Page 1 of Jaded

Chapter 1

Nat

Theiceglowsorangeunder the hanging heat lamps.

My breath fogs against the cold glass, blurring that vast stretch of orange-white, smearing the hundreds of people who surround it into a violent rainbow of melted wax. Their voices ebb and swell in an undulating ocean of chatters and shouts and ill-veiled threats; like a boxer constantly sporting bruises, our world aches. A clear black sky arcs over the pale ice, splattered with the delicate pinpricks of a million disordered stars.

I swipe a finger through the condensation on the glass to study the crowd. They can’t see me from down here, in this private hall beneath the bleachers, and I prefer it that way. Not that anyone would notice the Zamboni driver lurking around in the shadows.

There was a time when I’d be in the locker room with the team. Or out on the bench, where the official staff arrays pucks and water bottles and towels, medical equipment, extra sticks.

These days, I’m lost between worlds. Not clad in a jersey of the players, not in the crinkly wind-suits of the personnel. So here I linger, in my leather jacket and jeans, looking out on the ice before the game, privy to the secret world of hockey’s inner machinations.

Here I am, lurking. Watching. Tasting and touching and smelling the tiny pieces of a life I can’t seem to let go of, like somehow these light caresses of sensation might be enough.

The crowd’s even smaller tonight than it was at the last game. Makes my chest ache—with sadness, with worry. Once upon a time, when the Day River Dingoes played, the whole town would come out to watch.

In a world sheathed in snow and ice from September through May, hockey is more than a sport, a distraction. It’s a fucking religion, and those who play it are gods.

Just . . . not in this arena anymore. Not since Jesse left sixteen years ago. That feeling claws at my gut again—worry. Worry for what will happen if the team keeps losing. If the crowd keeps shrinking.

No smart business person would keep a dying team in an ice-crusted town that doesn’t care about it. And if the league moves the Dingoes, the rink closes, I lose my job . . .

My stomach aches. Nerves flutter against the inside of my chest like the eyelashes of fear. The call of the fight pulses beneath my veins, begging for release.

Hockey used to sate that, but now . . . Well, it’s been a long time since I suited up for a real game; the Ice Out doesn’t count, even though the crowds are bigger there.

“Whatcha doing out here, Nat?” The deep voice pulls me back from the ice and the stars and the diminishing crowd. For an instant, I’m transported to an earlier age, when my elder brother still captained this team—when the people packed the stands to its gills—but when I turn, it’s just Charlie leaning against the short wall beneath the bleachers.

He’s dressed in gear from the waist down, but there’s nothing to separate his torso from the cold of the arena.

Thirty-five years into this life, he doesn’t feel it anymore.

“What areyoudoing out here?” I ask instead.

“Seeing where the hell you were.” His eyes flit past me toward the rink, the game calling to him like it does to me. I know the same pulse of longing beats the blood through his veins.

Charlie and I grew up together in this frost-encased world, shooting pucks on the ponds or racing icy streets when the plows couldn’t get through for days at a time. Us and the other Day River boys whofought the cold and the dark to earn our spot on the high school team—dreaming we’d someday be gods of ice and winter.

Before, one by one, our careers vanished out from under us.

“Was just checking out the crowd.” The words dance from my lips on a cloud of frozen breath. Once, I’d have given anything to be out there. But that dream died eighteen years ago. “Barely anybody here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He reaches out to wrap an arm around my shoulders. “C’mon. You got skates to sharpen.”

He lets go, takes the lead down the chilled hallway towards the locker room. I’ve already done my duty for the night, aslucky skate sharpener—Charlie’s words, since my official title isequipment manager—but I follow him anyway.

He pulls the door open and calls inside, “Better be dressed, boys! Coach’ll be here soon.”

I slip in behind him. It’s warm, due to the twenty bodies arrayed around the room in various states of undress. Most of the faces are barely more than strangers at this point—a constantly rotating roster of transplants from other leagues, other cities, trying to claw their way up from the bottom. Looking for a hint of recognition so they can move on.

Nobody stays here long.

None have quite the same story as me, but in the end, hockey is the one constant in all our lives, the thing we’ve always relied on. Hockey’s always been the foundation of my existence, and even when my hopes and dreams shattered around me, it was still hockey I turned to.

I think it’s why we’re all here, huddled into the locker room. Us and the few remaining fans in the bleachers above, already drunk on beer and cold air and bloodlust.

When life doesn’t go on, hockey does.

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