6. Tennant
SIX
Tennant
“Hey, Rowe, we doing any training after the game?” I shook off the time travel stuff and looked at one of my teammates. He was shaking a new pack of Pokémon cards in my face. “I’m close to getting my Squirtle to his second evolution.”
“Yeah, good. Hit me up after the game and maybe we can set something up.”
I got a grin and a slap on the back.
I looked over at Stan seated beside me. His gray eyes roamed over my face. “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz?” the gigantic Russian asked.
“Do you live in TV Land or something?” I enquired. Stan quirked a thick, dark eyebrow. “No, dude, I’m not sick, just spaced out.”
“Ah! Space. Final frontier.”
“Totally.”
He grinned because he thought he had figured it out…
I guess. I wasn’t sure how much of what anyone said to Stan he understood, aside from the translator who helped him with media stuff.
He seemed happy enough, though. Wished I could get to that happy place.
Coming out to Mads had been epic and terrifying all at once.
I mean, on one hand it might be okay to have a man to talk to about gay stuff…
not that he was gay, he was bi, but seriously, he got it.
Try sitting in a room filled with guys talking about pussy all the time when you’re gay.
It’s like being a vegetarian in a room filled with meat-eaters discussing all the steak and pork they’ve had or plan to ingest.
Management knowing was another story. Soon the whole team would know, or maybe already did.
Did management want me to come out publicly?
My family didn’t even know yet. I’d have to tell them first. Christ, I did not want to have to do this.
I just wanted to play hockey and see Mads smile at me in the morning as we shared the same pillow. Simple pleasures, you know?
Stan stood up, plunked his mask onto his head, and walked out of the dressing room. I looked at the clock over the door.
“Fuck.”
I rushed to finish dressing and taping. Maybe being on the ice would center me. It always had before.
There was no avoiding Mads or his blue eyes, but I did my best. And he didn’t push in any way.
I did catch him looking at me with concern once from the other end of the bench, but the game took precedence.
The sound of my skates cutting ice began to gather my thoughts and weave them back together.
We were playing New Jersey tonight. And yes, I knew it was a nothing game.
All preseason games are. They’re mostly to get the lines figured out and gelling while helping the coaches whittle down their rosters.
So, while the games counted for nothing standings-wise, there was pressure.
I felt it even though I was pretty sure I’d have a starting spot.
See, I was out there to get the first line center position.
I’d play second line if that was where I was assigned, but I wanted first line bad.
And our captain, he felt me breathing down his neck.
He knew the young guy was hot for his spot.
Whether that spurred him to play better or not, only time would tell.
I knew that I was going to play balls to the wall.
The first twenty minutes had been damn sloppy, but it always was.
I’d never played with any of these men, and so timing was off.
Some hadn’t come into camp in great shape, although most had.
Those who were slow were dragging down those of us who had worked all summer to stay in shape and hone our skills.
The second period broke open a little about the same time the goalies were switched, which was ten minutes in.
New Jersey coughed up the puck at the red line, the cross-ice pass from one winger to the other easily picked off by a center with legs.
That would be me. I passed it along to one of the defensemen, since we were heading for a line change.
He banked it off the boards for some unknown reason, and New Jersey gobbled it up.
Our backup goalie was cold from sitting, and the weak slap shot rolled right through his five hole.
I sat down on the bench and listened to Mads shouting at his defensive players.
When it was time for us to be on the ice, I climbed over the boards filled with determination.
My chance came quickly. The puck had been dumped into the visitors’ end.
One D-man for Jersey was behind the net trying to tangle up Lee, while the other defenseman in red was off puck-watching, even though he knew he should have been in front of his goal.
Being the good kind of guy that I am, I filled his slot in the goal.
And what do you know, the puck found its way to my stick, and with a flick to elevate it over the goalie’s shoulder, it was in the Jersey net.
Boom. Pretty as you please. Red light flashing, hugs from the team—including Lee Addison—and lots of knuckle-bumps.
God, I loved this sport. It was the only steady and constant thing in my life right now.
Once I was seated and a different line rolled out, I removed my helmet and toweled off my head.
Peeking down the bench through the damp cotton, my gaze touched Mads, and the swirling space-and-stars stuff started again.
Huh. Maybe it wasn’t hockey at all that was turning me inside out.
Maybe it was Mads. He inclined his head.
I did the same. My gut flipped over. Right.
Yep. Cool. There it was, then. I was officially crushing on my coach, who just happened to be older than me, and was also my brother’s friend. Way to rock the good life choices, Ten.
We managed to win that first preseason game, but just. The coaches had some work to do slimming down the roster, and we players had some work to do bulking up our performances.
It would come, though. But me, for now, I was going.
I needed to get some space from the dressing room, the guys, the smell of sweat and hockey gear, and the sight of Jared Madsen passing by every ten minutes.
He never once said anything or did anything that would be considered…
well, considered even friendly. Guess you’d call his behavior aloof.
I slid behind the wheel of my Wrangler. It was only four in the afternoon, the matinee game ending with plenty of time to whittle away.
Traffic was non-existent leaving the barn.
I slipped some Marianas Trench into the stereo, the music making my fingers tap as I waited at a red light a block from the arena.
I threw a fast look to the left, and my mouth fell open.
There in the big window of a second-hand shop sat an upright piano.
“No shit,” I murmured as “Stutter” blared out of my car speakers.
Some asshole behind me hit his horn. I jumped, pulled out of traffic, and slid into a parking spot right in front of the store.
I nearly fell on my face getting out of my Jeep.
I hustled to the window, my fingers resting on the dusty glass.
I felt like a kid staring at puppies. Instead I was a grown man in a suit smiling at an abused upright piano.
Damn, she was in rough shape. Her blonde wood was dented, gouged, and covered in fruit stickers.
She probably sounded like shit, but still made me feel an instant connection to my mother.
I was so twisted up inside… so lost and confused over my feelings for Mads…
it was stupid to be missing my mother simply because I’d seen some shabby old piano in a window, right?
I went inside. The shop was stiflingly hot and dusty. An old man emerged from amid the shelves of old coffee pots, colanders, and other household goods. The dude was ancient, short, frowning and bearded.
“How much for that piano?” I asked before he could introduce himself. “Whatever you want for it, I’ll take it. Can you deliver it to my place today?”
By the time I left, I’d spent two hundred for the piano and eight hundred for the old man to get his sons to deliver the decrepit thing to my apartment.
Yeah, I’d been taken to the cleaners, but two hours later I had the world’s ugliest piano in my space.
Sure, some would say that having an upright piano when you didn’t have an entertainment system was stupid.
Those people, obviously, had not been raised by Jean Rowe.
Mom had always said that the arts were just as damn important as athletics—maybe even more so, because one could play piano longer than one could push a puck.
I sat on the old bench, smiling like some sort of half-baked goof while paging through several of the old books of sheet music the shopkeeper had thrown in for free.
I pulled one out of the damp-smelling box and placed it on the music rack.
I’d toss them all into the storage area of the bench once I was off it.
I ran my fingers over the keys and was shocked to hear that it was in tune. It had been a couple of years since I’d sat down in front of a piano. Mom would be thrilled. Grinning widely, I dug into my back pocket, pulled out my phone, and dialed my mother. She answered before the third ring ended.
“Mom, hey. Guess what I just bought.”
“Tennant, I’m in the middle of a movie with James—”
I tapped out a couple of notes with my index finger.
“Is that a piano I hear?”
“It sure is. Upright. Found it in a thrift shop. Some kid plastered fruit stickers all over the sides, but it sounds tight. Want to see it?” I asked, knowing she would. Within two minutes, I had her on a video call.
“My gosh, Tennant, I remember playing on one like that for years when I first started teaching. Oh! Let me dash to the Steinway and we can play something together like we used to back before hockey took over.”
“Okay,” I said, and sat back as she whisked her phone up and ran to her music room.