Page 110 of The Trade Deadline
She giggled. “He and Anton get along well. Must be a younger brother, thing. They team up against Astrid sometimes. Drives her bonkers, but Lars is good about evening it out.”
Anders. Amanda. Astrid. Anton.
“That’s…a lot of A names,” he blurted out, then felt bad. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it! Most people are too polite to say anything, but we obviously did it on purpose. I love when people notice!”
She was tiny, probably not more than 5’5”, and so very pretty and very bubbly. Opposite to Anders’s stoic demeanor in every way Ryan could pinpoint.
“I’m glad you don’t think I’m polite.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth then put it on his shoulder. “Oh mygosh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” Then she saw his grin and swatted his arm. “You’re mean, teasing me like that! You’ll fit in well here. Welcome to the team, by the way. Anders has been singing your praises since Vancouver. Anton, too, but any hockey player who gives him the time of day is suddenly his favorite person ever. If Anders likes someone, that’s something. He’s happy to have you on the team, by the way. Anders, I mean. Anton, too, probably. He had no idea you were coming but boy was he happy.”
She seemed like a babbler, happy to talk and make the listener feel important. Anders, man of few words. Amanda, woman of many.
Ryan couldn’t lie: he liked her.
And it felt like she was trying to tell him something without directly saying it. That his being here wasn’t Anders’s doing. Ryan had never considered the possibility—players controlled so little of the big picture—but he realized too late that Lars might think that.
“Tell Anton he was my favorite player at the All Star Game.” They exchanged numbers, Amanda insisting that as the Captain’s wife she needed everyone’s contact info for social gatherings like their pre-playoffs kickoff party.
Ryan headed to his car, imagining a world where Lars and Anders played together and had Amanda as a positive influence between them. They probably had world peace in that alternate reality, with that kind of magic.
* * *
Usually, after a move, he’d get laid. Burn off some pent-up energy and frustration and all that. First road trip, that was always his game plan. The thought didn’t even occur to him on their night off in Austin, and not just because he hated Austin. Or rather, itdidoccur to him when he was alone in his hotel room after a pleasant evening out with the guys. It was only then that he realized he’d missed his opportunity, and more importantly, he didn’t care.
There was only one person he wanted, and he’d be willing to give up sex to have him, which was a whole sort of complicated he didn’t want to unpack.
i miss you
Three dots appeared immediately. Disappeared. Reappeared. They danced on and off the screen until finally he got a “same” back. If Ryan hadn’t been watching, it’d be easy to think Lars didn’t care or that this was easy for him. That things had run their course. Despite the lack of communication, Ryan was fairly certain that wasn’t the case at all.
Ryan was trying, and even if it barely showed, Lars was, too. Ryan was struggling, but he had the distraction of a new team, a new town, a new everything. The only life Lars had had in Baltimore included Ryan. It must be hard to look around and see all the places Ryan had been but suddenly wasn’t. The closest things Ryan had to deal with were an empty hotel room bed, and any time he looked at Anders and saw just enough similarities to know he was a Nilsson, but the wrong one.
Being around Anders was actually comforting: each time he spotted another difference between the two brothers, he was glad he could still remember Lars so clearly.
* * *
It was two, maybe three weeks after the trade that the news came in. They’d been on a plane to Alberta, arriving on a cloudless Saturday afternoon. As they walked off the plane, a lot of guys reached for their phones to turn off airplane mode. Usually it was guys with significant others or kids, checking on how their family was after they’d been in the air and assuring everyone at home they’d landed safely. Ryan was normally in no rush, but he’d gotten into the habit of checking his phone in case Lars had messaged him.
He’d wished Lars luck before his game, a rematch against the Prowlers. Not so much because he thought Lars could use the luck, but because he knew it was hard for him to face his old team. They’d been such jerks to him last time, and he wanted Lars to hear something positive from someone who understood. Not that he expected a reply besides ?? or maybe ??, but it was better than no reply.
As his phone reconnected with the world, several alerts came through at once. He ignored most of them, starting with Lars’s predictable thumbs up and working his way from there.
Tanner
bro. this is a big deal right?
There was a link to a TikTok attached. Ryan didn’t click it; this wouldn’t be the first time Tanner had sent him a video of some game or other. It was either too quiet for him to listen to in public or too loud, and he’d have to shut it off and apologize. It could wait until the hotel.
He had another message, one from Amanda Nilsson. She’d messaged him once or twice with recommendations for places in Cincinnati, which he’d appreciated, but he couldn’t think why she’d text him now. Weirder, when he opened the message he saw it was sent to both him and Anders. Was it a meme or something? She seemed like the type to send memes to friends, but he couldn’t imagine there was very much overlap between him and Anders. And why not send it separately? Unless maybe it was a press thing about them?
Amanda Nilsson
red alert
And then a link to what looked like the same TikTok. That was ominous.
