I wasn’t at all surprised—not by his reception, not by hisreaction. Yeah, he’d played with some of the guys yesterday, but he was clearly still tied up in knots thinking he’d failed us or that we’d all give up on him. As the guys said hi to him and hugged him and caught up with him, I hoped that chipped away at his uncertainty. Especially the guys who hadn’t been able to join us yesterday; if I had to guess, he’d worried they hadn’twantedto join us.
You’re wrong, Avery. So, so wrong. Everyone here loves you.
Just having him here brought a whole new vibe into the locker room. For all he’d been afraid he would bring us down, his presence injected more enthusiasm into everyone than I’d felt in a while. Everyone had been so worried about him, and all the guys who’d known Erlandsson had been floundering in their own grief.
Tonight, though, Avery was here, and this was the most upbeat the team had been since I’d arrived in Pittsburgh.
If we could carry that onto the ice, Chicago wouldn’t know what hit them.
As we all geared up and Avery wandered the room, chatting with teammates, his gaze landed on Eminem, and his smile faltered. I suspected he’d noticed the A on our teammate’s jersey. Some guilt clouded his expression. Probably because he felt bad that someone else had had to step up while the captain was out.
I wanted to remind him that this was no different than if he’d had to bow out of a game with an injury. There was no shame in it, and no one held it against him.
Baddy beat me to the punch, though. I didn’t hear what he said at first, except when he finished with, “Man, we’ve got you.” He clapped Avery’s arm hard enough to almost knock him off his feet. “You know we’ll keep the team going while you getbetter.”
Avery managed a smile. “I know. I have total faith in all of you.” He smirked. “I mean, maybe not you, but?—”
“Oh, fuck off.” Baddy shoved him. “Dick.”
Avery just snickered.
I continued putting on my own gear, relieved someone had derailed his melancholy train of thought.
We went out for warmups, and on the way back in, I saw Avery and Coach having a hushed conversation. Then, after Coach had given his usual pregame speech, he said, “Before we go out there, your captain has a few things to say.”
Avery had been leaning against the wall by the door, and he took a deep breath before joining Coach in the middle of the room. It was a solid minute before he spoke, but not because of nerves or anything like that—it was because that’s how long it took for all of us to stop cheering for him.
When we finally settled, he cleared his throat. “Listen, guys, I know it’s been a tough season. Nobody ever expects to start a season the way we did, and no one would’ve held it against us if it didn’t go well. But everyone’s been playing hard, and everyone is proud of all of you.” He tapped his chest. “I’m especially proud of how everyone has kept yourselves upright even after I…” His voice wavered a little, and he had to clear his throat again. “Iwillbe back this season, but even while I’m not playing, I’m still your captain.”
That prompted even more cheers, and I thought Avery might’ve choked up a little. By the time we’d again quieted, he’d reclaimed his composure.
“This will probably go down as one of the hardest seasons the Whiskey Rebels have ever faced,” he went on. “Ihopeit’s the hardest season we ever face. You guys lost your captain, and then you lost another captain temporarily, butyou’re still in the playoff conversation and you’re still holding yourselves up.” He gestured sharply toward the locker room door. “Let’s have another good game tonight.”
The locker room was nearly as loud as a playoff crowd in the arena. Guys got up to high-five and hug Avery before they headed out to the ice.
I paused on my way and clapped his shoulder with a gloved hand. “Great speech, Captain.”
He laughed softly, and… was that a blush? He smacked my shoulder. “How about a goal from the top line tonight?”
I saluted him. “You got it.”
Then I continued out to the ice, my own enthusiasm ticked up a few notches by Avery’s speech. There was also a pang of sadness in my chest; it was amazing how he could be so empathetic and understanding toward the team, but he beat himself up for struggling with the very same thing.
How do we show you that you’re just as strong as the rest of us?
Well, that was for after the game. Right now, I had to focus on hockey. Which… turned out to be harder than I expected. Avery was worried about being a distraction instead of a morale boost, and in that moment… he might’ve been right.
Not for the whole team, though—just my dumb ass.
How was I supposed to play hockey after seeing him smile like that?
All I knew was that I wasgoingto figure it out, because we werenotlosing tonight. Not with our captain here in the arena. He needed to see for himself that we could hold it together without him; yes, he was important to us, and yes, he was a crucial part of this team, but he needed to know that it wasn’t on him to carry us. He could take time to recover from this, same as he could aninjury or an illness, knowing we wouldn’t crumble without him.
And that meant I needed to keep my head together no matter how much I wished he and I could be alone somewhere instead.
My distraction notwithstanding, the enthusiasm Avery had infused into the team worked wonders. From the first faceoff, wedominatedChicago. We made rush after rush into their zone, racking up shots on goal like we were shooting fish in a barrel. By the first intermission, we had two goals while Chicago only had two shots on goal, both of which Laramie had stopped with ease.
The second period started to get chippy. They were getting frustrated, and I suspected their coach had reamed them out during intermission, so they came out swinging.
