Page 132 of The Trade Deadline
He quickly assessed his options and started crawling to the bench.
“Get on your left shin.” Ryan came up behind him and started pushing him. “Kick with your right.”
Lars did as he was told. Ryan pushed him a little farther, but once he got the hang of it, Ryan rushed away to catch up to the play that had moved to the Otters’ blue line.
When he got to the bench, there was a mad scramble to get him off the ice and then the equipment manager was fixing his skate. He felt like a horse getting reshod as he watched, helpless, as Ivan hopped over the boards to replace him.
“Real nice of RJ to do that for you,” Logan, the backup goalie, said. His eyes were on the play, but Lars’s skin prickled with awareness; he was definitely paying more attention to Lars than the game. “Wonder why he did it.”
“He probably felt bad.” It wasn’t even a lie. Ryan often apologized to other players. Lars had seen Ryan dump someone into the bench and call“Sorry!”as he skated away. “It was his shot that took me out, wasn’t it?”
“Was it?” Logan asked evenly. He didn’t turn his head, but his gaze briefly flicked to Lars.
“Good as new. Try not to break another one.” The equipment manager patted Lars’s leg and disappeared to his usual spot next to the extra player sticks.
Lars waited until he was gone before he started, “I’m not sure what you?—”
Logan finally turned to face Lars and gave him a withering look. “I’m just saying you two are obvious. You got away with shit like that when RJ played with us, but everyone and their brother’s going to be talking about that after the game. If you’re lucky, they’ll talk about sportsmanship and not whether you two are fucking.”
His jaw dropped.
“I’m the backup,” Logan reminded him. “All I do is watch. And you two…” He shook his head. “You guys put on quite the show.”
“I don’t— We—” Realizing he was stuck and a terrible liar, he pivoted. “Who else knows?”
Logan shrugged. “Vorny and I’ve talked about it, but no one else has mentioned it. Heteronormativity’s a helluva drug, and he left before you were out so it probably wasn’t on anyone’s radar, even though most of us know he’s bi.” There was a stoppage in play and a line change. It wasn’t until the bench had settled again that Logan leaned over and asked, “Was it hard when he left?”
“First line, get out there!” Thompkins shouted. “Offensive zone face-off. Jake, line up for a shot off the draw. You better win it clean, Nilsson. RJ’s not out there, so you’ve got a chance at it.”
Lars hesitated before he stood up. “Yes,” he said to Logan. “It fucking sucked.”
“They’re gonna feel like assholes when they find out,” Logan said matter-of-factly, and the thought of Charlie Monroe feeling bad about the trade echoed through his head as Lars got back on the ice. He didn’t know if there would be any “finding out,” but he did like the idea of them regretting the trade.
The rest of the game was a blur. He did his best, he really did, but he couldn’t be on the ice the whole time. A sloppy turnover by the fourth line led to a late goal by the Otters, and it felt like a death sentence. Three minutes to try and tie it when they’d barely gotten off fifteen shots all game.
He did play the last two minutes with only a timeout to buy him a breather. He powered through his exhaustion, pushed and pushed andpushed.
It wasn’t enough.
The arena roared well before the final buzzer sounded and continued long after. Lars fell to his knees on the ice, defeated while the Otters celebrated around him. It was like he didn’t exist.
“Fuck,” he said. Jake and Tomas hung nearby, equally despondent with shoulders sagged and heads down. There was nothing they could do but watch as their season ended. All this way for nothing.
They waited for what felt like ages for things to settle down and a line to form at center ice for handshakes. Admittedly this was a tradition he appreciated, a show of mutual respect for their rivals and the sport that he almost wished they did every game, not just during eliminations. But then he’d have had to shake the Prowlers’ hands after they’d treated him like shit, and he was glad he’d been allowed to turn his back on them without a second thought.
He got in line, somewhere in the middle of the pack so he’d have time to process what he wanted to say. He didn’t know most of the Otters. He’d faced them for years, and he suspected they weren’t his biggest fans, but he’d paid so little attention to them he wouldn’t have more to offer than “good game” and “good luck.” There were two people in particular he actuallyknew, and he almost dreaded when they’d meet.
Anders was near the front, and Lars was forced to look up at his big brother and offer his hand.
“I’m still better than you,” he said in Swedish.
“The score says otherwise,” Anders said. After they shook hands, Anders pulled him into a hug. Lars was acutely aware that if his brother had done that even a few months ago, Lars would’ve knocked him to the ice.
Today, he reluctantly hugged him back.
“This doesn’t mean I’m happy about this,” Lars grumbled and pulled away. “But I suppose it’s good that one Nilsson is still playing.”
Anders patted his shoulder. “Stop holding up the line. Say good luck and move on.”
