26. Mackie
MACKIE
The ritual goes like this:
Game day morning, I make him a smoothie with banana, peanut butter, blueberries, and spinach.
He hates spinach, which he’s told me approximately thirty times.
But I read an article about antioxidants and athletic performance in January and decided that my boyfriend was going to consume blended spinach before every game whether he liked it or not, and the Puckaneers have not lost a single game in which he’s drank the smoothie.
They also haven’t lost a game when he hasn’t drank the smoothie, because he barely played before the first round. This is irrelevant. The smoothie is sacred. The smoothie is non-negotiable.
“Mackie.” Zach is in the doorway in his boxers, looking at the blender like it’s a threat. “It’s five in the morning.”
“It’s five forty-eight. And your smoothie is almost ready.”
“I don’t want the smoothie.”
“You need the smoothie.”
“The smoothie has spinach.”
“The smoothie has VICTORY in it.”
He leans against the doorframe and watches me pour the green sludge into a glass. Today is different from other game days. Today Zach isn’t sitting on the bench. Today is Game 7 and the net is his.
He hasn’t said much about it. He doesn’t say much about anything when the pressure gets this big.
He goes quiet and internal and starts doing the thing where he checks every lock on every door twice before bed and lines up his shoes by the front entrance and straightens the books on his shelf so the spines are flush. Control rituals.
I hold the glass out to him. He takes it. Drinks half in one go with his eyes closed and his jaw set before slamming down the glass and gagging.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Thrilled. Step two.”
“There are steps?”
“There are always steps.” I push him toward the bathroom. “Shower. Hot. Seven minutes.”
“Why seven?”
“Because seven is a lucky number and it’s Game 7 and I’m not leaving anything to chance.” I turn the water on. “I’ll pick out your suit.”
“You always pick the wrong tie.”
“I always pick the RIGHT tie. You just don’t trust me because of the paisley incident.”
“You tried to send me to a game in paisley.”
“Paisley is bold! Paisley says ‘I’m here and I’m not afraid’!”
“Paisley says ‘I got dressed in a thrift store with the lights off.’ Navy tie. The solid one.”
“Fine. Navy. Boring. You’re boring and I love you.”
He steps into the shower, hissing at the temperature. I stand there watching the steam curl over the glass door, tracing the blurred shape of him through it. I want to open that door, climb in, and hold onto him until tonight is over.
I lay out his suit. Navy tie, like he asked.
I make the bed because his superstition requires the bed to be made before he leaves for a game, which is a superstition I invented and told him was a real hockey thing and he believed me because he will believe anything I tell him about hockey traditions, a power I have abused without shame.
He comes out of the shower with a towel around his waist and water still on his shoulders and I have to physically stop myself from shoving him onto the freshly made bed.
“Your suit’s out,” I say. “Navy tie.”
“Thank you.”
“Step three.”
He pauses, one leg in his boxers. “What’s step three?”
“Step three is you let me do the thing.”
He knows what the thing is. I sit behind him on the bed and scratch his scalp for exactly three minutes while he closes his eyes and breathes.
I started it in March, he was so tense his shoulders were up around his ears, but the team won the game that night, so now it’s canon.
He will never admit he likes it. He will also never skip it.
He sits. I climb behind him and work my fingers through his damp hair and his shoulders drop and he makes a sound that’s barely audible, somewhere between a sigh and a groan.
“You’re going to be great today,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you. That’s enough.” I lean forward and kiss the back of his neck. “You’ve prepared for this your entire life. Every practice, every morning skate, every game you sat on the bench and watched and studied and stayed ready. This is what ready looks like.”
He reaches back and catches my hand and brings it to his mouth and kisses my palm and holds it against his cheek. His eyes are still closed.
“You need to go,” he says quietly. “Rodriguez is coming down at seven. We’re getting breakfast and then the gym and then I come back here and nap before I head to the arena.”
“I know. I’m going.”
“You’re still behind me scratching my head.”
“I’m finishing the three minutes. There’s a protocol.” One more kiss on the back of his neck. “Okay. Done. Going.”
I climb off the bed and pull on my jeans, checking my hair in the bathroom mirror. Dire. I finger-comb it into something that could be described as “intentional” if you were being generous and “feral” if you were being accurate.
Zach’s dressed now, standing by the door. I cross to him and place my hand on his chest.
“I love you,” I say. “Whatever happens today.”
“I love you too.” He kisses me slowly. “Go home. Get some sleep. I’ll see you at the arena tonight.”
“I’ll be the one screaming.”
“You’re always the one screaming.”
“It’s a gift.”
I grab my bag, slip out the door, and walk down the hallway toward the elevator.
I’ve done this walk a hundred times. The 6 AM exit, shoes on, hair a disaster, riding the elevator down to the garage and walking to my car like I’m just a person who parked here for no reason.
I’ve never been caught. Seven months and not once.
I’m basically a professional at this. A stealth operative. A ninja of secret relationships.
The elevator takes forever this morning.
I haven’t figured out why it does that sometimes.
I stand here picking at my nails, bouncing on my toes, thinking about Game 7 and smoothies.
Thinking about the sound Zach made when I scratched his head, and whether the spinach actually does anything or if I’ve been torturing him for months based on one article I skimmed in the bathtub.
The elevator dings.
The doors slide open.
Rodriguez is standing inside.
He’s holding two coffees and is clearly on his way to Zach’s apartment, an hour early. Because of course he is. Rodriguez has never been on time for anything in his life, and today of all days he decides to be EARLY.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
His mouth opens and hangs there before he snaps it shut.
“Mackie?” He says it like a question. Like maybe I’m not real.
Like maybe if he squints I’ll turn into someone else, anyone else, someone who has a reason to be standing on the fourth floor of this building at 6:15 in the morning that doesn’t involve the teammate whose door is twenty feet behind me.
“Hey, Rodriguez.” My voice comes out bright and breezy and completely insane. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.” He says it slowly, like he’s explaining it to himself. “On the tenth floor. I live here. In this building. Where Zach also lives. On this floor.”
“Right! Right. Yeah, I know that.”
“Mackie.” His eyes start at my shoes, track up to my bag, then my hair. The hair that is very clearly the hair of a person who slept in a bed that wasn’t hers. “Why are you... here?”
“I was just...” My brain is reaching for an excuse and finding nothing.
I have prepared for this moment for seven months.
I have rehearsed cover stories. I have a list of plausible alibis saved in the notes app on my phone.
And right now, standing in front of Rodriguez at 6:15 AM with Zach’s hallway behind me and sex hair on top of me, I cannot remember a single one of them.
“I was visiting a friend,” I try.
“At six in the morning?”
“She’s an early riser.”
“On the fourth floor?”
“Yes, she lives on the fourth floor.”
“What’s her name?”
“...Linda.”
Rodriguez stares at me. “Linda.”
“Linda... Smith.”
He looks calm but his eyes are getting wider. I can see his brain working, see the pieces assembling, see the picture forming that he does not want to see.
He looks down the hallway. At Zach’s door. At me. Back at Zach’s door.
“No,” he says.
“Rodriguez—”
“No. No no no.” He steps out of the elevator as the doors close behind him. He stands in the hallway and I watch him real time have a complete and total system failure. “You’re not—tell me you’re not—Mackie, tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. My face is saying everything my mouth won’t.
“ZACH?” His voice cracks up an octave. “ZACH ALMARDON? You and ZACH?”
“Keep your voice down—”
“How LONG?” He’s whisper-shouting now, which Rodriguez does not do well. It comes out as a strangled hiss. “How long has this been—when did you—Mackie, WHEN?”
“October.”
“OCTOBER?” The coffee in his hand sloshes dangerously. “October OCTOBER? Like the BEGINNING OF THE SEASON October?”
“Rodriguez, please—”
“Does he know who you are? Mackie, does Zach know that you’re—that Jack is your —”
“Yes. He knows.”
“Since when?”
“Since basically the whole time.”
Rodriguez’s mouth is moving but no sound is coming out. He turns in a small circle in the hallway, takes two steps toward Zach’s door, turns back, takes a step toward the elevator, turns back again.
“Does your dad know?” he asks.
“No.”
“Barrett?”
I hesitate a fraction too long.
“BARRETT KNOWS?” Another octave up. A coffee lid pops off and liquid spills over his hand and he doesn’t notice. “Barrett knows and I DON’T? I’ve been bringing this man coffees that he doesn’t even like every game day for two YEARS and he’s been—with YOUR—and BARRETT knew before ME?”
“Barrett walked in on us at the Christmas party.”
Rodriguez makes a sound like someone stepped on a dog toy.
“I was AT that Christmas. I was IN YOUR HOUSE.” He closes his eyes.
“Oh god. Oh god, Mackie. Jack is going to kill him. Jack is actually going to murder him with his bare hands and I’ll have to watch because I’ll be standing right there when it happens because I’m ALWAYS standing right there. ”
“Nobody is murdering anyone—”
“You don’t know your dad when it comes to you and boys! Remember when that kid from school picked you up for homecoming and your dad answered the door in his game jersey? That kid’s hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t pin your corsage!”
“That was years ago—”
“And this is WORSE. This is his TEAMMATE. This is a guy who SHOWERS in the same room as your father, Mackie. Do you understand the level of—the absolute —” He runs out of words and just gestures wildly with the coffee, spraying droplets across the hallway carpet.
“Rodriguez.” I take his arm. “I need you to breathe.”
“I am breathing. I’m breathing and panicking. I’m doing both at the same time.”
“I need you to not tell my dad. Not today.”
“Obviously not today! It’s Game 7! I’m not going to —” He stops and closes his eyes. When he opens them the panic is still there but something else has settled over it.
“You love him,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And he loves you.”
“Yes.”
Rodriguez looks at me for a long time. The coffee is dripping down his wrist and he still hasn’t noticed.
“This is so bad, Mackie,” he says softly. “You know that, right? This is so, so bad.”
“I know.”
“Not today. Not before the game. I’m not going to do that to him. But after. Mackie, after this game, after this series, whatever happens—this has to come out. You have to tell your dad.”
“We were going to. Zach was going to tell him after the season. Before everything—” I stop. Before Game 5. Before Luca.
Rodriguez nods slowly. “Okay. After.” He looks down the hallway toward Zach’s door.
“I’m going to go knock on that door and bring him his coffee and we’re going to go eat breakfast and I’m going to act normal and he’s going to focus on the game and we’re not going to talk about this. Can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Don’t text him about this. Not today. Let him have today.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” He straightens up and puts on a version of his face that almost looks like regular Rodriguez. “Okay. I’m going. I’m walking to his door. I’m being normal. This is me being normal.”
He walks down the hallway. Then stops and turns back.
“Linda Smith,” he says flatly. “You panicked and said Linda Smith.”
“I know.”
“That’s the worst fake name I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
He shakes his head and turns back toward Zach’s door.
I press the elevator button and wait. The doors open.
I step in and watch Rodriguez give a knock—two quick raps, their usual pattern and Zach's muffled voice answers from inside. Rodriguez calls out, “It’s me, open up,” in a voice that sounds almost normal.
Almost.
The doors close and I ride down alone.
In the lobby I stand there and stare at the elevator doors and see my reflection—messy hair, wrinkled clothes, bag over my shoulder, a girl who just got caught.
My phone buzzes.
Zach
You forgot your other sock. It’s on Shredder’s tank.
I stare at the text. The urge to call him right now and say Rodriguez knows is suffocating. To just dump it on him and let him deal with it.
I can’t. Not today. Not when he’s about to play the biggest game of his life.
Me
Keep it. Shredder needs a blanket.
Zach
That’s disgusting.
Me
He’s a fish. He doesn’t judge.
Go win a hockey game.
I put my phone in my pocket and walk to my car. I sit behind the wheel and grip it and try to breathe.
Rodriguez knows. Barrett knows. My mom knows. The circle is expanding and I can feel the whole thing tilting toward a cliff edge and the only question is whether we jump or get pushed.
I start the car and drive home. I put on Zach’s gray hoodie—the one with the hole in the sleeve—and sit on my bed and wait.
Whatever happens on the ice tonight, everything changes tomorrow.