20. Russ
CHAPTER 20
RUSS
I skip golf in the morning. I don’t stick around for the girls to wake up, either. Instead, I do the rookie workout with Foster in the garage, followed by an ice bath and some red light therapy, hoping the latter works on jealousy as well as it does whatever else it claims.
Then I tag along with them to the rink in town, where Thea and Foster have an extra clinic planned for them this morning before we return in the afternoon with the rest of the guys.
Foster gives me a look when he sees me carrying in my bag.
“What?”
“You don’t want to overdo it,” he says calmly.
“Then I won’t.”
“You’re not twenty anymore.”
“Fully aware, bud. Thanks.”
I take the warm up skate easy, then practice some angled shots off the boards at one end while Thea sets them up for some board battles. The mission this morning is to get them ready for the brute force of the NHL, and at first, they aren’t sure that Thea Brown—who is a foot shorter than most of them—is the right person to teach them how to use their size, but she quickly wins them over with her keen observations and suggestions.
“All right, you’re starting to get the idea of it. Mason, Zondi. Line up and let’s do that again.”
They take their mark ten feet from the boards, and on her whistle, they charge hard for the puck Foster shoots up along the boards.
Zondi’s bigger and faster, but Mason hunches down, making himself smaller—and more compact. A coiled ball of muscles that can explode once he’s got his skate between Malik’s.
Just in time, Zondi figures it out, twisting and using his weight to power away with the puck.
“You almost had me,” he says cheerfully, swinging back to high-five Mason.
I skate closer as Calhoun and Watanabe line up.
The most important part of this morning is not just Malik and Jamie learning from Thea and Foster, but also learning how to watch better hockey players the way the skills coach and trainer do—with professional objectiveness. Like scouts. Because there’s a lot of pre-scouting done for us for games, but we need to do it, too. Watching tape. Remembering guys from game to game—which isn’t easy, since we don’t play the same team more than a few times a year, unless we get them in the playoffs.
Zondi doesn’t disappoint. He makes the same comments I would, which is impressive for a twenty-one-year-old. Mason gets a little caught up in the battle, just cheering, but he’s a younger prospect, and will get it in time.
Thea blows her whistle after Hiro wins the puck battle. “Now we’re going to do it down by the net. Foster is going to be our goalie this morning. While he gets his pads and helmet on, let me run through the plan here. The name of this game is get to the net. That’s the end goal. Get in the corner, win the puck, get it to a teammate, and then get to the net.” She points to me. “Why is that, Armstrong?”
“Because goals are scored at the net.”
“Correct. How many of us were the best shot on our minor teams?”
We all raise our hands.
“And in junior?”
They all keep their hands up. Mine comes down, because the Scottish whiz kid on ice was just average in the Toronto competitive leagues. I glance at Thea, silently asking if I can say something.
She smiles. “I bet Russ has some insight on this.”
“Quick story. By the time I made junior, it was clear that while I had a lot of hockey skill, I wasn’t going to out score other forwards. I even switched to D for a bit, which wasn’t for me. I came back to being a forward with the right coaching, but always in a shut-down role. Nobody has ever expected me to score a lot of goals. But the only reason I ever do is because I know how to get to the blue paint.”
Thea nods. “You’re going to have this screamed at you by coaches across your NHL career. We’re trying to help provide the context for that now, so it’s easier to adjust your game accordingly.”
Foster skates onto the ice, all geared up to have puck battles right in front of him.
Thea points me at the boards behind him. “Do a skate around, pretend to to have a battle, and come to the point.”
I glide behind the net, then bump into the boards where she’s dumped the puck, duelling with an imaginary opponent before snapping the puck wide and clear. Breathing hard, I go straight to the edge of the blue paint, right in front, providing a screen for someone to make a shot on the net.
Thea does just that, trying to go five-hole.
Jenson blocks it easily, and I chip it right in.
“Perfect,” Thea calls. She takes off her glove and counts out what she liked about my play. “Rusty wasn’t interfering with the goalie at all, but he got into the perfect spot—and he’s big enough, and tough enough, nobody will be able to move him from that spot. You are all going into training camp in a blessed position. The NHL always needs guys who can do what Rusty just did. Get to where someone like Jenson Hale or Hiro Watanabe can put the puck, and they will find you every fucking time. Now let’s do that with some actual battling, mmkay?”
I get out of their way and skate to the far end of the ice, where I’m surprised to find Emery watching.
I skate to the door in the boards and head off. She meets me on the rubber mat, and follows me into the empty dressing room.
“When did you get here?” I reach back and yank the velcro that holds my jersey to my pants.
“A few minutes ago.”
I glance up at the tight note in her voice. “Everything okay?”
She makes a face.
“Oh no. Buzz, what happened?”
“Shannon didn’t want to watch Cutting Edge this morning.” Her voice sounds really small.
I pause, waiting for the rest.
But apparently, that’s it. Emery stares at me, like I’m supposed to interpret this in a significant way.
“So you drove twenty minutes to tell me this?”
“Russ!”
“What?”
“Last night, I think we freaked her out.”
I unlace my skates roughly, then yank them off my feet. “There’s no we here. I know you think you were doing something last night, but you didn’t freak her out. I agree that we shouldn’t do anymore of what you were doing, but?—”
“Wait, are you…” She gasps and crosses her arms over her chest. “Russell Armstrong, are you mad me for trying to help?”
“I’m not mad.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay. Anyway, what about you touching her while we were watching TV?”
I freeze, a skate guard in mid-air.
“Yeah, that wasn’t real subtle.” She sighs. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t what I did. Maybe it was your?—”
“We’re both going to stop.” My voice is hard and clipped. I try to soften that by looking at her. “She took her husband to bed, Buzz. That was as clear a reminder she could send me that I need to get over her. Not that I should have needed a reminder in the first place. I should never have involved you in any part of this. Think about how it must feel to her that you were insisting on watching a broken love triangle movie? What we have isn’t a love triangle. It’s a one-sided obsession from a man who should know better. It’s fucking sad.”
Emery glares at me for a long, silent beat before saying, “You’re not sad.”
“Stop.”
“It’s not one-side, either.”
“ Stop .”
It’s less a word and more a roar.
I finish undressing in silence. Once I’m down to my shorts, I yank on a dry t-shirt and clean socks. I can shower at home.
“What did you tell them when you left?”
She shrugs and gestures in the corner, where her signature orange gear is set up. “I grabbed my hockey bag. I could skate.”
“I’m heading back. I want a shower and a nap before we come back this afternoon. But they’ll still be going for a bit if you want to.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll skate with them.” She doesn’t meet my gaze.
I zip up my bag and shove my feet into slides before lifting it over my shoulder. I stop right beside her. “Thank you for caring about Shannon. I’m sure she’s fine, but…it’s sweet that the first thing you worried about was that she was upset.”
Emery mimes her lips being zipped.
I nod. Right. I told her to stop, and I can’t have it both ways.
I don’t bother saying goodbye to the rookies on the ice. I’ll see them soon enough.
My drive home is silent. Bracing myself, maybe, because despite minimizing the situation for Emery, I worry about what I might find at the cottage.
When I get there, though, I find Shannon and Kiley in the living room, deep in conversation about podcasting. I linger for a second, long enough for them to glance up at me.
“How’s everything?” I ask.
Bright smiles from both of them accompany Shannon’s reply. “Good. The lake’s nice and brisk, if you’re going in.”
“Are you going swimming again?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve done enough of that, I think.”
Right.
I head upstairs and lose myself in a steamy shower. This time, my cock doesn’t want attention, which is good. He doesn’t fucking deserve any.