10
A Completely Normal Week Off
Nash
The door bangs open at eight on Sunday night and hits the wall hard enough to bounce.
“Are you reading this fucking group chat?”
I’m at my desk with homework open. Rafe is in the doorway with his phone in his hand and his jacket still on. He’s been gone since two, and he looks like he’s spent the afternoon walking around getting angrier.
“No,” I say.
“Read it.”
“I’m busy.”
“Fucking read it.”
I pick up my phone. There are ninety-one messages in the team chat since last night.
Somebody posted a picture of Greeley’s kitchen floor at two in the morning, cups everywhere.
Somebody else said worth it. Somebody asked if anybody found a phone.
Then, about halfway down, Greeley posted at eleven this morning.
Greeley: All good with Kennebeck btw. Heat of the moment. It happens. Love that guy.
Seven guys reacted to it, and four replied with some version of that’s why you’re the man, Dec. Further down, from a junior I’ve spoken to maybe three times.
Mathers: Waleska’s line is going to get somebody killed this year.
Pennock: Lmao those three are unhinged.
Mathers: Genuinely, what is wrong with them?
And under that, twenty minutes later, a video from Koda: last season’s conference tournament, Mathers alone on a breakaway, shooting the puck four feet wide of an empty net. No caption. It has more laughing reactions than anything else in the thread.
I put the phone down.
“You see it?” Rafe says.
“I see it. And what?”
“Those three.” He still hasn’t closed the door behind him. “That includes me. That’s me and you and Barnes. That’s what I am now, three weeks into my freshman year. One of those three.”
“Nobody cares what Mathers thinks.”
He finally comes in and throws his jacket on his bed.
“I froze Greeley out for a week, on purpose, in front of Dannebrog. I ate a whole practice of Dannebrog screaming at me for it, and I’d do it again.
That was me being a problem for a reason.
Then you hit him in his own kitchen, in front of the fucking team, over something you won’t even tell me about, and now it’s not me being a problem.
” He points at his phone on the bed. “Now it’s a package.
And Barnes is in there throwing gas on it. ”
“That’s what you’re mad about.”
“Yeah.”
“Not that I hit him.”
“I don’t care that you hit him.” He’s loud now.
“I’ve wanted to hit him since the second day.
I’d have paid money to fight him. But I’d have done it somewhere without an audience, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have done it in the guy’s own house on a Saturday with the whole roster standing there, because then it isn’t a fight anymore, it’s a story, and he gets to tell it. ”
I don’t say anything, because he isn’t wrong.
“I came here to be the best player on the ice,” Rafe says. “Not to be one third of whatever the fuck this is.”
Koda pushes the door open behind him with his shoulder, holding two energy drinks and a bag of chips. “I can hear yelling from the stairwell. What’d I miss?”
“Get out,” says Rafe.
“Fuck you. I brought you a drink.”
“Get the fuck out.”
Koda hands me the drink instead, drops onto the end of my bed, and opens the chips. “For the record, I thought it was worth it.”
Rafe stares at him.
“He’s a fucking prick,” Koda explains. “He’s been running his mouth for weeks. Somebody had to hit him.” He puts chips in his mouth. “And Mathers’s been asking for that video since March. I was doing him a favor.”
“You made it worse,” Rafe says.
“I made it better.”
Rafe grabs his jacket back off the bed and walks out, and the door slams hard enough to shake the wall.
Koda takes a sip of his energy drink. “He’s so high and fucking mighty.”
The next morning, I’m on my way to the weight room with my bag over my shoulder when Dannebrog stops me. “Coach wants you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“I’ve got lift at seven.”
“You don’t have lift at seven,” Dannebrog says. “Now, Kennebeck.”
Coach doesn’t say anything when I come in.
Greeley is already in the chair on the left, same as last time, with no coffee this morning and his lip scabbed over at the corner, sitting up straight with his hands on his knees.
Berwyn is standing behind his desk with his knuckles on it.
The blinds are open. There’s a whistle, a stopwatch, and a stack of papers on the corner of the desk.
“Sit down,” he says to me.
I sit.
“I have had eight people tell me about Saturday night,” he says.
“Eight, before eight o’clock yesterday morning.
Two of them were parents.” Neither of us says anything.
“A parent called me at seven-forty on a Sunday to ask whether her son is on a team where players fight each other at parties.” He straightens up.
“I don’t have a season yet. We don’t touch the ice until October.
I haven’t run one drill with you. Not one.
And I’m already having that conversation. ”
Greeley leans forward. “Coach, if I can—”
“No.”
“It’s on me too,” he says, “Honestly, I—”
“Stop.” The word cracks, and Greeley stops.
Berwyn looks at him for a long, ugly second. “You’ve done that once already, in this office. It’s on me too, Coach. For the team. You remember that?”
Greeley’s face doesn’t move. “Yes, sir.”
“You’ve been here two years. I know exactly what you are, Declan.
” He says it flatly, without heat. “You’re a hell of a player.
You’re smart. And you’ve figured out that if you’re the reasonable one in the room, nothing ever lands on you.
You did it a week ago, and you’re doing it right now, at seven in the morning, with a split lip. ”
Nobody breathes.
“That was your party,” Berwyn says. “Your house, your teammates. You stood in your own kitchen and said something to this kid that got you punched, then laughed about it in front of the room, then posted a little handshake emoji so everybody could tell you how big you are.”
“Coach—”
“I’m not finished.” He turns. “Kennebeck.”
“Yes, Coach,” I say, meeting his eye.
“He put a hand on your face Friday, and I heard about it Monday. He said something to you Saturday, and I heard about it Sunday. Both times, you found out what he wanted, and then you handed it to him.” He leans back onto his knuckles.
“You want to know the difference between the two of you? He plans it. You just do it. Which means you’re the one who ends up on tape. ”
I look at the desk.
“Here’s what’s happening,” Berwyn says. “Both of you are off the ice for a week. No captain’s skates. You’re not in that locker room and you’re not on my ice, and if Dannebrog lets either of you on, he’s got a problem with me too. You can lift. You can run. You can sit in your rooms and think.”
A week, while every other center in this program skates.
“And both of you are in study hall Tuesday and Thursday nights, seven to nine, third floor of the library, with the sign-in sheet.”
“I don’t have academic hours,” Greeley says.
“You do now.” Berwyn picks up a pen and writes something. “Same nights, same table. You’ll sit across from each other for four hours a week, and you’ll be fine, because I’m telling you to be fine.”
“Coach, respectfully, I don’t think—”
“I don’t care what you think.” He sets the pen down.
“I’ve got one second-line center spot and two guys who want it, and I’d rather have neither of you than have this.
So here’s your truce. It isn’t a handshake, because I wouldn’t believe it.
It’s a table. Sit at it. Do your work. Don’t speak to each other if that’s easier.
” He looks between us. “And if there’s one more thing—one, a word in a hallway, a shove in a drill, a group chat—I stop putting your name on the sheet. Understood?”
“Yes, Coach,” Greeley says.
“Yes, Coach.”
“Get out.”
Out in the hallway, Greeley has his hands in his pockets, and he’s smiling. The office face is gone.
“Well,” he says. “That was fun.”
I keep walking.
“Hey, Kenny.” He falls in beside me. “Serious question. Did that feel like a win to you? Because I came out of there with exactly what you came out of there with, and I didn’t have to do anything but get hit.”
“You got called out.”
“By one guy, in a room with no windows.” He shrugs. “You know who else heard it? Nobody. You know what everybody did hear about? You, swinging on a teammate at his own house.” He clicks his tongue.
I stop at the stairwell door.
“Three weeks until official practice,” Greeley says, “and you lose one of them. So do I. But I’ve been here two years, and Berwyn’s watched me play four hundred times.” He pats my shoulder on his way past. “You? He’s only seen you on video.”
He walks out.
On Tuesday, I’m at the library at seven.
There’s a sign-in sheet on a clipboard at the end of a long table by the windows, and a grad student in a hoodie who checks names off, puts her headphones on, and doesn’t look up again.
There are six of us: two football players, a girl from the swim team, a guy I don’t know, Greeley, and me.
Berwyn called ahead. There are two chairs left when I get there, across from each other, and Greeley is already in one.
I sit down and open my laptop. For forty minutes, it’s the quietest place I’ve been since I got to Woodbury. Nobody laughs, nobody talks, somebody’s pencil scratches, and at the other end one of the football guys is asleep on his arm. It’s not bad, actually. I get through some homework.
Forty minutes in, Greeley’s phone lights up on the table. He reads it, smiles, types something back, and leans across the table. “Heads up. My friend’s coming to study.”
I keep my eyes on my laptop.
“You know her,” he adds.
I look up at his satisfied face. He grins, sits back, and goes back to his laptop like a guy who just put a puck in the net and is skating back to the bench.
Blondie comes around the corner twenty-five minutes later with a bag over her shoulder, her laptop under her arm, and a coffee from the place on campus. She’s in a Woodbury sweatshirt with her hair up, scanning the room the way you do when you’re meeting somebody you’ve only met once.
Greeley lifts a hand. “Kylie.”
Her face goes warm and relieved when she sees him. Then she takes two more steps and sees me, and all of it comes down like a gate.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
Greeley watches this with pride.
“Why are you here?” she asks me, looking at nobody else.
“I’m signed in.”
“You’re signed in.” She looks at the clipboard, then at the grad student, then back at me, putting it together, and her face softens into something worse. “Is this a punishment? Are you in study hall jail?”
I don’t answer her.
“You shouldn’t have punched someone,” she says, dropping her bag on the chair beside Greeley. “They should make you write an essay.”
Greeley leans back in his chair, easy as anything.
“Hey. Come on.” She turns to him. “It was my fault too,” he says with a shrug and a small, rueful thing with his mouth that I’d love to punch again.
“I said something stupid. He reacted. It happens. We’re both in here now, so.
” He gestures across the table at me, generous, like he’s introducing me to a room. “We’re good. Right, Kennebeck?”
Kylie looks at me. There are eight feet of table between us, a grad student with headphones on, three weeks until official practice, and one sheet of paper with my name signed on it.
“Right,” I say.
“See?” Greeley says. “It’s fine. Sit down. You’re making the swim girl nervous.”
Kylie glances at the girl from the swim team and sits down next to him, looking at him like he’s the only reasonable person in this building.
“That’s very mature of you,” she whispers.
He grins at her. “It’s just hockey.”
She smiles and looks at me again. I hold her eyes a beat longer than I mean to, then go back to my laptop. It’s just hockey.
Twenty minutes pass, and I read the same sentence a dozen times.
Kylie has her notebook open with highlighters.
She’s actually studying, which surprises me.
Her chin’s propped on her hand. I don’t look at her again, but I can see the outline of her and Greeley past the edge of my screen.
At one point, he gets up and comes back with two waters and puts one in front of her, and she thanks him.
A little later, she pushes her laptop toward him and covers her face with both hands.
“Which one is it?” Greeley asks, looking at her screen.
“It’s this—” She points. “The prompt says discuss an example, and then the next line says compare, so is it one example or two? Because if it’s two, I’ve written the entire thing wrong.”
Greeley reads it and tilts his head. “That’s badly worded.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d do one. It says an example.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Just do one. It’ll be fine.”
It’s two. The second line says compare, which means two.
She’s going to lose points on it, and she’s going to be furious that she took advice from this guy.
I don’t say anything. I’m not going to be the guy across the table correcting her homework, so she’ll think better of me.
She’d take the wrong answer from him over the right one from me, and based on everything she’s got, she’d be right to.
The grad student takes her headphones out. “That’s time.”
Everybody packs up. Greeley zips his bag and says something to Kylie about walking back, and she says she’s going to stay and finish. He leans down close to her and tries to convince her to let him walk her. She is adamant about staying and declines him.
He says, “Suit yourself,” and taps the table twice on his way past me. “Thursday.”
“Thursday.”
He goes. I sign out on the clipboard, my name and the time in a column under five other names, and the grad student doesn’t look up. Kylie is still at the table with her laptop open, and I have to walk past her to get to the stairs. She doesn’t look at me until I’m level with her chair.
“Your face looks better,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
I go down the stairs.
Outside, it’s cold, the quad is empty, and I’ve got twenty-four problems left and a week off the ice.