43. Tyler #3
I don't have to. Coach already told me to take the week—whatever you need, West, the bench will hold—and I could've stayed home, lying in bed with Nora pressed against my side, watching Harper crawl across the living room rug for the rest of the day.
But I get up. Because the alternative is sitting in a quiet house with a quiet verdict and a quiet feeling I don't have a name for yet, and I've learned, in the last seven months, that the way through a quiet feeling is usually to put a body in motion.
Nora doesn't try to stop me. She kisses me at the door and says, “Come straight home.”
And I say, “I will.” And then I go.
The locker room is the same locker room.
Same stalls, same smell. Carter's at the equipment rack, back in practice gear instead of yesterday's bad tie, pretending not to watch me come in.
Williams nods. Liam looks up from his tape and says, "Morning, Brother.
" with a careful weight behind it. Neither of them says anything about yesterday.
I knew they wouldn't. That's part of why they came.
I half-expect Reaper not to be here.
He's here.
In his stall, head down, lacing up. He doesn't look up or acknowledge me, same as he's done for two months, since the slap, since the locker-room conversation, since we're clear, West. He's been clean. He's been distant. We've co-existed.
I sit in my stall, tape my stick, and refuse to look at him.
Practice is normal. We run drills. The lines play well together. Reaper passes when he should pass. I score on a one-timer in a five-on-five rep, and Danny chirps at me about it, and Williams claps my shoulder, and Reaper says nothing.
We're heading to the showers at the end when Reaper speaks to me.
"West."
I stop. Turn.
He's by the bench, helmet under his arm, the way you stand when you've been waiting to say something and finally got the timing right.
"You got a minute?"
I look at him. The rest of the team is filtering out, gear bags slung, voices fading into the corridor. Danny glances back once and keeps walking. Liam doesn't even glance; he just keeps moving like he's decided this isn't his to witness.
"Yeah."
He doesn't lead me anywhere private. He just walks to the boards and leans against them, helmet still under his arm. I follow, and stand next to him, both of us looking at the empty ice rather than at each other, the way men do when they're about to say something hard.
"Heard about the verdict," he says.
"Yeah."
"Full custody?"
"Full custody. She keeps her rights. Supervised visits if she meets the conditions. Which everyone thinks she won't."
He nods. Doesn't say good or congratulations, or I'm happy for you. Just nods, like the information has been received and logged.
A long silence.
"My daughter is six," he says, finally.
I didn't know he had a daughter. I knew there was a wife—there's a photo in his stall, has been all season—but I'd never paid attention to whether there was a kid.
"Yeah?"
"Six. Just lost her first tooth." His voice is doing something I haven't heard it do before. Flatter. Less aimed. "I was in San Jose. Got the photo from her mom in the hotel room. The tooth fairy came. Whole nine yards. It sucked to miss it.”
I don't know what to do with that information.
"Yeah," I say. "That's hard."
"Most of the guys here are dads," he says. "You knew that?"
"I knew some of them were."
"Most. Carter, Williams, and Danny next year.
It's a thing. We all do it. Some of us are better at it than others.
" He turns his head toward me, slightly, for the first time.
"When you got here, I heard rumours about Pinewood.
Stuff that came over with you. I'm not going to tell you what I heard because most of it was secondhand, and I was never going to ask you about it directly.
But I made a decision about you the day you walked in, and I made it based on bad information, and I made it because I was looking for someone to be the problem in the room. "
I don't say anything.
"That's the part I'm telling you," he says.
"Not because it changes anything. Not because I want to be—" He gestures, vaguely, at the empty ice.
"Friends. I'm not asking for that. I'm telling you because you have a daughter, and your life is going to be difficult, and the last thing you need is the guy at work still being a problem. "
"Okay."
"So that's me telling you. You don't have to say anything back."
We stand there. The ice is empty. The arena lights hum.
"I’m really glad it went your way," he says. "The verdict. I mean it."
"Thanks."
He pushes off the boards. Adjusts the helmet under his arm.
"That girl of yours," he says. "She's something."
"Yeah."
"Don't fuck it up, West."
"Working on it."
He nods and walks toward the tunnel. Before he disappears, he stops halfway.
"Tell her—" He stops. Reconsiders. "Forget it. Don't tell her anything. We're good."
"We're good," I say.
He walks off.
I stand there with my stick across my hands for a long minute, looking at the ice, before I go to the showers.
I don't know what just happened, exactly. I don't think it was forgiveness. I don't think either of us asked for that or got it. It was something smaller and more useful.
I take it.