Page 107 of The Trade Deadline
Anders, though. He fucking knew.
Hemustknow. He’d seen them in Vancouver together, and maybe he didn’t realize they were sleeping together, but it was obvious they were friends. It was obvious that Ryan leaving would hurt him. And no, Anders didn’t have the power to make a trade, but he could’ve put in a good word. Lars imagined the coaches asked him about “that guy from the All Star game” and of course Anders would’ve said Ryan was awesome. Anders wasn’t blind, he could recognize talent.
It was easier to blame Anders because he already bore so much of Lars’s anger. What was one more grievance on the list?
Whenever Lars happened to catch a glimpse of Ryan on TV in that ugly yellow and orange jersey with that stupid otter, Anders was nearby. With his insides twisted in knots, Lars always thought the same thing:
Good job, Ryan.
Fuck you, Anders.
* * *
In the mess of losing Ryan, Lars was too inside his own head to pay attention to the schedule. Wild card this, playoff berth that, 14 games left, blah blah blah. At most, he thought one game out, mostly so he knew if he needed to be at the airport or not. The away games were kind of nice, less lonely than his apartment, but he knew there was a home game coming up. He just didn’t realize it wasthatgame.
“Are you looking forward to your rematch against the Prowlers tonight?”
Lars startled. Shit, wasthatwho they were playing?
The reporter had a phone out, waiting and recording, so he couldn’t say what he really thought.
I don’t give a shit about Portland. I was upset before but if I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have met Ryan again. Fuck the Prowlers and their unearned sense of superiority.
“Sure,” he said with a winning smile, remembered there was no camera, and gave up the effort. “They’re a tough team and I look forward to showing them that we are, too.”
Which was true, he supposed. Except for the part where he looked forward to anything.
“Anything we can expect with you mic’d up tonight?”
Again, Lars was taken off guard. He had agreed to be mic’d for an upcoming game, but had he really been so out of it that he’d agreed tothisgame?
“I’ll only curse in Swedish,” he promised with a wink. The reporter laughed, and luckily the rest of his questions were the usual garbage that didn’t require an actual response. “Stick to our game” bullshit to fill sound bites but saying nothing.
He chugged an energy drink before the game. He maybe didn’t care about much at the moment, but he did dislike the Prowlers enough to want to beat the shit out of them tonight. Bad enough losing to them in Portland; like hell he was going to let it happen in Baltimore. It at least gave him something to focus on.
Fuck, he needed Ryan here to calm him down. Maybe he could call?—
And say what, exactly? He wasn’t sure Ryan would want to pick up, never mind be able to. A couple weeks of lackluster texts and then his first and only call was because he couldn’t get his shit together? He didn’t need the mix of guilt and self-disgust the idea brought, so he let it go.
Instead, he took a moment to imagine how it’d be if Ryan were here, still on the team.
“You’ve got this,” Ryan said confidently. “You were the best part of their team and the best part of this team. We know it, they know it, that’s why they’re so p.o.’d.”
Yes, even Imaginary Ryan didn’t curse much.
“So you’re gonna go out there, score some goals, and then when we get back to your place tonight, I’ll fuck you so hard the headboard breaks. Sound good?”
It sounded very good. And despite the promise being one Imaginary Ryan could never fulfill, it did help him calm down.
He endured having the mic put on. He endured the team pump-up music in the locker room. He endured the glares he got from the Prowlers during warm-ups. He endured forcing conversation with Jake so the media team would havesomethingto work with besides him sullenly breathing. He endured the craziness in the tunnel before the first period, the loud chants, the body slams, the layers of superstition each cluster of players performed religiously so the hockey gods would favor them with a goal or a positive plus/minus.
Not that Lars could judge. As messed up as he felt right now, he had his own routine: he put a gloved hand over his heart and shut his eyes, thinking of his parents and his grandfather and promising he’d do his best to make them proud.
He also indulged in a “Let’s fucking go!” right before they paraded out onto the ice, already breaking his only cursing in Swedish promise, but oh, well. He knew the fans enjoyed the bleeped out parts of player audio.
It was eerily similar to the game in Portland, with the fans fired up and his former teammates looking at him like he was a traitor. It was encouraging, though, that the fans were angry on his behalf, booing the Prowlers when they skated onto the ice and again when the starting lineup was announced.
“Ready to lose again, Nilsson?” the opposite center sneered before the opening face-off.
