Howie
There’s nothing more comforting than the smell of tape adhesive, rubber mats, and the rink stink of guys who push me beyond the limits of normal humans.
I've missed this, the ritual of it, the muscle memory of pulling on gear, the way the world narrows to a set of very simple instructions: skate, hit, shoot, win.
My knee bends clean as I squat to lace my skates. No pain. No hesitation.
“Dude!” Spinner shouts from across the room, stick-tapping the floor in my direction. “Our line is back.”
"Miss me?"
"Like a rash." He grins. "You ready?"
"Born ready."
Cappy swings by my stall and claps my shoulder. "Good to have you back. Don't be stupid with that knee."
"When have I ever been stupid?"
"Do you want the full list or the highlights?"
Rookie is three stalls down, taping his stick. He catches my eye and nods. We've been okay. Not back to normal, not fully healed, but functional. I’ve been sleeping in my room with Ella the past few nights, and I get how that’s probably weird for him.
Shouldn’t be too much longer. He closed on Ella’s new condo and will get the keys soon.
"Your girl's up with the PAWs,” he says now, not looking up from his tape job.
"I know."
"Cam got her a jersey."
I pause mid-lace. "Whose jersey?"
Jason's mouth twitches. "Yours, dipshit."
Something warm spreads through my chest. Ella is in the family section wearing my jersey, not one with her own last name on it. Ella, who spent her childhood watching hockey from the margins, is sitting with the PAWs and cheering for me on purpose.
"Don't get all weepy," Spinner says. "Save it for the ice."
"Speaking of the ice." Mayhem appears, fully dressed, looking like a tank with shin pads. He settles on the bench beside me and says, in the tone of a man who has been waiting for the right moment, "Did you call Benny about the podcast thing?"
I pull my jersey over my head. "What about it?"
"The second interview. Your dad did another one."
My hands freeze on the hem. "What?"
“Yeah, man. Spinner's agent flagged it this morning." Mayhem watches my face. “Your agent didn't say anything?”
The locker room noise continues around us, but I feel a clench in my stomach. Another interview. Another podcast. My father is running his mouth on any microphone that'll have him, and my agent — the agent my father set me up with — is not even monitoring it.
"Why are you still with that guy?" Mayhem asks.
I don't have a good answer. The honest truth is that Benny came through my father's connections, another tie to the Houser name. But the Houser name has been doing me damage for twenty-six years, and maybe it's time I chose my own path.
Spinner drops onto the bench on my other side. "Brian Klein is here tonight. He's sitting with the Stags in the family section."
"Brian Klein?"
"My agent. The best agent." Spinner taps my chest with his stick. "I already told him about you. He wants to chat after the game."
"You told your agent about me?"
"I told him you're talented, underrepresented, and your current agent sucks balls.” Spinner shrugs. "He's interested."
I look at Mayhem, who nods. Then the Stag twins chime in that this Brian guy is their agent, too. “He works miracles,” Alder says. “And he’ll get you endorsements.”
Gunnar Stag, one of our rotating killer goalies, pounds me on the head with his fist. “Prepare for a milk mustache, guy.”
I realize with sudden clarity that I’ve been overlooking a huge part of the career of a professional athlete.
My friends all have branding deals that are flooding their bank accounts.
I sort of figured Rookie fell into the meat advertisements, but listening to Gunnar talk about milk ads, I realize that agents actively make all this happen.
I’ve just been floating along here. Anger at my father starts to claw its way to the surface, but I need to save that for the ice, direct it where I can work it right out of my body.
“Okay," I say to Spinner instead. "I'll talk to your guy."
"Attaboy." Spinner hops up and gestures toward the door. "Now let's go beat Columbus."
Coach calls us in. We huddle, we break, and I follow the guys into the tunnel with my stick on the ice and my heart hammering and the noise of the arena building above us like a wave about to crest.
Standing just outside the door is a man, the Stag brothers and Spinner approach warmly, greeting him with fist bumps. I think this is their shared agent, the infamous Brian Klein.
The guy looks around Spinner and steps forward, hand out. "Houser. These guys talk about you nonstop. Let's have a conversation after the game."
I shake his hand. "Yeah. I'd like that."
"Good." Brian pops his gum and grins. "I've got ideas for you, kid. Big ones."
He claps my shoulder the way you'd acknowledge a player after a good shift and walks past me toward the ice. I stare at him, realizing I might be an actual adult now, with a real agent who can help me get real money and look after me.
"Houser!" Coach's voice from down the tunnel interrupts my thoughts. "You playing tonight or sightseeing?"
I skate onto the ice.
The arena is loud and bright, and eighteen thousand people are on their feet, and the ice is fresh and perfect under my blades.
I take warmup laps and feel my knee hold and my lungs open and my legs find the rhythm that I've known since I was four years old in a Minnesota rink with my dad's shadow over every stride.
But tonight the shadow is gone. Instead, with my girl in the stands and my name on her back and the weight of a secret lifted, I feel like every spotlight in this place is lighting my way.
The game starts fast. Columbus is physical, and we match them hit-for-hit.
I play the second line with Spinner, cycling the puck, crashing the net, feeling the rust shake off with every shift.
My timing is half a step behind, but my instincts are there — the reads, the angles, the sense of where the puck is going before it gets there.
Mayhem lays a guy out in the neutral zone, so clean that the arena roars. Rookie wins a faceoff and feeds it back to defense. Grentley makes a save that draws a standing ovation. The Stag twins work the power play like they share a brain.
Then I'm on the ice for a line change, fresh legs, and Spinner chips the puck along the wall. I chase it into the corner, shoulder down, muscle some defenseman off the biscuit — clean, hard, the way you're supposed to, not the way my father did it — and center it in front of the net.
It bounces off a skate. Comes back to me. I'm alone in the slot with the puck on my blade and the goalie sliding across, and I don't think. I just shoot.
Suddenly, the light goes red, the horn blows, and the arena explodes. Spinner crashes into me from behind, screaming in my ear, and the boys swarm me until I'm at the center of a hockey hug with my knee intact and my name on the scoreboard.
I peel myself away from the scrum and skate toward the bench, gloves up, stick raised, and I look up at the family section.
Ella is on her feet. She's in my jersey, and she's screaming, both fists in the air, and Cam is hugging her from one side and Essence from the other. My teammates’ partners and parents are all together with my girl, whose face shows pure, incandescent joy.
She sees me looking. Our eyes lock through the glass, through the noise, through people, and the distance between the ice and the stands.
She points at me. Then she presses her hand against her heart.
I press my glove against mine.