Page 72 of Jaded

Chapter 18

Olli

WasgoingtotheIce Out the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?

Well, okay. In the grand scheme of my life, probablynot, but in the shorter timeline of my career . . . kinda, yeah. I roll over in my too-large full-sized bed for the millionth time.

If I’d gotten hurt, that would havesucked.

I’ll be honest, it was kind of terrifying. Exhilarating too, in a way even beyond hockey. I don’t wanna say it was life and death, but if Nat—sorry,Forty-Seven—hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t paid someone to put me on his team, I’d probably be in a hospital bed instead of tangled in my own sheets fighting off adrenaline.

Seriously, though. It’s like I did a bunch of espresso shots instead of running sprints up and down my street after the game.

I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

Was it the high-octane thrill that’s got me tripping? Or my offer to the crowd? Or maybe it was what happenedafterthat, with the world’s most beautiful man pinning me to a wall?

I swear, he was gonna kiss me.

Or maybe it’s the fact that in a few hours I’ll have to lead my new team in our first home game together. In a stadium I pretty much expect to be empty.

We gravitate towards the darkness reflected inside of us.Or so I told Nat. That was the basis for my gamble—that if I could show people topside gamesaren’t so different from their dark duets, maybe they’d follow me to the light.

Guess we’ll see.

I give up on sleep. Climb from bed to greet the day.

Naturally, I’m the first to arrive at the rink, where in a handful of hours I’ll be playing my first home game in Day River.

Good.

I turn the stereo to my preferred pre-game tunes—metal, of course, from my PreGame AwesomeSauce playlist—and run through some Mom-inspired sun salutations.

Metal and yoga? Mom would have an aneurysm.

That woman is the absolutedefinitionof a hippie, I tell you. Yoga at sunrise, green smoothies, clogs, all-natural deodorant, compost pile on the deck of her apartment . . . You name it.

But I’m still breathing to the movement, to the beat. To the flow of my body. Forcing my mind to steady, to calm. So it’s her voice I imagine leading me through the vinyasa flow—breathe innnnnnn and follllddddddd. . .

But when I close my eyes, focus on the expansion and collapse of my chest as I breathe, it’s not my mother I see. It’s Nat, the boy at the bar. Backwards hat, tattooed hands and wrists and throat. The man in the locker room, his mouth pressed into a scowl.

I exhale, curve my body into a downward dog.

The kid on the ice, helmet and gloves, grinning at me as he saucers a pass across the ice.

The man behind the mask, faceless, slinging those same passes. Finding me across the ice, like we’ve been playing together all our lives.

What a team we made.

I launch my legs upwards, over my head, into a handstand. Hold the position, hands shifting to keep me balanced. Hold . . . hold.

The way we read each other, just like we did at drop-in . . .

Doesn’t matter.

Time to stop thinking about Nat Taylor and start thinking about the upcoming game. To focus on the here and now—this moment. Not any of the ones ahead, certainly not anything behind.

Here. Now.

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