Chapter 9
Elliot
The headphones did their job of drowning out the noise as I stepped into the locker room, everyone around me was gesturing, talking, having conversations with one another, tossing tape back and forth as they worked on their sticks, lacing up their skates, and getting ready to go onto the ice.
Any other day, the air would be electric, and I would be in the middle of it, with the team, hyping each other up.
Instead, I felt none of it. The only noise in my ears was the focus music blasting through the headphones.
Smiles were flashed, high fives, and slaps on the ass were sent in my direction, but I ignored all of it.
The past two weeks, I had played the best games of my life.
Two hat tricks. I don’t even know how many assists.
Not a single penalty. I dodged more attacks from defensemen than I could count.
Someone somewhere told me I was on my way to beating my record from last year.
I didn’t actually care. We were kicking ass, and there was already talk of us taking home a championship.
We were going to win that cup. And I just did not care.
Evan was suddenly in front of my face, snapping his fingers just inches from my eyes. His mouth was moving, but I didn’t hear the words. He got flustered and ripped my headphones off, and I was inundated with a ton of noise. Somebody was playing music. Everyone was talking. It was all too loud.
“You all right, man?” He eyed me carefully, as if he knew that I was not all right.
I was fine. I was just fine. Everything was just fine. “Yep, ready for tonight,” I said. I couldn’t even fake any enthusiasm. My voice came out flat and without life.
“You’ve been playing great,” Evan said.
“Yep.”
“Your attitude off the ice is shit,” he said.
I shot him a glare. What did they want from me?
I was playing without a heart, without a soul, and no one to share any of this with.
But I still put up the scores, won the games, entertained the crowd when the moment called for it.
“Fuck off.” It wasn’t his business what my attitude was.
It was nobody’s business. I didn’t drag the team down.
I treated them all just fine. It was me that was dying inside.
Just like before I had met Silas, I could do this.
I could live my life without sharing anything with anyone.
I still had my parents, of course. I was ignoring their calls at the moment, but I sent them text messages to let them know I was fine.
I knew my mom would just want to talk about Silas, and I did not want to do that.
I didn’t want to hear the sadness in her voice when she told me everything would be okay.
She wouldn’t take sides. She never would.
She loved Silas. She loved me. She knew how important hockey was to me, so she would understand why the two of us couldn’t be together. I just didn’t want to hear it.
“We appreciate you playing so great, Elliot. You’re always a team player. We know that we can count on you out there. I’m just wondering if we can count on you in here.”
I glared, my face going as cold as the ice we were about to skate on. “Fuck off, Captain. I’m not a pet project. I’m not your little Rowan. I’m not a replacement for your little buddy. I come out here, I win hockey games. That is the end of it. Alright?”
Evan flinched like I’d hit him. “I just thought maybe we were friends, man. I’m trying to help.”
I stopped short of telling them we weren’t friends. Before two weeks ago, I thought I was friends with everyone. But I’d learned how quickly that could all turn to shit. So what was the point of any of it?
“You have anything else you want from me, Captain?”
He shook his head and let out a breath. It almost felt like he was disappointed. Why? Why did he care? I was winning games. Wasn’t that all that mattered? Wasn’t that the most important thing? We were here to play hockey, not braid each other’s hair.
I went back to my routine of taping my stick, lacing up one skate, checking my stick, lacing up the other skate.
I didn’t have special socks or much of a routine at all.
I always used black and white tape on my stick.
Zebra stripes. I had even before I met Silas.
But after I met him, it took on a whole new meaning, and I just kept the tradition.
My eyes became blurry as I stared at the black-and-white stripes.
It didn’t help me to focus. In fact, it was probably making it harder.
But every night I went onto the ice, I was confronted with four of his fucking look-alikes.
I refused to let myself look at the schedule and know when I was going to be playing on the ice with him. I couldn’t bear to know.
I ached to know how he was liking his job. He was so passionate about the game, more than some of the best players I knew. And he put up with so much shit from the players and coaches. Even the announcers weren’t always kind to the officials. Yet he never complained.
Without my headphones, the sound filtered in, but I didn’t let it bother me. The guys gave me pats on the back, tried to engage me in conversation. I just gave them groans and head nods.
Then we were on the ice.
Then the game was over.
Three to two. No hat trick for me, but two assists and a goal was good enough. As was the win. After all, hockey was the most important thing.
Coach didn’t ask me to talk to the press.
That never went well, even when Silas was in my life.
I showered, put my suit back on, and walked out of the stadium.
My teammates mentioned going out after the game.
Half of them were hitting the clubs, the other half were heading back to their hotels.
I would go to my hotel. I shared a room with Nix. He liked to go out after the games.
I didn’t know what was worse, sitting alone in the room or avoiding conversation when he was there. At least if he went out, I could just pretend to be asleep when he returned.
Sleep wasn’t something that came easily despite the exhaustion. I didn’t like pills or booze, so I relied on good old-fashioned sheep-counting. It never worked.
All I saw was Silas and the endless question of how could we make this work? How could we be together when he was an official and I was a player?
There wasn’t an answer. And I hated that.
Either one of us had to quit or we had to accept that we couldn’t be together.
Maybe Silas had already accepted it. On the outside, it looked as if I had, on the inside, I was dying.