Page 121 of The Trade Deadline
He said it with a sort of pride Ryan could easily pick out but that he thought maybe Lars didn’t hear at all. Then again, he only knew that Lars didn’t like his brother: he had no idea how Lars saw Anders’s view of him. Did he know his brother loved him? Did he know Anders was ironically indulgent of the brother he admonished as spoiled?
It didn’t matter. Whether it was his business or not, it wasn’t a conversation to have over the phone or via text. He needed to focus on finishing up the season and then getting ready for playoffs. The first playoffs he’d be a part of after nearly four years. Lars might be his favorite distraction, but he couldn’t afford any right now.
* * *
The Otters still had three games left in the season when the Nilssons threw their promised Playoff Party. The Otters had clinched a playoff spot weeks ago, and a short break between home games offered the perfect opportunity for them to start psyching themselves up for the postseason.
They hosted it at their home, a large house on a few acres of land. There was a huge canopy set up in the backyard between the pool and the guest house, a buffet laid out in the shade and kids running around everywhere in between. It was like a big family picnic, the type his parents had hosted all the time when he was a kid, and he liked the coziness of it.
He didn’t like how awkward he felt, but that was hardly anyone’s fault. He was the newest on the team and hadn’t brought a partner, which left him the odd man out. He moved from group to group, chatting with people and getting introduced to wives, girlfriends, children, and dogs, but with most of the team and staff married or seriously involved, sooner or later the conversation would turn to schools or taxes or summer plans. With nothing to contribute, he’d move on and start again.
He was navigating between a group of tweens playing badminton and a few moms with toddlers when a familiar voice caught up with him.
“You don’t drink.”
Ryan turned to find Amanda smiling up at him. Unlike most people who said it with an air of accusation or suspicion, she made it sound like just an observation.
“Not usually, no. Not during the season.”
“Anders used to be the same, but he’s gotten more lax as he’s gotten older. Meatball?” She offered a tray covered in meatballs that smelled too good to pass up. Ryan popped one in his mouth and grabbed two more. “Good, right?” she encouraged. “Mormor made them. She’s way better at making herring andkroppkakor, but Swedish, so…” She shrugged and smiled.
“Kroppkakor,” Ryan said around a meatball, mentally scolded himself for having no manners, and waited until he’d swallowed to try again. “I think Lars made those once. Potato dumplings, right? Pretty good.”
Amanda brightened. “Did he? You’ll have to tell Mormor! Anders can’t cook but Lars always helps with meals when he visits and they’re amazing, the two of them. I gain three pounds every summer because of them.”
He smiled wistfully. He wanted to see that Lars. He also didn’t understand that Lars, the one who could ignore how much he hated Anders to stay in his home for a month.
“He behaves when he’s here,” she said, as if reading his mind. “But he stays in the guesthouse, which helps, I think. He can have his space when we get to be too much.” She made him take another meatball before she disappeared to keep up her rounds as hostess.
Ryan wandered a bit. He tried to superimpose Lars over the spaces. Did Lars do cannonballs into the pool? Did he race his niece and nephew around the yard? Had he made s’mores around the fire pit? It brought him to the guest house with a sign on the door about where to find the bathroom. After only a second’s hesitation, he went inside.
There was a bedroom in the back, the door closed but not locked, and against his better judgment he stepped in and closed the door behind him.
Neat and tidy like Lars’s condo, all the pieces of his personality hidden in plain sight where only a knowing eye could spot them. A few hockey sticks in the corner. Worn books on the shelf, including one he was pretty sure he’d seen Lars read. A Prowlers keychain with a lonely key. A half-empty bottle of his usual lotion.
Ryan sat on the bed, wondering briefly if Lars had ever shared it with anyone before. If it still smelled like him from his Christmas visit. Ryan could picture it then so clearly, a future where he and Lars occupied this space together. Not just to fuck each other senseless, though that certainly was bound to happen, but a future where they fell asleep together while watching a movie on their tablets or one of them reading while the other slept.
He rubbed at his eyes, suddenly misty, with the back of his hand and reached for a pile of papers on the nightstand, the only visible disorder in the whole room. He didn’t really care what the pile was; he simply needed the distraction or he’d have to face some realizations he wasn’t ready for.
There were some post-its on top, blue and yellow and green, each with Lars’s blocky handwriting where all the letters were capitals. There was a mix of Swedish and English, sometimes within the same note. One looked like a list of movies, including some they’d watched together. A few might’ve been recipes or maybe grocery lists. Flight info to BWI. A crudely drawn hockey player that he hoped Anton and not Lars had drawn, with the label “farbror” that definitely was written by a kid. More and more little pieces of Lars’s life outside of Ryan, outside of hockey.
He put the papers back gingerly. He wished there was a blank one and a pen so he could leave a piece of himself behind. A little note for Lars.
The nightstand drawer stuck a little as he opened it. There was a stack of post-its and a couple pens. He hadn’t figured out what he’d write but completely forgot his plan when he found a stack of photographs underneath. These were…fantastic.
They were old and faded, actual film photos instead of digital ones printed at home. He flipped through Lars’s life in reverse. Him and his grandparents at the draft. Teenage Lars in various jerseys with various medals and trophies, usually with his grandparents in tow. And then toward the bottom, Anders appeared: the four of them when Anders was drafted; the two brothers in the driveway together; a peewee Lars smiling with a missing tooth, his older brother perched beside him with a hand on his shoulder and mirroring a chipped tooth. The last picture finally had their parents. Mats after his Cup win, two little boys, wide-eyed as they watched their father lift it.
He stayed longer than he should’ve. He memorized each picture and then carefully put them back. There was so much to say, so Ryan picked the one he felt the most right now:
Wish you were here
xoxo
Ryan
He left it on Lars’s pillow. He’d have to see it as soon as he came into the room. Maybe by then, that indeterminate point in the summer after playoffs, they’d have figured themselves out. If not…
One problem at a time,he told himself. He slipped out of the guesthouse, bypassing the chatty duo outside the bathroom and marching back to the largest group he could find. He would jam himself into any conversation to help him forget where he’d been and who he’d been thinking of.
