by Sarina Bowen
“Live and learn,” Leo grunted.
“Hope Coach doesn’t see it before he makes the lineup for tonight. ’Cause now you’re the guy who got his little girl on all the gossip blogs.”
Fuck. “I’m ready to play. Hope he doesn’t scratch me.”
“That’s the tune I’m singing every night, dude. And yet I’ve played four games all season.”
“I hear you.” Backup goalie was a tough gig, though. It wasn’t the same thing, and they both knew it.
“Did you cheat on this girl, or something?”
“Never,” Leo said quickly. “We were together a long time, until she cut me loose on graduation day.”
“Bummer.” Silas laughed.
Leo said nothing. That year had been so hard on the both of them, but it wasn’t something he should talk about. He hoped Georgia had healed as best she could, but it was her private business.
“Can you pull around the corner?” Silas asked the cabbie as the car slowed down. “We need the side entrance.”
A minute later they both got out, and Leo waved off the goalie’s ten dollar bill. “You can get the next one.” He paid the fare and pulled out his shiny new team ID.
“Afternoon, boys,” the security guard said as he waved them through. “Beat Tampa.”
“We will,” Silas said, although it was iffy whether either one of them would have a say in it. Leo followed the goalie down a set of stairs and through a bright hallway beneath the stadium. They came to a stop outside a locked door. “Try your ID,” Silas suggested. “See if it works.”
With a nervous chuckle, Leo held his card up to the scanner. The light flashed green and the door clicked open.
He was in. At least for today.
“Guess I’m your tour guide,” Silas said. “Treatment rooms and the stretching gym are all the way at the end of the hall. But the locker room is in here.” Leo followed Silas into an antechamber with traditional wooden lockers. “Coat goes here, and you can hang up your suit and change. Hey—they already gave you a spot.” He opened a locker that already bore a brass-framed nametag reading TREVI. Silas pointed out a pair of black shorts and a gray T-shirt with the Bruisers’ logo. “They’ve got you all set up with a training kit. I’m gonna change.” He moved down the row to his own locker.
After they both changed into warm-up gear—pads and jerseys would come later—Leo followed Silas into the next room, which was where it all really happened. The Bruisers’ owner had built a state-of-the-art oval dressing room, where every player had plenty of room for his gear and everyone could see and hear everyone else.
Once again, he found TREVI, #55 on a locker. All his pads were here—arranged by a team minion in his locker, which was beside Castro’s. And what’s more—a jersey hung from it. Purple, of course, with T R E V I stitched on in white. It was impossible not to stare at it. His whole life he’d been waiting for this.
“You can snap a picture,” Silas said. “I won’t tell.”
“Nah.” Leo’s little sister would want him to, but Leo was too superstitious. If he got to stick around, there’d be plenty of time to get that picture later. “Where is everyone?” They were the only two in the room.
“In the treatment rooms getting stretched and taped. And in the lounge getting a bite or a protein drink. Let’s go. It’s right back here.”
They went back the way they’d come and then a bit farther down the hall toward a door marked BRUISERS PLAYERS AND STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.
Silas pushed it open, calling, “Hey, ladies. What’s for eats?”
“Taco Tuesday!” O’Doul yelled. And sure enough, there was a spread of Mexican food on a kitchen counter at the far end of the lounge. In addition to the kitchen and dining tables, there was a carpeted area with leather sofas and a big-screen TV. A half dozen players were scattered around the room, snacking and talking to one another.
“It’s Saturday, dumb-ass.” Beringer, another veteran defenseman, pinched O’Doul’s ass and then plucked something off his plate and stuck it in his mouth.
“Get your own,” O’Doul complained, sidestepping him. He sat down in the center of a leather sofa that was just off to the side of the room. “Hey, rookie!”
It took Leo a beat to realize he was being addressed. “Hey.”
“Bring me a water, would you?”
Seriously? “Sure thing,” Leo said. But then he took his sweet time. In slow motion, he turned around, locating a spoon and a carton of yogurt. He wouldn’t eat a real meal this close to game time.
When he was good and ready he crossed the kitchen to open the beverage refrigerator. “Does our captain prefer the still water or the bubbles with his cuisine?”
O’Doul snorted. “Just chuck me a bottle of the plain stuff.”
Leo took out two, then walked over to offer one to O’Doul. “Here, man. Sorry about that bullshit at the press conference yesterday. I’m not usually a loose cannon.” He locked eyes with the man and waited to see what the captain would say.
The guy studied him, giving nothing away. Leo was pretty good at reading people, but O’Doul was a tough nut to crack. He seemed to blow hot and cold on everyone. “Thanks,” he said, taking the bottle and twisting it open. Whether the gratitude referred to the water or the apology, he didn’t say. And then the captain looked past him, watching someone else come through the door. “Bayer! How’s the shoulder feel?”
Dismissed. Ah, well. He’d tried.
Leo took a seat at one of the tables. But as he ate, he listened to the conversations around him. The most interesting part was the discussion of Bayer’s injury.
“Got a massage after warm-ups, but it’s still a little sore. The trainer wants me to sit out another game,” Bayer complained. “But I don’t need it. We both talked to Coach, but I don’t know what the new guy’ll decide.”
A silence fell over the room as all the smack talk died. While Leo had probably the worst case of new-guy anxiety, the truth was that every guy here would be a little on edge today. A new coach could shake things up in ways that wouldn’t be appreciated.
O’Doul looked at his watch. “I say we hit the soccer early.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”
To a man, everyone stood up and followed him out. So Leo pounded the rest of his water and brought up the rear of the procession. The parade of hockey players threaded the length of the hallway until O’Doul pushed through a door marked LOADING DOCK. By the time Leo got through it, the guys were already forming a circle on the concrete floor. The room was cavernous and cold, due to a set of garage doors lining one side. But Leo felt his spirits lift as he stepped into the circle of men, each of them dressed identically to him in Bruisers warm-up gear. He felt the age-old tug of being on a team, with a common goal and a common enemy.
And elimination soccer was a blast, anyway.
“Heads up, boys,” O’Doul said with a grin. Then he dropped the ball to his sneaker and popped it across the circle to Bayer. Who headed it to Silas. Who kicked it to Beacon, the starting goalie.
Who went for it with a knee. And missed.
“Aww!” the men yelled together.
“I’m savin’ it for later!” the goalie protested, but he backed out of the circle with a smile.
Leo gave over his consciousness to this silly pursuit. He headed the ball to O’Doul the first time it came to him. He managed a good knee bump the next time. The rules of elimination soccer were simple: the ball doesn’t touch the floor. And smack talk is a hundred percent legal, and encouraged.
Players in the circle dwindled down to four. There was only Leo, O’Doul, Bayer, and Silas. Leo felt loose and ready to play, whether it was hockey or this silly warm-up game. He’d take it.
O’Doul kicked to Silas who headed it toward the space between Leo and O’Doul.
“Got it,” O’Doul yelled, so Leo let him take the shot. The captain only
got there in time to bump the ball with his shoulder toward Leo.
The heavy trajectory of the ball meant that Leo couldn’t get an ordinary kick in. But he got a knee under it, boosting that sucker into the air, sending it sailing across the circle, but too high for Bayer to get a head on it.
“Fuck.” Bayer chuckled. Instead of letting it go, though, he backed up three big paces and sort of slid his body onto the concrete floor for a bicycle kick.
It almost worked. Almost. But the ball sailed over the tip of his sneaker. And on his way down, Bayer’s foot collided with a forklift that was parked against the loading dock wall. “Arrrgh!” Bayer yelled, and Leo couldn’t tell if the sound came from frustration or pain. Either way, Bayer rolled away from the machinery and up onto his feet. “Thanks a fuck ton, rookie.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he said, knowing it wasn’t really his fault that Bayer’s toe collided with heavy machinery. But he was the new guy, and therefore honor bound to take crap from the veterans. He trotted off to collect the ball, which had rolled toward the door, unattended.
As Leo nabbed the ball off the floor, a pair of dress shoes stepped into his line of vision. He stood up to find Coach Worthington standing in the doorway, a clipboard in his hands. “Evening, Coach,” Leo said, spinning the ball on his finger.
Worthington stepped past him to greet the team. “Evening, hooligans,” he said with a smile. “Are you ready to have a big night?”
Leo’s teammates turned toward the coach’s voice like flowers toward the sun. Karl Worthington was well-liked in hockey. While he was known to be occasionally gruff, he could also be magnetic and inspiring.
Coach grinned at them for a moment, taking everyone in. “I know we don’t know each other so well yet. But I can already see you’re a team who’s going to do great things heading into the postseason. Let me tell you a little story about new coaches.
“You guys have all had the pleasure of working with my daughter, Georgia, for a while now. Maybe you don’t know this about Georgia but she’s a hell of a tennis player, and she started winning tournaments when she was seven years old. She was a fierce competitor, and my nickname for her was Killer.”
That got him a few quiet chuckles.
“. . . So when Killer was nine, her coach went out on maternity leave, and a new one came in. The first practice with the new guy, she really struggled on the court. She forgot how to use her backhand, and she didn’t return balls that she should have gotten. Poor kid was falling apart out there. I didn’t know that playing for a new coach would be a terrifying experience for her.”
Leo scanned his teammates’ faces. Some of them were smirking, wondering where Coach was headed with this.
“After practice I was real careful to ask her nicely about what went wrong. I said, ‘You were really stinking it up out there, sweetie. What happened?’” The players laughed. “. . . And she said, ‘Daddy, I already knew all the stuff he was telling us. But he only gets one practice with me before the tournament. So when I win that sucker next weekend, he can still feel good about helping me.’”
The other players roared, and Leo found himself smiling, even though he’d heard this story a dozen times before.
“So don’t do that,” Worthington said with a chuckle. “We don’t know each other all that well yet. But I’m just going to take things slow, and watch how you work together. No hasty decisions will be made, guys. I need you to relax out there tonight and do your thing. To that end, our starting lines tonight will be exactly how they were in your last game.”
He held up the clipboard and began reading names. And with each name that was read aloud, Leo’s heart sank a little further. He was not on the player card tonight.
The soccer game started up again, but Leo sneaked out to head back to the quiet locker room. He sat on the bench and pulled out his phone. The signal down here was a little sketchy, but he wanted to tell his family not to make the trip into the city for the game tonight. That there was no point. The last call he’d received was from his brother DJ, so Leo hit redial on that one.
“Hey!” His little brother’s voice filled his ear. “It’s Mr. Unreachable! Wait—is this really Leo on the line? Or is this, like, his personal assistant calling?”
“Very funny, asshole,” Leo grumbled. Though DJ had phoned him several times, Leo had been too busy to get back to him. Or he’d thought he was too busy. But look at all the free time he suddenly had tonight.
“The fam is on its way to see your game.”
“Tell ’em not to come,” he said quickly. “I’ve been scratched.”
“Shit,” DJ whispered, all the teasing gone from his voice. “That sucks.”
“It really fucking does.” If there was one person to whom he was willing to confess his disappointment, it was DJ. The two of them hadn’t always been close. As kids they’d sparred as often as they gotten along. But when shit got real, the two of them always dropped their enmity and pulled together. “Coach Worthington hates my sorry ass.”
His brother was silent for a moment. “I don’t really understand why. But forget about that for a second. If he ships your ass back to the AHL, what does that do to you?”
Leo groaned. “It makes me look like damaged goods. And it makes me too expensive to trade to another AHL team. Unless I let ’em out of my contract, which my agent will not want me to do.”
“Shit,” DJ repeated.
“Yeah.” There was another beat of fraternal silence, then Leo cleared his throat. “Looking on the bright side, I might be able to take you out for a beer or two while I’m still in the tristate area. I hope you guys didn’t buy tickets for tonight already.”
“Well.” DJ chuckled. “Dad bought tickets to every home game for the rest of the season.”
“Why? If this does work out, I could score him free seats.”
“I told him that. But he said he needed extra for his buddies at work. And anyway—I wasn’t ever making it there tonight. I’m out west, skiing with Lianne.”
“Really?”
“Winter break.”
“Oh.” Leo vaguely remembered what it was like to take vacations. “Lucky.”
“Yeah. But dude—we’ve been on the phone for five minutes, and you haven’t told me if you saw Georgia.”
Another tricky topic. “Get this—she works for the team.”
“I know.”
“You do? You saw that stupid press conference?”
“Nope.” DJ cleared his throat. “I talk to her sometimes. We keep in touch.”
“You—really?”
“Yeah. It started about two years ago—when I was in trouble at school. I wanted her opinion, so I called her. At the time, she’d just applied for the job on the Bruisers. And afterward we stayed in touch.”
Leo’s head spun. “Dude. You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t meant to be a secret,” DJ said. “But, honestly. It’s you who never talks about her. Like, never.”
Leo felt himself getting irritated at his brother. Did DJ and Georgia talk about him behind his back? “Does she mention me?”
“Never,” DJ said immediately. “And that’s my point. You two treat each other like the other one is dead. It’s weird.”
“No, I don’t,” Leo said immediately.
“Uh-huh,” DJ said. “When’s the last time you mentioned her to me or the parents?”
Leo leaned back against his pristine, unused locker and banged his head into the expensive wood. “I don’t know.” Never.
“Do you ever think about her?”
“Sure.” More often than I’d like to admit. “What the hell difference does it make? What’s your point?”
“My point is that neither of you is over it. If you were, you’d be able to say her name out loud. You’d talk to her once in a while. You’d ask what she was up to.”
&nbs
p; “But you do that, apparently.” Leo was not enjoying this line of conversation. “So fill me in. What’s the 411 on Georgia?”
On the other end of the phone, DJ cracked up. “God, the two of you . . .”
“You going to tell me or what?” Leo growled.
“Fine.” DJ chuckled. “She works in PR for the Brooklyn Bruisers.”
“You’re a funny, funny man.”
“She lives a few blocks from the office with Becca, the office manager. Um, no pets. Travels with the team. Loves Ed Sheeran’s music, unfortunately. But she can still do all the lyrics to Eminem’s ‘Rap God.’ Seriously, very few women can—”
“Off topic, little bro.” He’d forgotten that DJ and Georgia had a relationship based entirely on their mutual love of music.
“Fine. She’s single . . .”
Keep talking.
“That’s what you really wanted to hear, right?”
Leo sighed. It probably was. “Is she . . .” He didn’t know how to ask. “Is she okay, though?” That was the real question—the thing he needed to know before he could accept whatever fate the gods of the NHL doled out.
DJ was quiet for a second. “Yeah. I mean, she doesn’t walk around afraid all the time. It’s not like that. She took a whole lot of judo and tae kwon do, starting in college.”
“Yeah?” That made him smile. Georgia was an incredible athlete, and he could only imagine how well that would translate to the martial arts. His girl in a gi on the attack? She’d be fierce.
“Yeah. She’s doing well. Good job, and a temporary promotion that she’s trying to hold on to. Nice friends. But sometimes I think she’s a little lonely.”
Leo didn’t know what to say about that. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Uh-huh.” There was a hint of snark in his brother’s voice. “You talk to her yet?”
“I tried. She kinda blew me off. And then it got weird because Amy showed up out of the blue.”
“What?” DJ yelped. “You land in New York, and the first person you call is Amy?”
DJ had always hated his college girlfriends. Particularly Amy. In fairness to DJ, Amy had never given him the time of day, because DJ wasn’t a hockey star. “I didn’t call her,” Leo pointed out, feeling defensive. “She showed up at open practice. There was this press conference . . .”