Page 62 of The Best Parts of Him
Bellamy grimaced.
But he didn’t ask.
chapter seventeen
Ryland:
Okay, tell me. Please. I’m dying.
Dabbs:
Tell you what?
Ryland:
That thing you said. In French. When I was at your place.
Dabbs:
What will you give me for it?
Ryland was back on the ice two and a half weeks after his injury.
He’d been riding a high since this morning’s skate, the thrill of being back among his people, his sport, and his arena pumping through his veins until he was giddy with it. And now, as he sat on the bench during the third period and awaited his next shift, his leg bounced with excess energy and sweat tracked tears down his face. The Pilots were tied 1–1 against the Washington Undergrounds at home. The Pilots and the Undergrounds were almost neck and neck in points this season. The game could go either way.
Ryland had landed in Columbus just over a week ago, and in that time, he’d alternated between missing Dabbs, being excited about playing again, annoyance over the rehab he wished he didn’t still have to do, and a bone-deep desire to see Dabbs again.
Over the past week, Dabbs had sent him cute photos of his dogs, cuter photos of Shannon the crocheted ice cream cone posed in various areas of the apartment, funny hockey memes, and daily pictures of Bellamy the pumpkin that didn’t actually look like Bellamy, often wearing an accessory. A Trailblazers hat on a day the team had a home game, one of the dogs’ raincoats on a rainy day, and a scarf when the weather turned unexpectedly. Dabbs also called Ryland out of the blue just to say hi. Yesterday, he’d had a minute between parking and joining his team for a meeting, and he’d called Ryland on his walk into the building for a thirty-second conversation that amounted to hi-how-are-you-bye.
“Hewitt’s moving slowly today,” Miles Sheppard said on Ryland’s left.
Ryland looked over at their goalie. Hewitt stood between the pipes, calling out instructions to the pair of Pilots D-men on the ice.
“He’s trying to mask it, but he’s not firing at a hundred percent,” Miles added.
“His back’s been bothering him,” Ryland said.
Miles tutted. “Fucker’s going to cause himself permanent damage.”
“He wouldn’t be the first athlete to do so.”
“But he doesn’t have to be the latest. Coach should’ve taken him out of the game after the second period.”
Maybe, but that wasn’t up to them.
In the next second, Ryland was on the ice, Miles a moment behind him.
A Washington player had sent the puck into the corner of the offensive zone. Bart Lang got there first and passed to Miles, who got it out from behind the net. He lost it to an Undergrounder but won it back quickly when the Washington player attempted a sloppy pass to his teammate.
Ryland circled around a D-man, anticipating Miles’ pass, and when the puck hit his stick, he shot?—
And missed.
He groaned along with the twenty thousand fans in the stands.
Ryland did not want his first day back to be one of those games that sparked headlines like Is Zervudachi really ready to get back on the ice? No, this was going to be a Zervudachi scores first goal since returning from injury kind of game, and with seven minutes left in the third period, he had half of that—if he was lucky—to prove it.
His chance came sooner than he expected, and despite looking forward to overtime—he’d had the most overtime points out of everyone on the team last season—if he could win his team the game in regulation, all the better.
