I put my lips right beside his ear, barely whispering. “The door is still locked.”
“Come on, Rik,” Bella called again. And when she rattled the doorknob, Graham’s body gave a horrified jerk, like he’d been tasered.
But the door held, of course. And then after an achingly long silence of a minute or so, we heard the sound of Bella’s footsteps tapping away, heading down the stairs.
It was so quiet then that I could actually count our heartbeats. And after a dozen or so of them, Graham got up and fumbled for his clothes.
“Graham,” I whispered. “You don’t have to panic.”
But he wouldn’t evenlookat me. With shaking hands, he stumbled into his jeans.
I pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed, mostly covering myself. And I watched a freaked-out Graham prepare for a hasty exit from my room. I could almost hear the worry loop trailing around inside his head.Never should have done that. Never should have done that.
Whatever. If he wanted to freak out and run away after hooking up with me, that was his loss. That’s what I was going to tell myself, anyway. What’s one more bruise on a battered heart? Mine probably already looked like a veteran NHL player’s face.
Before the door closed on him, he said one word to me. “Sorry.”
I was tired of hearing that word from him.
His footsteps echoed as he retreated down the stairwell. For the second time tonight, I lay alone on my bed, nursing my wounded ribs. The next time I heard footsteps on the stair, I knew that it was only one of my exchange-student neighbors on his way in for the night. There would be nobody else calling, or coming to visit me.
My bruises throbbed again and my head began to ache. But the silence hurt worst of all.
The next event in my fun-filled life was a team meeting in the wood-paneled club room at the rink. Like a brave man does, I snuck in at the last minute, holding up the wall beside the door. At the front of the room, Coach paced, his hands in fists.
“It’s not that you lost the game, you idiots. It’s that you lost yourcool. That asshole played you like a whole fuckingorchestraof fiddles. Watching last night’s tape? It took me half a bottle of scotch. Seven minutes, guys. Seven. Minutes. That’s how long it took that dickface to wreck your game. The wheels came off early, and they stayed off. And all because of a few carefully planned taunts. Baby stuff! You got taken down by yourselves, basically. Because if you don’t know how to be immune to petty shit like that, you’re not going to last very long in hockey.”
He stopped pacing, his hands clenched at his sides. “We’re not watching that tape, because there’s nothing to watch. There’s no point in analyzing the plays, because you idiots didn’t even show up to play the game.”
I was new to the team and all, but I’d never seen Coach as angry as this. It must not happen very often.
Fuck me.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I gave one of your teammates the day off. The only guy who can hold his head up high after that shit show is Orson.Seventy-sixfucking shots on goal Saint B’s took. And you punks tookthirty. And Orson kept his shit together for three periods, and only let in four! Who was your MVP last night? Orson. That ass from Saint B's taunted him the worst of all, and it was a fucking waste of breath, people.”
Coach took a minute to look every guy in the eye, one at a time. “Where. The. Fuck. Were the rest of you?”
—Graham
The following weekend, on the way home from the Union game, the bus was dark and quiet.
Needless to say, there’d been no cause to blast our win song after the buzzer. Orson did his best, letting in two goals the whole game. But we couldn’t put the biscuit in the basket to save our lives. Without two of our best offensive players, our rhythm broke down.
So here we were, riding home late on a silent bus, every guy thinking dark thoughts. And then there was Bella. She was currently curled up in the seat beside me, her head on my chest as if I was her own personal bolster pillow.
Across the aisle, Hartley sat with his arms folded across his chest. He wore the stoic expression of a man serving out the last bit of his prison term. As our captain, he’d ridden along to the game even though he wasn’t allowed on the bench. It couldn’t have been fun to watch us lose from the stands. Knowing Hartley, he blamed himself for the loss to Union.
Nobody on the bus was happy right now. And I’m sure everyone sat in his seat, assigning blame. It’s just that I’m pretty sure they didn’t all blame themselves.
Poor Rikker.
Thinking of him gave me a weird little nauseous rush. I was pretty embarrassed about what I’d done. Running away from him after practically pouncing on him?God. I couldn’t imagine what he thought of me. Tomorrow, I would call him and apologize. I’d tell him that I was glad he was my teammate, and I hoped we could be friends. I could do that. I’d still be the world’s biggest coward, but I could make a fricking phone call.
I would have already apologized, it’s just that I hadn’t seen Rikker. He’d stood at the back of the world’s most depressing team meeting. And then I heard Coach tell him that even though Hartley would be attending the Union game as captain, Rikker would not be on the bus.
He did not manage to keep the flinch off his face.
After that, Rikker walked straight out of the room, and I hadn’t glimpsed him again. If his exams were done, he’d probably already gone home to Vermont. We got three weeks off, before we had to come back for hockey just before New Year’s.
