Page 111 of Love Lessons
The game is a good one.Both teams have something to prove this year.
Don’t we always. But this one is special for me. My boys and I saw a lot of change this summer. We need to come together as a new team and trust each other enough to get it right.
I think we can get there. I really do.
The first two periods are fast and frantic, and we push the score up to 2-2.
“Maybe I should’ve run a few more miles this summer,” Drake complains, toweling off his face.
“You ran all the miles,” I remind him. “Blood sugar?”
He checks his phone. “Little low. Huh.”
I hand him the glucose drink in the specially marked water bottle as the buzzer rings for the period’s end.
My special jersey is drenched with sweat by the middle of the third period. I hope they wash these things before anyone pays twenty grand to buy one. The crowd is a blur as I narrow my focus on the Boston forward I’m guarding.
It’s a fast, brutal period, but the score stands. Silas Kelly is guarding the goal with his life, which doesn’t hurt our chances.
We give it all we’ve got as the period wears on. “We can do this, guys. One more before the buzzer.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Castro says. “I’ll find it.”
Spoiler: we don’t find it. And I manage to foul one of their guys with three minutes on the clock.
“Two minutes for tripping,” the announcer says as they open the penalty box for me.
As I skate toward the sin bin, I catch sight of Vera. She’ssmiling, in spite of my fuckup. That’s something you don’t see every day.
I sit down and take my punishment, gritting my teeth the whole time. My guys work hard to kill the penalty. And they look good doing it. I stand up early so I’m ready when the door opens.
But with six seconds left of my confinement, a Boston player fires the puck through Silas’s legs and into the net.
“Fuck.”
The lamp lights. Boston celebrates.
I sit my ass back down with a sigh.
Thump. Someone pounds on the plexi.
I don’t look, because it’s probably just an angry fan.
Thump thump.“Crikey.”
When I swivel my head, I see Davis Deutsch smirking at me. “Thanks,” he mouths, then gives me the thumbs up. He looks joyous.
I roll my eyes and have to laugh.
* * *
“That’swhat the preseason is for,” Castro says, tying his tie an hour later.
“I know it,” I agree. “We’ll get ’em next time.”
It’s done, it’s over. They won. We shook hands. I gave a few quotes filled with platitudes to the journalists trying to get a story out of a preseason game that doesn’t actually count.
Everything is fine. We live to fight another day.
