Every time I close my eyes to center myself, like I’ve been trained to do since I was a kid, I don’t see the ice. I see Louis, his pupils blown wide as he looked at me with naked hunger, feel his body under mine, and taste the raw want on his lips.
Focus, Sinclair.
Rylan walks by, tapping my shin pads with his stick. “You with us, kid?”
I look up, forcing a mask of calm onto my face. “Yeah. I’m here. Locked in.”
He searches my eyes for a second, his brow furrowed. Before he can say anything else, Coach Shaw steps to the middle of the room.
“Okay, gentlemen, a couple of quick things here. First, I want to let you know Lou is going to be out for a while. Once he gets through the surgery, we’ll know more about when he’ll be back on the ice.” There are a few murmurs around the room, but it seems like most guys heard the shitty news earlier. “In the meantime,” Coach continues, “our excellent backup, Tanner Sinclair, is gonna stand tall in net for us while Tremblay recovers. And I also want to welcome our newest Sasquatch, Casey McWhittier, called up from the farm last night to back up Sinc. Congratulations, both of you.”
Everyone hollers and claps for us. McWhittier sports a huge grin, loving every second of it. I should be feeling the same joy, considering this has been my dream since I was nine years old. Instead, I feel like I’m about to throw up.
When the room quiets, Coach claps his hands. “Okay, boys. Five minutes. Stick to the game plan tonight, and we got this. We’re gonna show these guys what Sasquatch hockey looks like!”
Usually, the transition out of the tunnel into the bright lights of the arena is a sensory reset, allowing me to hone my focus and let go of everything that isn’t happening on this ice sheet.
But not tonight.
As I scrape my crease, roughing up the ice between the posts, I look up. High above the ice and the cheering crowd is the press box. Lou’s up there, watching me take his crease and stand in the spot he earned. The same crease he broke his body trying to protect.
Goddammit. Focus, Sinclair.
For the first period, my body moves on autopilot, muscle memory doing the heavy lifting. I turn away a slap shot from the point. I smother a rebound a minute later. We head into the first intermission with no score.
But my head isn’t quiet like it should be. I’m fighting off random thoughts, and partway through the second, I start to lose the battle.
Edmonton is cycling the puck, looking for a lane. I’m tracking it, sliding post to post. But for a fraction of a second, my mind flips to Louis. To the haunted look on his face when he said he was “finished.”
It’s a micro-hesitation. Like a tiny glitch in the machine.
Boulton, their winger, releases a wrister from the top of the circle. I see it coming, but my arm feels heavy. I’m a split second late.
Ping.
The puck skims the underside of the crossbar before going in. The horn sounds, and the light glows red. It’s 1-0 Edmonton.
“Shake it off, Sinc!” Austin yells, tapping my pads as he skates past. “You got the next one.”
I nod, squirting water through my mask, trying to wash the taste of failure out of my mouth. But it’s like I’m not playing hockey anymore; I’m fighting a war inside my own head.
Five minutes later, there’s a scramble in front of me. Bodies are everywhere. I drop into my butterfly, sealing the ice.
Suddenly, I can feel Lou’s hot breath against my neck and his hard body underneath mine.
The sensory memory is so vivid, I lose spatial awareness for a microsecond, drifting an inch to my left. It’s like I’m chasing the ghost of a feeling instead of tracking the black disc. The puck squirts through the gap.
It’s 2-0.
By the third period, I’m no longer a goalie. I’m a goddamn sieve.
Every time the red light flashes, it’s like a taunt.You wanted this job? You wanted to be the hero? You thought you could do this? Think again, asshole.
I let in a soft backhand that Louis would have stopped in his sleep. 3-0.
I misplay a puck behind the net because I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to face him later. And it’s 4-0.
The final minutes are a blur of humiliation. When the final horn mercifully sounds, the scoreboard reads 5-0.
