Page 3 of Jaded

My stomach clenches into a queasy knot. “So I’m losing benefits. Healthcare.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Shit.” I tug my hat from my head to run a hand through my overgrown hair. “Shit. That means Syd . . .”

Means I’ll be paying out of pocket now. Means my extra money will be going to health insurance, instead of Syd’s college fund. Fuck me.

“Could be worse.” Jerry leans back in his chair, giving me his full attention. “The Dingoes don’t start winning, pulling in fans, no way they’re keeping the team here.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate—this is the Dingoes’ arena. High school plays here, sometimes, but mostly they use the older rink on the other side of town.

If the Dingoes leave, there’ll be hardly any business here. Forget full time, I’ll be lucky to have a part-time job if that happens. Not to mention, I’ll lose my skate-sharpening duties, too. Another little pad to my paycheck.

“Right.” I back towards the door, my palms still sweaty, stomach still clenched up too tight. “That all?”

“Honestly, Taylor . . .” he sighs, flattens his hands out atop his desk. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I should just fire you, rip off the Band-Aid.”

I’ve forgotten how to breathe, or perhaps my throat’s started to close, an anaphylactic shock to Jerry’s indelicately delivered news. “What?”

The word barely escapes my swollen larynx.

“Look.” He holds up a hand, probably at the sight of the panic etched across my features. “You’ve worked here for a long-ass time. We both know this job’s gonna get you nowhere.”

I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, a coppery spill against my tongue. Soft and sour and so familiar—the taste of so many fights, so much emotion and passion, denial and resistance andwant.

“You’re only hurting yourself by dividing yourself too many ways. Skate sharpener for the Dingoes?” Jerry shakes his head. “C’mon, man. I thought you were gonna get your own repo business going, ’stead of working part time for that shitty title company.”

I don’t speak. Can’t speak. Can only stand and let the tide of his words butt against my weakened dam of resistance, barely holding back the waters of my emotions.

“Think about it,” he says, and he flaps a hand to shoo me out of his office.

I climb the stairs to the stands as the arena’s lights dim. The crowd around me is subdued, disinterested, or maybe it’s just so diminished from how it used to be. And still, I’m separate, unbelonging.

I am not civilian, can never be, not when I’ve been a part of the world down below. Not when I’ve tasted it and touched it, breathed it, lived it, when the ice was my everything. Even when the dream fades, you remember it, lingering like a ghost.

“Let’s hear it for your own DAY RIVER DINGOES!” The announcer’s voice booms across the darkened arena as I take my seat on the edge of the top row. My eyes subconsciously scan the crowd for Sydney, but hell. I doubt the cool young kids are going to Dingoes games anymore these days.

Blue jerseys hurtle out onto the ice. A whirl of color, life, energy, and the fans reward their presence by opening their lungs.

The game’s different, up here. I should be at the glass near the Zam door, but I prefer it here, where I can look down on the game, the team, like a distant and removed god, refusing to evoke any power over the outcome.

It’s different, so different, but it’s still the game I love. This is hockey. And in this broken world, hockey is life.

So I settle back in my seat to watch my home team, no longer led by my brother, collapse beneath the weight of the competition. There’s hardly a crowd to care.

Even if they started winning, would that make a difference? No, it won’t just be good hockey, or a winning record, that keeps the Dingoes in this town.

Something will have to bring the fans back to the stands.

My phone dings in my pocket, and I slide the device out to find a new message from JB—my buddy at the title company.

Got a job, you want it?

I sigh.

JB’s been trying to rope me into partnering up on a repossession business for months now. I don’t even know where he finds them, but he’s always throwing jobs my way.

Do I want this one? No. I want to sit here and watch the Dingoes’ game. I want to join the team in the locker room afterwards, commiserate together. I want it to be all hockey, just hockey, me and the rink and the ice. I want my Zamboni job to be enough.

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