Chapter 17
Evan
Ishould have left the building.
Practice had ended four hours ago. The locker room was empty. The cleaners had come and gone. The facility had settled into the after-hours hum I usually only heard when I was the first one in, not the last one still there.
I was on the leg press doing sets of weight I had no business doing without a spotter, and the only reason I was still doing them was that the alternative was sitting in my condo with my own face.
Going home meant time to think about her face when I said it: the half-smile from Brick’s joke breaking into recognition.
I added another plate.
Bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea. I racked it anyway.
The weight-room door opened.
I did not have to look. I knew Brick’s footfalls.
He came around to the front of the machine and looked at the stack.
“You’re doing six-twenty without a spotter,” he said.
“Five-seventy.”
“You added the plate when I came in.”
“Then it’s six-twenty.”
He did not smile.
That was the first sign.
He was not smiling now.
He sat on the bench across from me with his elbows on his knees and his hands loose between them, the way he sat in front of rookies when something in their game had to be said out loud. He waited until I racked the weight.
Then he said, “You’re done.”
It was not a question.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Get up.”
I sat up and wiped my face with the front of my shirt. The room felt smaller than it had twenty seconds ago.
“Brick.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re about to say. The version where you explain it. Don’t.”
I closed my mouth.
He held my eyes until the silence had weight.
“Sit,” he said.
“I already am.”
“Then sit and look at me. Not the floor.”
I looked at him.
“You snapped at her in front of the room.”
“I know.”
“In front of Sully. In front of Mack. In front of two rookies who think you walk on water. In front of Sam.”
The name hit harder because he had not called her Sam to my face before.
I did not answer.
“You used the nickname she gave you,” he said. “Mr. Sunshine. You took the affectionate thing she had made for you and turned it into a knife. Then you handed it back to her with the edge out. You did that. Not me. Not the room. You.”
“I know.”
“Don’t ‘I know’ me, Evan.”
He never called me Evan.
“Then what?” I said.
“Then answer me. Why?”
“Brick…”
“Why?”
The word sat in the room.
I looked at the rubber mats. The black weave. The little flecks of blue worn through by years of deadlifts.
“I had a bad day,” I said.
“Try again.”
“I had a contract call I didn’t tell anyone about.”
“I know about the contract call. Mark called Sully. Sully called me the day it dropped. Try again.”
I looked up at him.
“You knew?”
“I know what’s threatening my room. Try again.”
I breathed out.
“Because I was scared,” I said.
It came out small.
He waited.
“Seattle’s offering ninety million dollars, and I don’t want it.
San Antonio is the place I belong, and I don’t know how to admit that to myself yet.
And Sam…” I stopped. Started again. “Sam looked at me yesterday like she was waiting for me to be a person, and I don’t know how to be one with somebody watching. ”
“So you cut her.”
“Yeah.”
“In front of the room she’s working in.”
“Yeah.”
“With the nickname she gave you.”
“Yeah.”
He nodded once. Slowly. Not like he agreed. Like he was filing the answer where it belonged and getting ready to use it.
“Okay,” he said. “Now listen.”
He sat up straighter, forearms on his knees, eyes on mine.
“A woman gives you something soft in public, you do not turn it into a blade,” he said. “You did that. Own it.”
I did not move.
He turned to me.
“That’s the offer you owe Sam. Not just an apology. Apologies are cheap. The truth is what costs.”
“I don’t know if I can give her that.”
“Then don’t. But you don’t get to keep her either. Pick one.”
“And Evan.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t do it tonight.”
I looked at him.
“Okay.”
“Tomorrow, you let her come in on her schedule. When she’s ready to be in the same room, you let her see you not running. Then you talk.”
“How do I know when she’s ready?”
“You’ll know. She’ll look at you. That’s the signal. Until then, you sit in it and remember what you did.”
I nodded.
“Brick.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
He stood and put a hand on the back of my neck the way he did with rookies after a hard shift, big and warm and absolutely not negotiable, and squeezed once.
“Yeah.”
He let go of my neck and walked toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped and turned.
“And McKinney.”
The last name was back, as if a switch had flipped and the friend was gone, the team leader back in place.
“Yeah.”
“Six-twenty without a spotter. If you ever do that again in my room, I will tell Sully, and Sully will bench you, and you will deserve it. You’re a defenseman. Defensemen do not crush themselves under leg presses because their feelings are hurt.”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
The door closed, and the room went quiet.
Because the only person in it now was a man who had been told the truth and had nowhere to put it down.
I drove home with the windows up and the radio off.
I sat on the couch in the dark and did not turn on a lamp.
My phone was face down on the coffee table. I picked it up. Opened the thread.
Sam.
I set the phone down on the coffee table, screen-up, where I could see it.
Then I sat in the dark and let the guilt stay where it belonged.
I did not text her.
I did not sleep either.
Tomorrow, when she walked into the rink, I would hold my ground and tell her the version that cost.