Page 5 of Like A Daydream
He can do this.
He can bounce back and be ready to play. He’ll be fine. He’ll work twice as hard in therapy. He’ll stop checking the NHL Network and ignore his social media for two months and come back better and take his team to the finals in the new season.
There are a few fans outside PNC, as usual, but he’s not quite ready for that yet. It was enough seeing his team today. He catches the eye of their Media Coordinator and she waves him off.
He knows that acting like he was back to normal would be a better way to spin everything that’s happened and to help fans move on, but he just can’t do it. Not when some of those people could be the ones calling for his head on social media.
Andrew turns and moves t0 his truck instead, ready to take the long drive down Capital back home.
Maybe he’ll bring Roscoe to the dog park in Wake Forest, or for a run. It’s been a while since he’s been out with the public, and it’s been a while since Roscoe has really gotten to play.
He unlocks his truck with a smile as he continues his trek across the parking lot. The weather is mild for June, he could get a lot accomplished on a day like —
“Fisher!” a voice calls behind him. He turns, expecting to see a teammate yelling for him.
He’s met with an egg cracking and exploding against his shoulder, and he’s covered in yolk and backpedaling to his truck as another egg hits him square in the chest. A third egg is fired at him, then a fourth.
“The hell is your problem!” the fan yells, launching another egg at him. “Missing a clear shot?”
Andrew doesn’t even try to defend himself, just dodges as many eggs as he can as they fly past him and hit the silver of his truck.
He’s going to have to drive through Downtown Raleigh with his truck covered in eggs. It was already embarrassing enough to have this happen in front of his team, and other fans.
“What the hell!” Another person yells.
Two of his teammates, Petrov and Oher are on the guy quick, pulling his arms back before he can throw another egg.
“Get out of here, Drew!” Petrov yells, struggling as the egger puts up a fight against him.
Security is running at the mess from the arena exit, the rest of his team is starting to take notice and make their way over to help.
The egger escapes their grip just long enough to launch another egg at Andrew and it hits him in the side of his face.
His eyes start to water, and his breathing gets faster and shallower.
Five things you can see. Four you can touch. Three you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste.
“Drew!” Griff yells, but it comes out slow and as if Andrew is underwater. “Go!”
His vision is blurred when he looks up, but it clears long enough for him to see the guy fighting against his teammates.
“He lost you the Stanley Cup!” the guy shouts, getting into Oher’s face, struggling against Petrov’s grip. “He lostusthe Cup! He deserves it!”
“Shit happens, bro!” Petrov yells as Andrew pulls his truck door open and gets inside. “You can’t throw eggs at people who piss you off!”
Andrew closes his door and starts his truck with shaking hands, speeding out of the lot as fast as he can and ignoring the way the egg feels as it dries on his skin and clothes.
He has a missed call from JT, and a text from his mom asking if he’ll be home for the off season. He throws his phone in the back seat, and hits his steering wheel.
He’d been having such a good day.
He gets to Lake Placid at four in the morning, after driving all night with Roscoe stretched across the back seat.
The minute he had pulled into his driveway he had gone straight up the stairs, made a split-second decision and texted Coach, and the team group chat before jumping in the shower to get the egg off of him.
He was lucky that he hadn’t been seriously hurt by the egg that had hit him in the face. He could have gone blind if it had hit him in the eye, then peoplereallywould have had a problem with him.
A lady in Ireland had gone blind from the same thing, he’d Googled it as he’d waited for his shower to heat.
