I hate a lose-lose scenario. All I can hope is that after our games start in earnest, my confidence will return too.
Between that and working with Jamie on the ice, I should be community member of the year in spite of my lack of desire to become a permanent Fox River Falls resident.
***
Finally, I wake up on the morning of the first game of my career comeback.
I’m up early, out of my apartment, and hopefully also out of my own head. I start to walk the distance to the coffee shop, pausing along the way at the old bar that’s somehow gotten a hold on me in the weeks that I’ve been here. I like to stop by when I’m walking to and from The Keep, to look in the doorwhen the light is right and think about all the good times the place must have seen.
Doing it this morning centers something in me. Maybe it’s routine or some sort of phantom nostalgia for a place like that old bar—a place of community, which I’ve never really had outside of a team. And if I am being honest, hanging out with Benji and the rest of the Iceguard is more team time than I’ve ever had. I was always either too young or too busy partying to form those kinds of bonds.
I finally make it to The Blue Line, where I grab my coffee. Riley knows my order now, and I can admit I don’t hate it when it’s waiting for me, and instead of having to order I can just pay and go.
Despite all of that, I’m on the rink earlier than anyone, running some light drills in minimal gear, just getting into the zone. Slowly, The Keep comes to life around me, and the smells and sounds of fans and hockey start to creep into my senses, so I head to the locker room to finish suiting up.
Diggs gives me a fist bump, and Benji waggles his eyebrows and up-nods me, his earphones in and his stare a million miles away. Yeah, I’m not the only one with something on the line here.
Every game matters.
Seems to matter more down here. In the NAPH, a bad game is more forgivable. No one wants to have one, but they happen and everyone knows that. Here, though, the pressure to be perfect, to prove you have what it takes to go to the next level is immense. More than I could have imagined, and something I think only makes sense if you’re in it. Someone who hasn’t been here wouldn’t understand.
I go through my pregame rituals, but they don’t do as much to calm me as being on the ice does. It’s all a blur until that puck drops.
The European team is no joke. They lead us after the first period, but Benji and I are just synching up. He up-nods me—still not forthcoming with words today—when we hit the ice for the second period.
Now we’re more coordinated.
The game moves fast, the refs not calling as much as I’m used to in the NAPH.
By the time we hit the ice to begin the third, we’re tied.
I look up when I come off the ice for the other line to take over, for the first time noticing the sizable crowd at the rink. Jamie’s smile is a mile wide, enjoying the game with a group of his teammates. Thatcher is there too, sitting with the other parents a few rows up from Jamie and his team. His bubble is smaller—he actually looks like part of the group—but the distance he keeps is still there, or at least, it’s noticeable to me.
In the last minutes of the game, Benji lights the lamp with an assist from me and it’s too close to the end for the Europeans to come back, although Diggs would have kept them out of the net. They didn’t get near as many shots on goal as they wanted, and when they did, he covered.
It was a solid game and I’m proud of it. I’m proud of Jamie and his team cheering me from the stands too. It’s different, they way they yell for me. Like they know me personally, not just because I help the team they support come home with the win or because there’s team merch with my name sewn on the back.
But after I shower and dress and I’m ready to leave the locker room, I have to admit my knee hurts like hell. I know better than to ignore it, but still, it hurts my pride to have to limp, however slightly, out of the locker room.
Benji drives, and we go to a casual Italian place on the square—Volpe—where the team has secured tables for post-win dinner and drinks . . . along with half the town it seems. I slide intoa seat with a wince, and Thatcher and Jamie are in my line of sight.
Jamie jumps up and comes to tell me good game, and I high five him, then we recount my best moments. When he leaves, Thatcher gives me a nod, and for a second I can’t help but wonder why he’s here of all places. Volpe is loud—one big open room that’s about as crowded as it gets.
Thatcher is still in his bubble, and this is the busiest place in Fox River Falls tonight. He’s in the far corner of a booth with some other parents, and I see Jamie slip back into his seat at another table near his friends. Thatcher’s eyes follow his son, watching him with his friends, and I get it.
Thatcher is here for Jamie. He wants Jamie to have this kind of community, even at the expense of his own comfort. That might seem like a small thing, but I know many men who wouldn’t bother with the inconvenience.
His eyes meet mine across the restaurant, and I smirk in his direction, raising my mocktail in a salute.
Those hazel eyes darken enough to be seen across the room, but I swear there’s a ghost of a smile that crosses his lips.
Good. Maybe I am wearing him down.
He’s going to do more than look at me and grimace. One day.
The connection snaps when an attractive woman, one of the moms of a kid on the team, leans over and asks him a question. She’s fully in his personal space, and he smiles politely.
For some reason, that makes my stomach flip.
