Page 22 of A Loser by Christmas
He isn’t speaking to me. Dad praises Calum. We stand shoulder to shoulder, sharing this joint YouTube session, and who knows if any bankers arrive to lose control of their annual bonus. I can’t look away from a compilation of collisions that explains Calum’s bruises. The next clip shows his most recent game, a camera zooming in on what a commentator calls a smartmove by his opposition, and it is smart to target the biggest danger to their playoff chances.
Calum might as well wear a target—even the goaltender abandons his net to help commit what Dad tells me are some of hockey’s worst crimes. “Trelawney doesn’t even have the puck.” He flinches. “Look at them aiming for his head. From behind too. Where are the refs?”
We both watch Calum get slammed against plexiglass so hard I’m amazed it doesn’t buckle.
Dad yelps, and I suck in a sharp breath when Calum’s helmet flies off and he sinks in slo-mo under an outnumbered landslide. It takes an age until the camera pans away to follow the skitter of his helmet. It pans back to show the biggest man on the ice suddenly looking a whole lot smaller.
Calum’s as crumpled as my blankets.
White like the ice he lies on, out for the count with one leg at an unnatural angle.
I guess his missing helmet and that leg looking all wrong explains why the internet is divided about what actually benched him. And I’d appreciate the high definition of this videography if it didn’t zoom in on that awkward angle. I can’t look again until Dad grinds out a much lower pitched, “Yes!”
I can watch again then as the rest of Calum’s teammates swarm like wasps over a barrier, and there’s a whole lot of them. Every single pair of gloves drops to defend him, and when he’s stretchered off the ice, I don’t breathe. Neither does a stadium full of fans.
Their silence is uncanny. So is Dad’s until a text pings, and he exhales, breathless again for the second time this morning. “He’s on his way.”
It’s weird how my chest stays locked until we both leave the sales tent and I actually see Calum approaching. That on-ice disaster clearly didn’t do him long-term damage. The proof isright there in him loping easily towards us. I head towards him too, lurching forward without thinking.
Dad stops me from stepping straight into the water. “Careful.” He’s found his usual volume—ducks scatter at his warning, and if I wasn’t engrossed in watching Calum, I’d scan those birds for a missing mother. I scan his face instead, stupidly relieved for no good reason.
All I see are ice chips.
I can’t lie, that’s disappointing. Now that I know how he looks when happy—and he was happy after we got off—this coolness is a reminder of the mask I’ve spent hours watching slip over his face on Dad’s phone screen. He’s blank again, the same way now as when he fights for puck possession, and it doesn’t matter that I’d let him push me around, no question, let him bully me with that big, hard body exactly where he wants me. I need to know what slid that mask back on for him.
Finding out waits until I have Calum all to myself aboard a shiny speedboat, and we wait for the marina lock gates to open. “What’s with the game face?”
“Game face?” He stands beside me again, well balanced for someone I just watched get stretchered off ice. “What do you mean, game face?”
I pull a blank one of my own to show him, icy like the Thames breeze. “Because if you’re having second thoughts about placing that order?—”
“I’m not. I won’t.” His frozen expression melts. “Sorry.” He scrubs at his face and once we’re out on the river, Calum slumps on the seat beside me. He rubs at the back of his neck. “This morning was a lot, that’s all.”
Heisa little grey around his edges.
“Bad journey back?”
“From my club visits? No. I got back late last night. I mean . . .” His gaze drifts across the river to a cluster of stark buildings in the medical district.
“You’ve been at a hospital?” I guess again when he doesn’t answer. “You had a rough physio session?” I waggle my eyebrows. “Someone else has been stretching out your groin for you?”
He snorts, and that’s a slight improvement, although Calum still doesn’t provide more detail. I guess why. “I get it.” At least I think I do. “Fitness is one of those weak links you guys can’t mention in public. In case another team hears and uses it to their advantage. Don’t worry. I won’t break any of your big-money NDAs by sharing your secrets with my subscribers. All I’m interested in is finding ways to make you look a liability, yeah? You still want me to do that?”
He hesitates before nodding.
“Then I will. Try, that is. No promises. But if I don’t spot anything obvious, I’ll get creative in edits with something to make your club drop you.” Fuck knows what that could be. I chance a risky reminder of another no-go. “Even if a sex tapeisout of the question.” I take a hand off the wheel to mirror a stance I bet he wouldn’t want the world to witness but that has stayed with me—I cover my heart, fingers splayed the same way his did in my bed only days ago, and I make a promise. “No videos of you and me bumping and grinding. I can be professional even if that means no more bumping and grinding, full stop.” I do bump us over several boat wakes before I pull up in a hurry. “Shit. If you were having treatment for a concussion, I’ll go slower.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. They wouldn’t have let me fly home if it was an issue.”
That rules out some of the internet’s upper-body speculation. I pick up speed again and bump us over several more boat wakesin quick succession, and bingo, he smiles. It’s faint. So is his volume. I barely hear him murmur, “And I wouldn’t go as far as ruling out a repeat.”
I check if I heard him correctly. “Of us bumping and grinding?”
He meets my gaze, nothing frosty about his confession. “Haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
Fuck being professional. I whoop and spin the boat in a splashy circle, but he grins for real, and that’s so much better. We also have something else in common—Calum proves he shares my speed-freak credentials by budging me over. He shares my seat to spin us in tighter circles, and I could give him more space to do that, I guess. I could also pay more attention to the river. It will be another Christmas miracle if the River Police don’t stop us. Who knows if we pass any patrol boats. I don’t notice. I’m too busy watching his grin widen.
He’s windswept and flushed rosy, which lingers long after we’re safely moored, and he shows me his schedule on his phone. The first three weeks of December look busy. “I won’t be here the whole time. I’ll have some more out-of-town club business to take care of. Those visits are off-limits.”
