Page 26 of The Trade Deadline
“Thanks,” he said. “Did you watch the highlights?”
Tanner didn’t watch games, but he’d set up alerts on his phone to tell him whenever Ryan scored. Sometimes he watched the highlights or game summaries, or listened to podcast excerpts that talked about it; more often, though, he asked Ryan to tell him about it instead. Ryan knew perfectly well that his renditions were basically meaningless to Tanner, but he liked that Tanner listened attentively and with enough enthusiasm that it didn’t matter that he had no idea what it meant to deke or backhand or to do a wraparound.
“I did!” he said with a pleased grin as he pulled Ryan into the apartment and kicked the door shut. “Beer? I know, I know, you’ve got hockey, but I picked up some non-alcoholic stuff that I thought maybe you’d like.”
“Oh,” he said, touched. “Sure.”
Tanner put an ice-cold, fake beer into his hands as they settled onto the sectional. Ryan didn’t think anything of it when Tanner pulled up the game vs Philly instead of a video game and started scrolling to Ryan’s goal in the third. They’d done this a few times when the descriptions of what Ryan did were confusing or when Tanner didn’t understand what had gotten the announcers so worked up. Ryan easily fell into explaining what he’d done once Tanner hit play, and he only realized the trap he’d fallen into after the video kept going.
Ryan watched with growing embarrassment as Lars trash talked the goalie, watched Lars check on him, watched Lars point to the bench after Jake scored, and, worst of all, he watched as the camera showed them talking and shaking hands on the bench. Okay, no, the worst part was listening to Blue Crabs commentators Zach Martin and Mickey “McHockey” Hoack speculate about him and Lars.
“He promised him a goal after that slash,” McHockey was saying with his thick Canadian accent. “No doubt about it.”
“Not often you see centers buddy up like that,” Martin said. “Right? Usually you do that for your winger or your D, not —”
“You do it for any teammate, any time,” McHockey said with a harrumph. He’d played for the Crabs in the ‘80s shortly after the team was founded. He’d been drafted by them, played ten seasons, and then never felt the need to leave Baltimore. “It’s a good sign, seeing Big Nilly bonding with the new team.”
No one on the team called Lars “Big Nilly,” but McHockey was creative with nicknames. Not all of them stuck among the players, but fans liked them.
“RJ is pretty outgoing,” Martin said. Since he often did intermission interviews with the players, he knew what they wereactuallycalled. “No surprise that he’d be one of the first to make friends. Some of the younger players I’m sure are a little starstruck.”
Again, McHockey scoffed. “Of course they respect Nilly. He’s a great player and a great addition to the team. It’d be great if he took Junior” —McHockey’s awful name for Ryan— “under his wing. He could really help him live up to his potential.”
“RJ is a consistent producer,” Martin said diplomatically; Ryan winced at the polite way he avoided saying he disagreed and that Ryan had already maxed out his potential.
“See, look at that camaraderie on the bench. Nilly could really help Junior up his game, use all his experience to?—”
“I believe RJ is actually older. And has played for more teams.”
“Well,” McHockey said dismissively, “Big Nilly will help ‘im bring his game to the next level. This is the duo this team needs.”
Lars and Ryan shook hands, Ryan with a stupidly dreamy expression as Lars skated off. Mercifully the cameras followed Lars, the actual star, and Ryan disappeared from frame.
Tanner paused the game and turned a terribly hidden grin to Ryan. “So how’s it going with your old flame?”
Ryan took a swig of his beer and wished it did have alcohol. There was a reason he’d avoided talking to Tanner about Lars, and he didn’t like that the scene they’d watched made it seem like they were more buddy-buddy than they were.
“It’s not like that,” he said.
Tanner raised his hands defensively. “Like what? I didn’t say it was like anything.”
“Old flame…it’s not…we didn’t…I mean, wedid,but…” Ryan buried his face in his hands and groaned. He liked it better when he was the only one who knew about this. Why had he ever opened his stupid mouth and told Tanner he’d slept with Lars? “He doesn’t remember,” he said into his palms, the words trapped there with him.
“Doesn’t remember? Remember what?” When Ryan dropped his arms and raised his eyebrows, Tanner gasped. “He doesn’t rememberyou?”
Ryan shook his head. “Like he’d never seen me before. He actually called me Brian for like three weeks before I got around to correcting him.”
“Bro,” Tanner scolded. “I know you’re not good at sticking up for yourself?—”
“I am!”
“You’re not.”
“IguessI don’t?—”
“See! You just gave in! I mean, Iamright, but c’mon. Anyway, a teammate getting your name wrong for even a minute is 100% a time you can correct them. You let that shit go on for three weeks?”
Ryan shrugged. He didn’t have an excuse for that one. It was honestly a small grievance in the grand scheme of things, and he knew it wasn’t because Lars didn’tcare. Lars had gone out of his way to show that he didn’t think Ryan was unworthy of knowing or anything. It’d been a genuine mistake.
