Chapter 9
Gray
A few weeks ago, I didn’t expect to be sitting on my couch on a Tuesday night with a glass of wine, waiting impatiently for the NHL season to start, but here we are. Celena came over for support.
There’s a minute and a half to puck drop, and my knee bounces uncontrollably so the wine in my glass threatens to slosh over the edge. Celena finally puts a hand on my knee to hold it down.
“Relax, lady,” she says. “You’d think you yourself were playing with how nervous you are.”
“I have no idea why I’m this anxious,” I say. “I’ve only been working with Ash for about a week and a half, so I don’t expect anything has changed with him, but who knows.”
“It will be fine,” she says. “Do you even know anything about hockey?”
I shrug. “I’ve been watching YouTube videos about the rules, but I assume I’ll pick up more as we watch the game. I’m counting on the announcers to explain what the hell is happening.”
“Icing is a thing, right?” she asks.
“Yeah, it has something to do with sending the puck down the other end of the rink, but I’m sketchy on the details,” I say before taking a healthy sip of my wine. Tonight I’m drinking a right-bank Bordeaux red.
The players line up at center ice, and I lean forward.
“What number is he?” Celena asks.
“He’s seventeen,” I say, “but he’s not out yet. They play in shifts, and he said the coach was still deciding whether to put him at second or third line. He won’t be starting regardless.”
Celena looks at me blankly. “Okay.”
“They only stay on for like a minute at a time or something crazy like that, then they switch off with the next shift,” I explain.
“Hockey has unlimited substitutions. Ash told me he was almost always first line before his trash talk issues started, but the coach has him playing further back until he gets a handle on the problem.”
Celena nods, but it doesn’t look like she fully understands. I only barely understand it myself.
On TV, the referee drops the puck and the players all surge into motion.
The other team gets control first, and I struggle to follow the little black puck.
Hockey is a fast game, and my eyes aren’t used to the speed of the action yet.
I read that goalies often warm up their eyes before a game by looking back and forth in preparation to track the puck.
About a minute later, the action stops for a penalty.
“What the hell just happened?” Celena asks.
“Some kind of penalty,” I say. “Tripping, I think.”
“It says ‘power play,’” Celena says, pointing to the screen.
I look and see that one of the Hydra is in the penalty box already. Shit.
“We have to play down one man for the next two minutes,” I say.
We. Listen to me talk like I’m part of the team.
I take another sip of wine as play resumes, and I once again try to keep up with the piece of rubber bouncing all over the place. I have no idea how the players keep track of the thing while also on skates.
The penalty ends, and the Hydra have survived their first power play as the next shift of forwards comes onto the ice.
“There’s Ash,” Celena says, and I look where she’s pointing.
Sure enough, number seventeen is on the ice, and I can’t take my eyes off him. I never thought of tall men as particularly graceful, but Ash is surprisingly quick and smooth on skates for someone who’s nearly six and a half feet tall.
It seems like he’s on the ice for a ridiculously short amount of time before he heads off again, but he hasn’t gotten into a fight yet, so I’ll take the small victory.
The first period ends about forty minutes later with both teams still scoreless.
Even for a newbie to hockey, I can tell our goalie has been nothing short of spectacular.
The other team took more shots on goal than us, and Kingston made some incredible saves, once even managing to throw himself from one side of the net to the other in time to make a diving save on a puck that seemed all-but destined to go in.
“Goalies are really flexible,” Celena says as if channeling my thoughts.
“Agreed,” I say. “My knees hurt just watching that. Joints were not meant to bend that way.” I hold up the empty wine bottle. “Another?”
“How long is the game?” she asks.
“Two more periods.”
“Three periods?” she says. “That’s weird. Yeah, I’m up for another.”
I head downstairs into my cellar, grab a Chateauneuf-du-Pape off the rack, and bring it back upstairs. Might as well stay with French red.
“How’s it going with Ash anyway?” Celena asks. “Did seeing him make up for the bad date?”
I down the last few sips of the wine in my glass and start working on the cork of the new bottle.
“He gave me a neck massage,” I say as I pop the wine open.
Celena’s brows shoot up. “Oh? And what brought that on?”
“I slept wrong and had a crick in my neck. He convinced me to let him work on it.”
Celena waits for me to go on. “And?” she prompts when I don’t.
“And not only is the man gorgeous, he has magic fingers,” I say. “And he convinced me to take my sweater off, so he’s seen my tattoos.” I take a big swig of the wine I just poured myself.
“What did he think of them?” Celena asks.
I sigh. “He said they were beautiful.”
“And somehow you don’t seem happy about that,” she observes as she pours herself some of the new wine and takes a sip.
“Why would I be happy about that?” I ask. “The man is off limits, but he’s sweet, and he becomes more interesting every time I talk to him. It’s not fair.” I take another drink.
“Remind me why he’s off limits again?” Celena asks.
I look at her incredulously, then count reasons off on my fingers. “I need to be professional, I’m older than him, he’s insanely hot and I’m-”
“If you say you’re not, I’m going to slap you,” she interrupts.
I give her a frustrated look, but I don’t finish the thought. “Look,” I say instead, “aside from the fact I was hired to help him with a problem and shouldn’t be lusting after him, he’s out of my league.”
“Why is he out of your league? Because you’re a couple years older than him?”
“Three years.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “First of all, the years mean nothing. You look young. Second, as I’ve told you multiple times, you’re beautiful. Stop suggesting you aren’t. Even if you’re not supermodel gorgeous, do you think he’s so shallow he can’t find you attractive?”
“He doesn’t seem interested,” I argue, not bothering to address the individual points.
“He called you beautiful.”
“He called my tattoos beautiful.”
“He asked you to undress for him.”
“So it would be easier to massage my neck.”
She smiles triumphantly. “Aha! He found an excuse to touch you.”
“He saw I was in pain, and, nice guy that he is, he offered to help.”
Celena throws up her hands in defeat. “Fine. I give up. Spend the next few months torturing yourself by lusting after him in secret rather than opening yourself up to the possibility he might actually like you.”
She swipes up her wine glass and marches off to harumph down onto the couch. I sigh heavily and pick up my glass to go join her.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I sit down next to her. “I know my pessimistic streak drives you crazy. I just can’t help it sometimes. I’ve let too many men undermine my confidence, and I don’t know how to pull up out of this nosedive now.”
My eyes start to prick, but I force back the moisture. I won’t let them have any more of my tears.
Celena puts an arm around my shoulders. She’s always there to pick up the pieces when my dating life inevitably goes to hell. When I couldn’t stop crying after a particularly bad breakup years ago, she came over and brought me to her house to spend the night so I wouldn’t be alone.
I rest my head on Celena’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me by keeping an open mind,” she says. “I just have a good feeling about this guy, and I don’t want you to dismiss the possibilities because you’re afraid of being hurt again.” She pauses. “What about the dick pic?”
“A mistake. He meant to send it to his ex, Grace.”
“You asked him?” she asks, and I nod. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
“Tell me about it,” I mumble.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
Ash
The second period is about to start, and I’m feeling okay. I’m not playing too bad, and no one has chirped at me yet.
It’s our opening game, and everyone is a little nervous, so maybe they all have better things to worry about than getting on my case.
The game is scoreless so far, but not for lack of trying.
Both goalies have been putting on a clinic, so it’s been hard to get anything past them.
I had a great shot toward the end of the first period, but Cote couldn’t get his stick out of the way fast enough, and it barely deflected the puck so it hit the post instead of going in.
The shot gave me some confidence, though, and I feel like I’m settling in. Coach has me at second line, and I’m excited as the puck drops to start the next period. When my shift comes around, I’m chomping at the bit to get out there, so I practically fly over the boards.
I skate like a madman down the ice, and for the first time in a while I feel like myself. I check someone hard and take control of the puck. I streak back down the ice the other way, but they’re already on me. I pass to Bouchard, but two seconds later, he passes it right back to me.
I don’t think. I just shoot.
The puck somehow slips past two defensemen and between the goalie’s knees. Elation shoots up my spine as I score my first goal of the regular season.
The away crowd gives a collective groan as my teammates swamp me.
“Fuck yeah!” Bouchard shouts as he claps me hard on the shoulder. “That’s more like it, Gunny!”
We all skate past the bench for congratulatory fist bumps, and then it’s time to reset. I end my shift half a minute later, but I’m jazzed now.
When I get back on after we cycle through again, though, something has changed.
Fig and Mack got into it with a couple of Leafs during their time on the ice when Toronto scored a goal that nearly took out Kingston, so now there’s extra tension.
More than that, I’m a target for having scored that first goal.
On my next possession, I get crunched against the boards so hard it knocks my skates out from under me, and I fall forward onto my knees.
“You look good on your knees, Gunnarsson,” the guy who hit me says as he skates away.
The chirping has started, and my anger flares. I surge to my feet, ready for a fight.
By the end of the second period, we’ve had two good brawls, and the Leafs have kept up a steady stream of trash talk whenever they get the chance. I’ve missed three more shots on goal, at least one of which I should’ve made, and I’m starting to lose my cool.
As we head into the locker room for the second intermission, I’m barely holding it together. Whatever confidence I had before is long gone, and I’m pissed at myself for falling apart.
Alright fine. I’m ashamed of myself for falling apart, and that’s pissing me off. Apparently the doc was right about the whole shame-rage thing.
“You okay, Gunny?” Kelsier asks when we’re back in the locker room.
“Yeah, fine,” I lie.
His look says he knows that’s bullshit.
“Hold it together, man,” he says. “We’re in this. We need you to find some of that mojo you had at the beginning of the period.”
We need you.
The words hit home as my last conversation with the doc about my ideal image flashes through my mind. I want to be the guy they can count on, but I’m letting them down.