Page 96 of For the Win

I hug him back.“I thought you were neutral.”

“I am.”He smirks.“Don’t tell anyone I’m cheering for my brother.”

The laughter eases some of my tension and I jog out to my SUV.

* * *

After the game,I’m sitting in the locker room, head down, sweaty, and exhausted, still wearing my pants and half my gear.

We lost.

The mood in the room has dimmed considerably from before the game, when the energy was high, spirits buoyant.And yet, I don’t feel as shitty as I would have expected.

“It’s game one,” Jimmy says.“We’ll figure out what went wrong and we’ll fix it for the next game.”

We all make noises of agreement.

“We got this,” Bellsy adds.

I already know my own mistakes.Fuck.I didn’t play my worst game ever, but it sure wasn’t my best either.A stupid turnover led to a goal that I’ll be kicking myself over for a long time.Except I’m not supposed to do that.Put it behind me.Learn from it.Look forward.

Yeah, all the clichéd advice and platitudes don’t actually help that much.It’s easy to say forget about it and move on; it’s not so easy to do.

There are no post-game drinks or parties tonight.We’ve done the media stuff, including answering tough questions from my own goddamn brother.At least his questions aren’t stupid, unlike that idiot from WXN who asked me why I turned over the puck to Vancouver’s leading scorer.What.The.Fuck.I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying that out loud.

At home, I stretch out on my bed wearing my boxers and call Arya.Much as I want to see her, I know I need to stay away, stay focused.But we can talk.

Arya immediately says, “That was so good in the first period when you skated through all those guys!I thought for sure you were going to score.”

“Yeah.”I didn’t score, but it had been a good play.

“And then you and Edvin and Pavel...that face-off when Edvin scored...that was amazing!”

“We lost, you know,” I say dryly.

“I know.I’m sorry.But I thought it was a good game.Of course, what do I know?”She laughs softly.“But really, it could have gone either way.”

“True.”

Surprisingly, not rehashing everything that went wrong is making me feel better.

I talk about the pressure and how I thought I was doing okay with it, but it must have gotten to me.With Arya, I’m not afraid to tell her shit like this.I know she won’t laugh at me or think I’m weak.And she doesn’t try to give me advice, like everybody else in my family I talk to.She just listens and lets me know she gets how I’m feeling.

After we’re done talking, I set my phone on the bed and close my eyes.I focus on my breathing, just as Arya taught us, trying to empty my mind.

It’s hard.I want to relive the game.I want to relive sex with Arya.I want to think about the next game.But I try to push those thoughts aside.

* * *

We losethe next game too.This one really sucks.We played hard.We did all the right things.We scored four fucking goals.We can’t blame it one player, but we all know Bergie let in a couple of soft ones in the third period, and that did us in.

“We should have been better in front of him,” I tell the media when I’m asked about that.“That’s our job.We can’t play like that.We can control the mistakes we made and support him better.”

This one hurts more than the first game, because if we’re playing our best and we can’t win...never mind.Don’t finish that sentence.We can do this.Coach tells us and I know it’s true—we just have to keep playing our game.He reminds us of all the things we can’t control, that we have to focus on the things we can that will give us our best chance of success.

Now we’ve lost our home-ice advantage.We go to Vancouver for the next two games.We’re determined and trying to stay positive.It’s hard to ignore, though, that almost everyone is hurting in some way, and we’re all exhausted.But we know we can beat this team.

I’m sitting at home after the game.Ash is still out.I could call Arya, but I miss her and I want to see her.I know she’s home.

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