Chapter Five
Dustin
I’ll even blow on your cue if you want?
Dustin lay on his back with dawn coming under the blinds and blinked open his eyes. The idiotic thing he’d said to Rodriguez last night was the first thing that came into his head, and he laughed, squeezing his eyes under his hands.
I’ll even blow on your cue if you want. Jesus Christ, Bennet.
He threw back the covers and got up and went into the bathroom. Too many beers; he needed a piss or it was gonna come out of his ears. He braced on the wall behind the toilet with his dick in his hand and put his head down and closed his eyes.
He laughed again.
He went out to the bedroom and dressed for his walk and laced his sneakers and went back into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He laughed at himself in the mirror with the toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.
Shame he wasn’t gay. Such a great line to waste just fucking with Rodriguez.
The elevator down to the lobby was blissfully quiet. Nobody else moved at this hour except the chihuahua on three who’d been demanding a five-thirty walk for as long as Dustin had lived there, but he’d apparently taken the morning off.
The river was four blocks east. He crossed the streetcar tracks and hit the running path on the bank of the Willamette. He checked his watch. Five thirty-three.
Walking for exercise was something Dustin was still getting used to. Dr. Wu said walking was like meditation, and that Dustin could practice focusing on his steps, noticing his breathing, the sounds around him. Dustin already did all that. He could do all that while running.
The light on the river was gray and still.
An old man and an even older Labrador passed in the opposite direction as a woman in a high-vis vest put a paddle board in the river at the dock.
At the end of the first mile the path went under a bridge and out the other side onto a wide plaza with a view back down the river.
His watch read five forty-nine. Nailing a fourteen-minute mile.
The sun was just beginning to broach the skyline so he stopped to watch it. He did the bend-and-flex check of his knee that had become habitual. A little stiff, but that wasn’t unexpected in the morning. May have gone a little hard on the ladder.
He leaned on the rail at the edge of the plaza and looked down into the water.
I’ll even blow on your cue if you want.
Chuckling, he shook his head and went back.
He was halfway up the steps to his building when his phone rang in the pocket of his shorts. The name on the screen was Dr. Lisa Wu.
Frowning, he picked up. “Doc?”
“Dustin. How are you?”
“Just getting back from a walk. What’s up?”
“We had a check-in scheduled. Is this still a good time? I have you down at six AM Pacific.”
“Oh, right.” He jogged a step to open the door for a woman with a coffee in one hand and keys in the other.
“I can call back later if you want.”
“No, yeah, now’s fine.” He held the door with his back and smiled as the woman mouthed, Thanks, with her phone between her ear and shoulder. Dustin let the door close and went to the elevator.
“How’s the knee?” said Dr. Wu.
“Fine.”
“Mobility, swelling, any pain?”
He looked down at it as he pushed the button. “A little stiff today. Nothing new.”
“And you’re checking in with the local physician there? I’ve been getting the dailies from Tom – seems like the team at Force is on top of everything?”
“Yep.”
“How’s the sleep?”
“Sleep is fine. I’m getting eight.” Just about. He and Rodriguez had wrapped up early after the girls ditched them last night. Rodriguez never seemed to come back from that – he was a sulky little shit all night.
“Any concerns?” said Lisa.
“Nope.”
A pause while she rattled something into a keyboard on her end, then she came back. “Good. Sounds like you haven’t been trying to push it, which is what I was afraid you’d start doing at this point. But Tom said everything’s been smooth sailing. Said he has you doing ladders?”
Did he now. Tom must have glossed over the specifics of that. Not surprising: Dr. Wu was four-foot-nothing, but she had mad tiger mom energy, and Dustin was pretty sure she was one of the only people Tom was afraid of.
“Keep being careful,” she said. “You’re going to start feeling like you can do more than you can. Don’t. You’ve come this far. It would be a real shame to tweak something and have to backtrack.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “Yep.”
She typed something else, then paused, and Dustin sensed she’d run out of things to say faster than she’d expected to. “Okay,” she said, “well…”
“Sounds like we’re good,” said Dustin.
“Sounds like we are. Great. I’ll check in in two weeks. Call if anything changes.”
His apartment in the Pearl District was a loft on the fifth floor of a converted warehouse.
Part of some expansion project the city was doing.
He’d had it three years and made zero attempt to decorate.
His dad said decoration was distraction, and anyway, the place didn’t need it.
It was light and open, with enough space to train and massive window on the south wall with a view of the hills.
Dustin liked to think of it as ‘quiet elegance’.
He wasn’t sure where he’d heard that phrase, but he liked the sound of it.
He dropped his bag by the door and got a glass of water at the sink, then stood at the marble kitchen island and stared through the window while he drank it.
His ibuprofen sat at the end of the counter.
He picked it up and put it away in the cupboard over the stove and checked his watch. Jordan would be up soon
He went back to the sink for another glass of water, and checked in with Tom to make sure they were still on for eight. Jordan’s text came in a few minutes later. He swiped it open.
Checking in. And the bucktooth emoji with the glasses.
How’s it going? Dustin replied.
Good. You? How was physio this week?
Dustin considered not telling Jordan about the agility ladder. Not because Jordan would chew him out, but because he was embarrassed about how slow he’d been. But his brother would know enough not to ask about the time. He sent the message:
Did a ladder this week.
The reply dots bubbled.
Hot shit little brother, and three fire emojis.
Something sharp went straight into the middle of Dustin’s chest. It was exactly what he needed to hear. He sent back a thumbs up.
A long pause. Then a photo came through.
The sharp thing in Dustin’s chest actually thumped as it did.
He turned the phone sideways. It was from the Stanley Park seawall, looking back across the water at the city, and the sky was that unreal shade of Canadian blue that only Vancouver in summer could achieve.
Damn, sent Dustin. That from this week?
Yeah been running a contract in Stanley Park.
How’s all that going?
The usual. Making shitloads of money. Working my ass off.
Dustin sent a thumbs up. How’s May and Sarah?
Another picture. May, missing a tooth and absolutely covered in watermelon, grinning in front of a sprinkler.
They’re good.
Dustin lowered the phone and took a deep breath and looked out the window. Whatever was lodged in his chest wasn’t moving. He went determinedly to the middle of the room, opened the camera and snapped a picture of the hills through the window, and sent it.
Jordan sent the fire emoji and, Not bad. How’s the knee
Fine
How’s Portland
Beautiful
Another long pause, during which dots bubbled and disappeared and then bubbled again. Finally, Jordan sent: Did I hear something about Elliot Rodriguez doing his off-season there?
Sighing vocally, Dustin went back to the kitchen island. He set the phone down and went to fill another glass at the sink.
You did, he sent, when he got back to the phone.
A long moment of nothing, and then, Mm.
Yup
He’s from Tampa, isn’t he?
Yup
Jordan didn’t reply, and Dustin figured he’d been called away to deal with May.
He finished the water and rinsed the glass, and when he returned to the phone, Jordan had sent, Hey I gotta go, Sarah’s putting breakfast down.
But the three dots were bubbling underneath that, which meant there was more coming.
They bubbled for a very long time, and then,
Listen I know you’re fucked up about that Rodriguez headline, and I know you don’t wanna hear this but…
maybe the kid being there this summer is good?
He probably needs guidance right? You know how it is going into the show right out of junior league.
It’s not just the game, it’s all the shit that comes with it.
Especially for a kid like that – after the season he just had. He’s got it. You know he does.
A moment, then Jordan added: And it could be good for you too
Dustin tipped his face to the ceiling. Jordan was right: he didn’t want to hear it.
Fine, he sent, message received
Jordan wasn’t done: And not to harp on it, but
More dots.
you are the adult. You can’t really stay butt hurt about a kid beating your guys in the little game you get to play for money
Uh huh. Okay. Good chat
Love you
Love you too. Say hi to May and Sarah
Dustin put the phone face down on the island and braced on the counter with his head down. So now he was supposed to be what? A mentor?
He had no desire to be that. You did events, yeah, with kids, and you showed up to say some words and take a few shots and let them chase the puck around, and then you took your check and you left. You didn’t see those kids again. You weren’t responsible for them.
How the hell did you teach them things? And what the hell did you teach a kid like Elliot Rodriguez?
Well, manners, for one thing.
Okay, and how the fuck did you do that? Dustin wasn’t interested in becoming Rodriguez’s punching bag.
He didn’t care how the poor guy’s legendary breakout year was going.
Nine years ago, Dustin had that same year.
And yeah, it was tough. Partly because Jordan had just burned out and quit the league, which Dustin hadn’t supported, because Dad didn’t believe in ‘burnout’ and therefore, neither did he.
So…yeah. Okay. There was always something going on apart from the game. Rodriguez was probably dealing with life shit of his own.
Dustin understood that…it just hadn’t been that way for him for a while, because there wasn’t much shit in Dustin’s life but hockey anymore. You didn’t get where he was any other way. You chose hockey. Over everything.
But maybe Jordan was right. He could be a grown up.
He could figure out how to – ugh, he hated it – connect with Rodriguez.
He’d have to be wily about it, because he suspected Rodriguez would hate being mentored as much as he hated the idea of mentoring.
Could be fun to come up with a way to trick him into hanging out, though.
Lure him in with a bet, or something. Rodriguez seemed to like those.
Maybe he did need something like that. Something new. Something to take his mind off his own career, and the knee, and the looming fear that all this would be coming to an end for him soon and he didn’t know how to deal with that.
Jordan hadn’t said the word ‘retire’ today. But he’d been slipping it into conversations here and there since the injury. Like the thing with Rodriguez, it was something Dustin didn’t want to hear.
Because deep down, it wasn’t Rodriguez that Dustin was worried about.
Dustin wasn’t butt hurt about Rodriguez winning the little game they played for money.
He didn’t blame him for being good. It wasn’t his fault people called him The New Dustin Bennet.
Dustin knew he was: he could see it, same as Jordan.
It wasn’t that Elliot Rodriguez was the new Dustin Bennet.
It was that ol’ Dustin Bennet didn’t have anywhere else to go.