Page 5 of Him
“Yeah, it’s fine.” Her laughter stops me before I can turn the knob. “Not so fast, stud.”
Holly gets up to kiss me goodbye, and I make myself stand still for a second and return it.
“Later,” I whisper. It’s my standard goodbye. Today, though, I find myself wondering if there are other words she’s waiting to hear.
But when the door closes on her, my head is somewhere else already. I sling my backpack over one shoulder and slip out into a misty April morning. Five days from now I’ll be on the east coast, trying to help my team clinch the national championship. Man, the Frozen Four is such a rush—I’ve been once before. It was two years ago, and I was the backup goalie instead of the starter.
I didn’t play, and we didn’t win. I like to think those two things are related.
This time it’ll be different. I’ll be waiting between the pipes, the last line of defense between the other team’s offense and the trophy. That’s enough pressure to freak out even the chillest goalie in college sports. But the fact that the other team’s star center is my ex-best friend who abruptly stopped talking to me?
That is whack.
I meet a handful of my teammates on the sidewalk as we all approach the rink. They’re laughing about somebody’s antics on the bus last night, joking and shoving each other through the glass doors and into the gleaming hallway.
Rainier did a massive rink renovation a few years ago. It’s like a temple to hockey, with conference pennants and team photographs lining the walls. And that’s just the public area. We pause in front of a locked door so that Terry, a junior forward, can swipe his ID past the laser eye. The light flashes green and we push through to the opulent training area.
I haven’t said a word to anyone yet, but I’ve never been as much of a smack-talker as the rest of them, so nobody calls me on it.
In the team kitchen, I pour myself a cup of coffee and grab a blueberry muffin off the tray. This place makes me feel like a spoiled brat, but it’s useful when I’ve overslept.
Ten minutes later we’re watching tape in the team video room, listening to Coach Wallace’s analysis. He’s at the podium wearing a little mic that amplifies his voice all the way to the back row. But I can’t hear him anyway. I’m too busy watching Ryan Wesley dart across the ice. I see clip after clip of Wes passing through the line of defense like smoke, creating scoring opportunities out of nothing but ice shavings and quick wits.
“The number two offensive scorer in the nation, the kid has balls of steel,” our coach admits grudgingly. “And enough foot speed to make his opponents look like my ninety-seven-year-old granny.”
Shot after unlikely shot flies into the net. Half the time the on-screen Wes doesn’t even have the good manners to look surprised. He just glides onward with the grace and ease of someone who’d practically been born with steel blades under his feet.
“Like us, Northern Mass woulda made it to the finals last year, but they were hampered by injuries in the post-season,” Coach says. “They’re the team to beat…”
The footage is mesmerizing. I’d first seen Wes skate the summer after seventh grade. At thirteen we all thought we were hot shit just for attending Elites, the world-class hockey training camp in Lake Placid, New York. Hear us roar—we were the best of the ragtag players on our club teams back home. We were the kids to beat during pond-hockey pick-up games.
We were mostly ridiculous.
But even my punk-ass junior-high self could see that Wes was different. I was a little in awe of him from the first day of my first summer at Elites. Well, at least until I discovered what a cocky bastard he was. After that, I hated on him for a bit, but being assigned as roommates made it difficult to keep up my hatred.
Six summers in a row, the best hockey I played was against the sharp-eyed, steel-wristed Ryan Wesley. I spent my days trying to keep up with his quick reflexes and his flying-saucer slapshots.
When practice was over, he was even more of a challenge. Want to race to the top of the climbing wall? Ask Wes. Need a partner in crime to help you break into the camp freezer after hours? Wes is your man.
The town of Lake Placid probably heaved a sigh of relief each August when camp was through. Everyone could finally go back to living normal lives that didn’t include seeing Wes’s bare ass in the lake every morning for his daily skinny-dipping sesh.
Ladies and gentlemen: Ryan Wesley.
Coach drones on at the front of the room while Wes and his teammates do their magic on-screen. The most fun I ever had at a rink was with him. Not that he never pissed me off. He did that hourly. But I can honestly look back on his challenges and taunts and see he’d made me a better player.
Except for the last challenge he issued. I never should have accepted that one.
“Last day,” he’d taunted me, skating backward faster than most of us could skate forward. “You’re still afraid to take me on in another shootout, huh? Still whimpering over the last one.”
“Bullshit.” I wasn’t afraid to lose to Wes. People usually did. But it was hard to shut out a shootout, and I already owed Wes a six-pack of beer. Trouble was, my bank account was drained. As the last of six kids, sending me to this fancy camp was all my parents could do for me. My lawn-mowing money had already been spent on ice cream and contraband.
If I lost a bet, I couldn’t repay.
Wes skated a backward circle around me so fast that it reminded me of the Tasmanian Devil. “Not for beer,” he said, reading my thoughts. “My flask is full of Jack, thanks to the beating I gave Cooper yesterday. So the prize can be something different.” He let out an evil laugh.
“Like what?” Knowing Wes, it would involve some sort of public display of ridiculousness. Loser sings the national anthem while hanging brain on the town dock. Or something.
I set up a row of pucks and prepared to shoot them. Whack, went the first one, just missing Wes as he went by in a blur. I set up my next shot.
