I stare at those four words.Wish you were here.
The text blurs for a second. I toss the phone onto the cushion beside me, the screen going dark. My condo suddenly feels colder than it did a couple of minutes ago.
“Me too,” I whisper to the empty room.
Cookie climbs up my shirt, his claws pricking through the cotton, and stares me dead in the eye.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, scratching him under the chin. “I know. I think I’m fucked.”
He lets out a long, reptilian sigh and closes his eyes.
Looking out the window of the video room, you’d think the sky is trying to drown the entire Pacific Northwest out of spite. It’s February in Seattle, which means fifty shades of gray, none of them sexy, and enough rain to make me seriously consider building an ark.
I shift in the expensive, ergonomic chair that manages to feel like a torture device. The ice pack strapped to my left chest and shoulder is doing its job, numbing the deep, rhythmic throbbing that’s become my constant companion since surgery, but the cold is starting to seep into my bones.
PT. Ice. Video. Repeat.
My life used to be full of adrenaline spikes and screaming fans. Now, it’s measuring range of motion in millimeters and watching my teammates fight for their lives on a screen while I sit in the dark.
We just dragged ourselves back from a very mediocre four-game road trip with two wins and two losses. We’re clinging to the second wild card playoff berth like a cat hanging off a curtain. Our claws are dug in, but gravity is a real bitch, constantly pulling us down. This is always one of the toughest parts of the season, leading up to the All-Star break. Everyone’s exhausted, the weather is shit, so traveling is stressful as fuck, the holidays are a distant memory, and while every single point matters, we’re not close enough to the playoffs that we can run on adrenaline yet. Every day is a grind.
Tanner walks through the door, looking more than tired; the poor guy looks eroded. He’s wearing the same Sasquatch hoodiehe’s worn every day this week, and his blond hair is longer than usual and sticking out like he’s been running his hands through it. His normally bright blue eyes are a little duller than I’d like them, with smudgy dark circles underneath.
It isn’t physical. I know Tanner’s conditioning; the guy’s a machine. This is mental exhaustion. He’s carrying the weight of the team, the expectations of the city, and his own perfectionism on shoulders that are slumping a little.
“Hey,” he says, his voice gravelly as he drops into the chair beside me.
“Don’t you look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today,” I tease, adjusting my sling.
Tanner snorts. He smells like the locker room shower gel and that familiar chemically treated ice scent that never really gets out of your pores. “I feel like I got hit by a Zamboni driven by a blind guy.”
I chuckle as I pull up the video of last night’s game against the Kodiak. We lost 4-3 in overtime, but everyone played well, including Tanner. But there are always things to be learned for the next game.
I start to pull up a sequence from the second period, but he stops me.
“Wait, can we start with the OT winner?” Tanner asks.
“Sure.” I push my laptop toward him, and he pulls up the camera shot he wants. It appears on the wall-mounted video screen in front of us.
Three-on-three overtime is pure chaos designed to drive goalies to the brink of insanity. I watch as Kodiak enters the zone, Tanner moving smoothly between the posts. He’s sharp, tracking the puck well. Then the shot comes from the high slot, beating him on his blocker side.
Tanner watches, his jaw tight. Then he rewinds it and watches again.
“I’m too deep,” he mutters, sounding like he’s diagnosing a terminal illness. “I lost the angle. If I’m six inches further out, that shot hits my shoulder.”
He goes to rewind it again, but I reach out with my good hand and cover his.
“Stop.”
He freezes, looking at my hand, then up to my face. His blue eyes are stormy with his frantic need tofixthis.
“Play it again, but slow it down,” I say.
He does it, frowning. The play unfolds in agonizing slow motion. The drop pass. The wind-up.
“Freeze it,” I command. “Right there.”
The video stops right as the puck leaves the shooter’s stick.
