, and scroll through my inbox.
The email from Brady was expected. Not that we email a lot—hardly at all since the accident that ended my career with brutal finality.
I placed my hand on my chest, a habit I had when I was thinking about my heart.
One hit into the boards, one normal concussion protocol, and then I’d collapsed in the medical bay.
The beginning of the end.
Brady had been one of the first people I’d pushed away. The fucker had tried contacting me for the longest time out of all my friends, but finally even he’d given up.
Like I’d wanted friends still playing hockey when my heart condition wouldn’t even allow me to play in a beer league.
Hey, Mads, the email began, and I must admit I liked that it wasn’t formal. I’d been Mads since I’d started hockey at age four. Turned out having the surname Madsen and being described as a mad enforcer meant my nickname was a good one.
The email asked after me, hoped I was okay and liking my new role with the Railers, and said how pissed he was that Boston hadn’t taken me on as a coach.
Where he’d got the idea that I’d ever want to coach at Boston, I didn’t know.
The two of us together would just have been too much of a reminder of everything that had gone to shit.
Yep. That’s me being dramatic again.
I read the rest. Some news about his twins, and the fact that he was about to be an uncle.
For a moment my chest tightened. Ten was way too young to be a dad, and I should know—I’d been only just fifteen when I’d helped create a kid.
Why I immediately assumed it was Ten who’d done the deed I don’t know, given that there was Jamie, the middle brother.
And then the email cut to the chase. So you know you’re getting Ten—keep an eye on him for me? The team isn’t what I wanted for him, but he’s set on this.
Then there was the usual “we must keep in touch” crap. But I felt in the space of a sentence, the Railers had been dismissed as worthless. I’d been told that Ten was better than us, and I’d been demoted to the role of caretaker. Somehow all that gelled together to make me feel like shit.
I typed out a response that was flowery with adjectives, cast aspersions on Brady’s parentage, and told him in no uncertain terms to shove his platitudes where the sun didn’t shine.
I then deleted it all and just sent a simple, He’s all grown up—he can look after himself.
I hesitated over what to sign it. Mads was the right way to go, but somehow it implied a personal connection that I didn’t feel happy with.
But Brady had never called me Jared, so in the end I wrote Mads and pressed send.
The whole thing left me as unsettled as I felt with my skates on rubber, and I shut my email down, deciding later would be a good time to tackle the emails from Ryker’s school, the bank, and the amendments to the myriad schedules that ruled a hockey team.