Chapter 7 The New Year
The New Year
“Can you help me zip this dress up?” Emogen asked.
Taylor stood behind her as she stood in front of her floor-length mirror, admiring her appearance.
Her platinum blonde hair was shoulder-length blonde after “giving into her evil haircut thoughts” a few weeks ago and really brought out her green eyes.
She held up a silver strapless body-con dress that hugged her curves nicely once Taylor helped zip her up.
It showed, in his opinion, a respectable amount of cleavage without being too slutty. And he’d told her as much.
Emogen was one of Taylor’s good friends from Sacramento.
And also, his ex-girlfriend. They broke up right before Taylor signed his contract, but they had remained good friends since.
She was the only girl Taylor would casually hook up with because he trusted her more than most people.
She was also a really, really good person to talk to, and had acted as Taylor’s unofficial therapist before he started seeing Dr. Browne.
It was Gretchen’s idea for Taylor to see a therapist. She told him that everyone should have one if they could afford it, which made Taylor feel a lot less weird about going.
He didn’t tell anyone else about seeing Dr. Browne except for a handful of the teammates he was close with.
Douglas, Sánchez, and Fletch. Pancek found out too after accidentally walking in on one of Taylor’s online sessions.
He was downstairs in his room in the basement sitting at the desk when Pancek walked downstairs to ask him what he wanted for dinner.
Taylor reflexively slammed the laptop closed before Pancek high-tailed it out of there shouting “Sorry! Oh God.”
It turns out he thought Taylor was jerking off to some porn on his computer.
“Why would I be doing that with the door open?” He had asked with a confused look on his face.
Since then, Taylor had been strictly attending in-person therapy sessions once a week if time allowed.
His schedule was kind of all over the place.
They had their first home game in nearly a month earlier this afternoon, easily beating Chicago 7-3.
They were lucky enough to have three home games in a row, which meant they would get to stay in Seattle for almost two weeks before having to hit the road.
On Christmas they ended up playing against San Jose but lost 0-1.
It was a tough game, but they were easily lifted by the Christmas spirit.
Gretchen and the kids flew down to meet us, and they all stayed in an Airbnb together on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas morning, the kids woke up to toys from Santa.
They got Taylor some new headphones to take on the bus and plane, but in the bottom of the gift bag there was a picture of an ultrasound saying, “you’ll need these pretty soon.
” Gretchen announced she was due in late June or early July.
Taylor and the kids also unwrapped matching “big brother” and “big sister” for Gretchen’s pregnancy announcement. She jokingly promised Taylor that there would be no lap sitting, but hand holding was still on the table.
Their next away game would be in Jacksonville.
Fletcher didn’t have a chance to go home for any of the big three holidays because of the game schedule, which he said was completely fine with him. He spent Christmas with Taylor and the Panceks. Pancek told Taylor he had an obligation to invite the kid as captain.
For New Year’s, Taylor and Emogen were meeting up with Fletcher, Sánchez, and Douglas and their respective partners.
Fletcher had a never-ending roster of girls he was seeing, so he wasn’t quite sure who the lucky winner would be tonight.
Taylor learned that Sánchez had been seeing Katherine, who was the Team Liaison.
Whatever that meant. The guys liked to tease him about being into cougars, but Sánchez was nineteen and Katherine was only twenty.
Douglas had gotten into some hot water when everyone found out he was dating Corinna Roca.
Marco’s little sister and Sánchez’s cousin.
Marco was extra rough on him during practice for an entire month, but apparently, they had been going steady since the beginning of the season.
Sánchez thought it was hilarious. Especially because of how mad it made Marco.
Taylor and Emogen took an Uber to their new favorite club, Sabez.
He and the guys had been hopping from place to place trying to find the best spot in Seattle until they finally found this place a few weeks ago.
Taylor wasn’t usually a huge going out person, but he was looking forward to spending time with Emogen and his friends.
After thanking their driver, Taylor skipped the line and guided Emogen inside. He had a lot of street cred in Seattle now, which he was using to his advantage tonight. He and Emogen ordered drinks before finding all the others hanging out on the rooftop.
“This is my ex-girlfriend, Emogen,” he announced.
“Wow, okay. I thought I was your best friend.” Emogen pretended to be offended.
“No way!” Sánchez exclaimed. “I found Taylor first.”
“Actually, she did,” Taylor laughed. “I’ve known her since eighth grade. You’re one year too late, hermano.”
None of the guys were really dancers, least of all Taylor.
Corinna dragged Emogen and Katherine out into the crowd of people to dance while Taylor stayed to chat with Douglas and Sánchez.
Off to the corner of the roof, Fletcher had his hands glued to a girl’s waist and his tongue down her throat.
Her name was Ava or something, but Taylor didn’t really bother memorizing their names.
He couldn’t help but steal occasional glances at the two of them. The girl had her arms thrown loosely around his neck as he leaned down to kiss her. His hands felt their way down to her ass, and Taylor choked on his beer when he watched him squeeze it.
“Everything okay, bud?”
Taylor’s face must’ve flushed with embarrassment. “All good,” he answered. “Just forgot how to swallow.”
“Do you guys think we will beat Dallas on Friday?” Douglas asked.
He had been with Dallas for a majority of his rookie season before being traded to Seattle.
Taylor knew there was an incident of some kind where a player on the team had been accused of sexual assault, but the league had kept it all very hush.
Douglas had gotten into it with the player, and he was traded that same evening.
The player was still on the team, but Douglas hadn’t told them who it was.
Anytime they played Dallas, Douglas ended up in a bad headspace.
Taylor wondered if the girl was someone close to him.
“Totally, brother. We are going to absolutely fuck them and send them home running.”
“Fuck yeah we are,” Sánchez chimed in. “They’ve literally lost their last six games, I think. Something around there. You’ve got nothing to worry about, compa.” Sanchez patted him on the back reassuringly.
“Taylor, come dance!” Emogen beckoned from afar.
“No, Emogen!” Taylor shouted back in a playful tone.
Emogen walked over to Taylor and grabbed him by the arm. “I came all this way to visit you. We are dancing!”
After experiencing first-hand the tragic aftermath of drunk driving, Taylor had rarely surpassed more than three drinks during a night out. He was extremely serious about making sure he and his friends were all drinking responsibly.
On nights like these, surrounded by the people he knew he could trust, Taylor felt comfortable enough to let loose.
He had grown close enough to Douglas and Sánchez to tell them about his dad’s accident.
Since then, he noticed they were a lot more careful about monitoring their own drinking.
He would never ask them to change their ways, but it meant the world to him that they were a lot more mindful about it.
Taylor jokingly threw his arms over Emogen’s shoulders while Emogen planted her hands on his hips.
Like Taylor was the girl and she was the guy.
It was pretty silly considering the way he towered over her, but he and Emogen had always joked around like this.
They were very comfortable with one another, even while they had broken up a handful of times during the span of their relationship.
* * *
One day in the tenth grade, Emogen had invited Taylor over to work on an ecology project for their AP Biology class.
They had to create an ecosystem inside of a 2-liter bottle that could sustain life without unscrewing the lid.
Taylor had been looking forward to the terrarium project because it gave him an excuse to have a pet fish.
They were in the middle of a period of being broken up because Taylor needed to focus on hockey.
“We need to put the gravel rocks down first, I think,” she said.
“Okay, grab the funnel and I’ll pour.”
“We don’t need a funnel for rocks,” she laughed. “And it’s the first layer so they’ll fall straight to the bottom.”
Taylor grabbed their bag of rocks they had in their kit and dropped them down the hole.
“Are we doing the barrier thing next?” he asked.
“Uhh, probably? Is that what the mesh is for?”
“Should we just google it?” Taylor asked seriously.
Emogen pulled up a step list on her computer, and they used it to assemble their terrarium.
They stuffed a piece of mesh down the hole, using the eraser from a pencil to push it down and spread it out.
Emogen took over and made Taylor hold the funnel while she poured the different layers.
She claimed the terrarium needed a “woman’s touch” as an excuse to steamroll over the entire project.
Emogen was the top of their class, so she cared a little too much about making sure it was perfect.