“Canning?” Danton staggers to a stop as he enters the bathroom. “Hey. You okay?”
Not so much, no. He asks me that again several times, as if I’m likely to change my answer. I tune him out.
Luckily, the asshole disappears, and I close my eyes and try to regroup.
The silence doesn’t last nearly long enough. Danton is back—I can hear his weaselly voice. But it’s accompanied by Bill’s—our boss. Their voices mesh together, and I’m too tired to listen well.
“You just found him here?”
“Yeah. You think he’s on drugs?”
“Seriously?”
Someone touches me, and I don’t like it.
“He has afever, Danton. A high one. Stay here with him, I’m getting the emergency contact list. You have a phone?”
“Yeah.”
It gets blissfully quiet for a minute. But then the voices are back. “Says here that we’re dialing...Ryan Wesley? That’s odd.” Bill laughs. “Same name as that killer rookie forward. Call this number—4-1-6…”
I doze.
“You’re not gonna believe this.” Danton’s voice grates on my consciousness. “The number hits the Toronto clubhouse switchboard. Am I really asking them to find Ryan Wesley?”
“That’s what it says on the paper, kid. Must be true.”
My last half-conscious thought is:I’m sorry, Wes.
FOURTEEN
WES
We’re not even halfway through our morning skate when Blake lumbers off the ice and is ushered into the chute by the team doctor. Worry pokes hard at me when I notice he’s favoring his left knee. He’d been icing it in the locker room last night after the game, but he assured me this morning that he was A-OK. Said it was just an old injury acting up and that the precautionary X-rays and ultrasound our techs ran came back clear.
I force myself to concentrate for the duration of practice, but I hope to God that Blake is all right. He hadn’t looked like he was in too much pain when he’d skated off, but you never know. Hockey players are tough motherfuckers. They could have a broken leg with the bone sticking straight through their flesh and still insist they’re fine.
I think the same applies to hockeycoaches, because Jamie had brushed off his own malady last night. I came home to find him in our bed with a pillow over his head, groaning that he’d never had a migraine like this before. I felt him tossing and turning all night, but he was gone before I woke up, so I’massuming he’s migraine-free now. I damn well hope he is. I was really looking forward to hanging out with him yesterday, and I’m determined to make it happen tonight.
The second Coach blows his whistle to signal the end of practice, I head to the locker room to shower and change, then go on a hunt for Blake. I track him down to the physio room. He’s lying on a long metal table, his left leg propped up and an ice pack on his knee.
“What’s the word?” I ask in concern.
Unhappiness clouds his face. “They’re sending me for an MRI.”
Shit. “MCL? ACL?” I pray the answer to that is “neither”, but Blake’s expression goes even more bleak.
“ACL. They don’t think it’s a tear. Worst case, a sprain, but it’ll still keep me out of action for a while. Two weeks, hopefully. Six at the most.”
Double shit. Losing Blake, even for a couple weeks, would be a major hit for the team. He’s one of our best forwards. “I’m sorry, man,” I say quietly.
Blake is quick to flash that careless grin of his, even though we both know he’s bummed out at the prospect of missing any games. “Ah, don’t look so mopey, Wesley. Nothing keeps me down for long, eh? I’ll be back before you know it.”
I raise a brow. “You’d better be. We’re going to need you if we make the playoffs.” For the first time in years, Toronto is actually in playoffs contention. I like to think that’s partly my doing—I’ve now scored at least one goal in the past six games—but I’m trying not to let myself get too cocky. Hockey is a team sport. No “I” in “team” and all that jazz, right?
“Whenwe make the playoffs,” he corrects. “Pessimistic asshole.”
“Whenwe make the playoffs,” I echo, which gets me another broad smile from him. “So take care of that knee, you hear me? Don’t push yourself to get back on the ice sooner than the docs tell you. We can man the fort until you’re ready to—”
