Page 2 of Love of the Game
Didn’t take too long to pack up my gear and grab my sticks. Back in my apartment I ordered food, then paced my living room, and tried to figure out what the hell to do next. It wasn’t two o’clock yet. I knew once the news came out, my phone would be barraged with texts.
Phone. Right. I took a deep breath, then called my mom. My sperm donor would laugh when he found out, the fucker, but my mom had busted her ass to make sure I could make it in hockey. She shouldn’t find out I was being waived from the internet.
“Hey sweetie, what’s up?”
I couldn’t keep the tremble out of my voice. “Mom, they’re waiving me.”
“Oh, honey!” she murmured. “It’s okay.”
I sighed. “I mean, I know I haven’t been playing well, and I’ve been scratched but…”
“You’re just in a slump, that all!” She paused, andadded, “Maybe a change of place will be a good thing. A new city.”
Assuming another NAPH team wanted me. With the way I’d started the year? Who knew what they thought. “Coach said they’d love to keep me in the system. But if I end up down with the Otters…” I heaved a sigh of my own. “It’s a lot less money.”
“Hmm,” Mom said, “You’ve been putting away some of your salary, right? Like the advisor said?”
“Of course.” First thing Mom suggested I’d get when I’d signed my contract at nineteen was a financial advisor. “I have savings. I just hate tapping into it.”
“Well, maybe it won’t come to that.” She sounded so sure. “Either way, at least you’ll be out of the press box, right? Playing again?”
Trust Mom to find the bright side of things. I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, I guess.”
We chatted a little longer, the conversation moving from my impending doom to her job as an accountant, then news about some of the kids I’d grown up with. Who was getting married, who was still living in our little suburban Philly town, and who’d moved on to other things. Emily, one of Mom’s neighbor’s daughters, was doing really well in med school and Jaxson, a boy I’d had a bunch of fights with, then kissed once, had graduated from college with a degree in economics and was apparently dating a drama major.
It was supposed to make me feel better, but it only served to remind me that I, who’d been drafted in the first round (albeit last), and had played lights out my first and second year in the NAPH, was about to go through waivers because my team didn’t want me anymore. Because I sucked.
By the time I hung up with Mom, I was more than alittle depressed. Part of me wanted to say, “Fuck it” and go head out to one of my favorite restaurants in town, have a huge meal, and get totally smashed. The other part of me wanted to fire up a hookup app and find a guy to fuck until my mind was numb.
What I did instead was trudge to my closet to pack.
At two-fifteen,slightly twenty-four hours after I’d been placed on waivers, Bearsy texted me.
Yo, Duck, glad you’re sticking around in the area. Pretty sure you’ll be up again before the new year. Give Jonny a call. He’s the captain. He’ll take care of you.
That was followed with a phone number with an 878-area code. I rolled my eyes and tossed my phone onto the couch. Lot of good a new captain would do me. I was done.
Every other team in the league had passed over me. No one wanted me. I was heading to the minors. I knew that this had been a possibility, maybe even likely, but now that the minutes had ticked past the deadline and I cleared waivers, the reality set in.
A complete gut punch, one that had my eyes stinging and my stomach roiling. I was now a Greensburg Otter, with the paycheck ninety percent smaller than before. As my mom had reminded me, I was fine financially, for a good long while, but it still fucking hurt.
In theory, I didn’t even have to move. Right now, it took me about twenty minutes to get to the Lions practice facility, and Greensburg was only an hour away.
But I knew it would be easier if I lived closer to Greensburgbecause that commute wasn’t always an hour, especially considering the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and the ever-present construction on the roads between here and there. Add other drivers to that mix, and I was looking at a long daily commute.
Fuck. My phone dinged again. This text was from Lions staff, connecting me up with Otter staff. Emails followed with more details I skimmed over. I was expected for practice tomorrow at the Westmoreland Arena at ten in the morning. They suggested a hotel nearby as a temporary place to stay, at least for a few days. There was also a list of short-term rentals in the area. Some other things about the team, the coach, and the leadership.
More texts from the Otter’s coach welcoming me. One from their captain. I ignored those. Couldn’t stomach reading through the rest of it, not with my eyes blurring.
I was going to the minors becauseno one wanted me. That thought kept circling through my head. It was all my fault. Maybe if I’d played better… Maybe if I’d practiced harder… Or maybe it was a damn fluke I was even ever drafted into the NAPH in the first place.
I’d had to block my sperm donor on Instagram. Hell, I shut down direct messages entirely, since my mother, teammates, and friends all texted, but some of the shit he’d said when he’d found me still ate at me.
I rubbed at my eyes. Okay, fine. I was here, now. First, get a hotel. Second, get the hell out of here before I had a breakdown.
A little under three hours later, I was checking into a Marriott on the edge of a strip mall on the outskirts of Greensburg.
Fuck my life. This box of a room would be home for… however long it took to unfuck myself, I guess. Or until the Lions traded me.
