Well, now it's worse.
"Not this time, Bursney," I say casually, despite my crawling skin. "She’s all yours."
Burns arches a brow and nods. "Sweet!” He pauses a moment in thought before he turns back to me. "You think she takes that camera in the bedroom?"
The guys around us, including our goalie, Carter Ward, pause in their tracks before they erupt into laughter. Brett glances around with his eyes narrowed and his arms wide.
"What? She might! Anderson, come on, don’t act like you wouldn’t like a little role play. I’d let that girl give me a post-game interview.” He smacks my arm with the back of his hand, a devious grin across his lips. "She could talk intomymicrophone, if you know what I mean.”
I shake my head as I pull off my sock. "Dude, nobody has any fucking clue what you mean."
Burns scrunches his face and falls back from my stall. "You know, like a blowj…" His voice trails off as it's met with awkward silence. He scans the room, waiting for someone to join in his enthusiasm. Instead, Ward huffs out a laugh and shakes his head as he slips his other leg into his shorts.
"You're a strange bird, Burnsey."
Brett rolls his eyes, then flips him off. "Says the fucking goalie.”
When I'm stripped down to nothing but my signature gold chain, I wrap a towel around my waist and move toward the hallway in the backof the room, ignoring the ongoing conversation about Brett’s sex life that continues burning ears around me.
Heading to the showers, I finally let the weight of the interview settle. Sometimes I don't know what's worse—hearing this shit or pretending it doesn't get to me. I hang my towel on the hooks outside of the wet area, then walk to the first shower head—myshower head—and turn the water on.
I don't bother to let it warm up before I brace my hands on the black-tiled wall and let it cascade down the back of my head as it hangs between my arms. Letting the sweat from practice and the disgust from this whole situation rinse off of me, I allow my mind to drift back to last season.
I'm not sure I can pin-point exactly where it started. The team shrink that Monte wanted me to see might have had an opinion if I actually went. I'd say I had just fucking had it—the pressure building and building over the last several years. Add in that we got fucking robbed of the Cup two seasons ago, and the dam was bound to break. I hate being the underdog. I was never allowed to be. So when my game started to slip from all the bullshit, I made an executive decision.
I knew I was playing with fire the moment it happened. It wasn't my first time trying coke. But this time it wasn't a hit at a party. This time was different, calculated.
This time I needed it.
It was the morning after another shitty game. My dad called me, his words like salt in an open wound. He told me he didn't understand why I was struggling, that my team was counting on me. Mycitywas counting on me.You're better than this, Drew, so be better.That's Dad—never satisfied. The guy who couldn't make it past the collegiate level playing for the Grizzlies, but expected me to go all the way.
According to him, I can always do more, play more, score more…bemore. He's holding me to my potential, he says."You're capable of reaching the stars, Drew. I'm not going to let you settle for walking the earth."But I don't think he realizes how easy it is to shoot for the moon and lose all sense of grounding. There's no gravity in space. Nothing anchoring you down.
My natural talent has always been able to carry me, but that means I'm not allowed to have off days. I knew how the drug made me feel off of the ice—like I was incapable of stopping even if I wanted to—so when I fell into a slump, I figured maybe it could do the same thingonthe ice.
And, fuck… it did.
As soon as the dust hit my bloodstream that first time before practice, a switch flipped back on inside of me. I didn't just have energy—I was weightless. It was like I was flying—gliding across the ice like I was hovering over it, my body moving without me asking it to, my knowledge of the game—where to be, when to bob, and how to weave—happening on autopilot.
It was exactly what I needed. Enough to lock me into the game and drown out everything else—be the man again. Half the time, I didn't even need a second bump. That first hit—those first thirty minutes—were enough to snap me into gear. To remind me who I am. Who I had to be.
That I was untouchable.
Until I wasn't.
And the fall was brutal.
"Yo, man. What's the plan for tonight?"
Brett breaks me from my trance, twisting on the shower head next to mine. Grabbing the shampoo from my shelf, I answer. "I don't know. Haven't really thought about it."
He stands back from the spray and rubs his palms in front of his face. "Come on, man. It's a new season, and this is the last weekend before the opener. We gotta do something."
Running my hands through my overgrown hair, I pause at my nape, gripping my neck and letting my elbows fall forward. My head lolls back, putting pressure on my grasp, my fingertips naturally pressing into the tension at the top of my shoulders. A flash of my mystery girl's hands massaging me in the same spot snaps me back to life.
She's always there.
Almost a year later, and I still can't shake the way she made me feel. The way she sawme. Or just didn't care about the rest. And ever since,every one-night-stand, every meaningless hookup, has been a failed attempt at chasing that high. At feeling anything again.
