Page 15 of Hockey Bois
These peopledidknow each other.
Brady wasn’t here.
Shit.
Whatever. Worse came to worst, he’d be miserable for an hour and know better than to go to a pick-up game in the future. More than that, it washockey. Bad hockey was still better than no hockey, andthatwas the attitude he needed to have. It was the whole reason he’d started playing to begin with.
He went through his usual pre-game routine: skating to loosen up, stickhandling to get a feel for the ice, a few shots-on-net to warm up the goalie.
Still no Brady.
It was impossible to get a read on the other players. A few were warming up like him, but most were standing by the benches, talking. They had a wide array of jerseys, some plain practice jerseys, others for NHL teams, but most were for local rec leagues. He didn’t recognize more than a couple, though, and it made him feel even more isolated.
Here he was, per Brady’s instructions, in a plain white jersey.
“All right!” came a shout from the Zamboni entrance as a guy closed the boards. He was in full gear, only missing his gloves and stick, and had the same aura of authority that Benns did. “Line up! We’ll split you into teams. We’ve got the ice for another forty-five minutes, so let’s hustle!”
The guy skated down the line, pointing people to one side of the ice or another. The only qualification that seemed to matter was jersey color: the lighter colors were pointed toward the scoreboard and the rest were sent to the far side of the ice.
“Scoreboard,” the guy said with no more than a cursory glance at Nick’s jersey.
Nick headed that way, sizing up his temporary teammates, when the whole rink echoed with the sound of a door opening.
There was Brady, scrambling to get on the ice from the locker room. His white jersey wasn’t even pulled over his hockey pants, and his helmet was askew.
“Nice of you to join us, Brady,” the guy in charge barked. “It’s not like we’re paying by the minute here.”
“Fuck off,” Brady grumbled.
“Ray of sunshine as always,” the guy shot back and, with a wave, dismissed him to the scoreboards. “You’re lucky you make my numbers even.”
Brady glided right to Nick as if there were nowhere else he’d go. Nick ignored the way his pulse quickened and how Brady’s presence put him at ease.
“He’s full of shit,” Brady said while he fixed his jersey and helmet. “I’ve seen people roll in during the third and he lets ’em play. You got cash, you got a spot.”
“Uh huh. Since when are you late to hockey? You’re that person who’s already dressed and waiting for them to zam the ice. I assumed you were dead on the side of the road or something.”
“Uh huh,” Brady said back. “You thought I was setting you up for a super-hard pick-up and laughing that you fell for it. Bet you considered bailing even after you got on the ice.”
“Uh huh. And you probably would’ve done that, except you can’t say no to hockey without going through withdrawal. You set me up, were laughing at home, and then realized you’d setyourselfup to miss out on a game and had to rush over.”
“Uh huh—”
“Yo, what you guys play?”
Nick shook his head and took a forced step back from Brady. They’d drifted closer together as they tried to rile each other up, nearly chest-to-chest, and the space was the only way to force his head to clear. Brady’s gravity drew him in without him noticing.
“I like to play back, but I can play up,” Brady said. He stood square to the other players, almost as if he too felt the need for space. “Just don’t expect me to take a faceoff.”
“I play up,” Nick said. He wouldn’t mind trying out defense, but nothere, notnow. He wanted a few more months of actual play under his belt before he branched out. Then, because he still felt like being a little shit and maybe missed having Brady’s attention to himself, he jerked a thumb toward Brady. “I can take his faceoffs.”
Brady’s head whipped around to face Nick. His mouth fumbled over words that didn’t come, and Nick suppressed a snicker.
They divided up their eight players across two-ish lines, three on defense and five forwards. The other team had two more players than them, probably because of the same team finagling that Brady had done with Nick, and Nick didn’t look forward to double-shifting to make up that difference.
As a plus, no one had minded him playing offense, and he was out with Brady more often than not. Brady was about the only one he could predict: people would pass when they should’ve held on, dump when they could’ve carried, hold on when there was a guy wide open. It was frustrating, and more often than not he felt like he and some of the slower, less experienced players were being snubbed.
And then there was Brady.
