Luckily, the first game goes well.
We get out in front early, which takes some pressure off the second and third lines—where I am.
I skate solidly, setting up a few shots on goal although I don’t take any myself. I feel just a fraction too slow for that, but quick enough for the assist. Biding my time, I’ll wait until I’m more in the zone to tempt the goalie.
In the second period, I come from behind the net, sending the puck down the ice when a guy from Boston hits me on the left, taking me down to the ice and snapping my stick. I pop up quickly so I can swap the equipment and get back in. I feel my knee engage, almost hyperextending in my efforts to move the way I want.
God, that’s frustrating. I know what to do. My body knows what to do. Yet despite all the rehab and work, it’s still a fight to make it happen.
I grit my teeth, ignore it, and fly down the ice with my new stick.
***
“You comfortable there, Roe?” Benji asks me for the third time.
We won by a point, and I’m blissfully showered and in the hotel bed, my knee on a stack of pillows with ice stacked on it like I’m sandbagging for a flood.
“As long as I don’t have to get up, I’m good,” I tell him with a smile, reaching for my water on the side table. “Also, I could really use delivery knocking on the door with the food I ordered right now.”
“Before I leave, you mean.”
I give him my best smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Benji grunts, and in a few minutes, while he’s still finishing his routine of getting ready to go out, a knock comes on the door.
It’s Jerry, which makes me sit up straighter. I didn’t expect an assistant coach to take the time to come by my room. Sure, we are all in the same hotel, but it’s still out of his way.
He holds up the food bag he must have gotten from the delivery guy, and I reach for it, but instead he pulls it out of my reach with a pointed look at my knee.
Benji flicks his gaze between me and Jerry and says his goodbyes as he excuses himself to go downstairs to the hotel bar and meet up with some of the guys. We have another game in this series in a day, so there won’t be anything more than a few drinks and blowing off steam with the players who didn’t go out somewhere else tonight or order food to their room like me.
Jerry plops down on Benji’s bed and starts pulling out my order.
He raises an eyebrow at my selection of a Greek salad, loaded with fresh greens, veggies, and double protein.
“Taking care of yourself, I see, Monroe.” His voice is full of approval. I sit the salad aside and wait for the hummus and pita bread that follows. Damn Thatcher and his healthy eating habits. I deserve a greasy burger but can’t bring myself to undo weeks of clean eating with Thatcher and Jamie. Plus, I know this kind of fuel hits differently. I’m not twenty anymore.
I shrug at Jerry.
“I’m trying to make better choices.”
He looks at my leg on ice, and for some reason his scrutiny doesn’t bother me. Everyone knows I have an injury, and it needs the same care and attention the diet of a pro athlete does. If this is the start to any kind of comeback for me with the Knights, I’m not starting it off by hiding shit.
“You were good out there today, Monroe. Solid play, just like you’ve been doing with the Iceguard. I just wanted to come and tell you that we noticed.”
I give him a grin.
“Thanks, Jerry. Not everyone would have stuck with me like the Knights have and I appreciate it. I don’t want to let you down.”
Jerry nods.
“You’ve done everything I’ve asked since I put you on that plane to rehab. That’s not always the way these things go.”
I try to remember that—the plane ride out to Malibu where I rehabbed my ego and my addictions and my knee.
I draw a blank.
“I didn’t know that,” I tell him honestly. Sure, he was always the guy who came to check on me or video-called or touched base in some way. “That you got me on that plane.”
