He was upright and laughing, though.
“Hey, my ass would be back out there if the trainers didn’t lay down the law,” he boasted. “I’ve played through worse!”
“Pfft.” Ziggy threw a balled-up sock at him. “You just want someone to high-stick you so you can bleed all over the place and scream ‘oh my God, double minor!’”
That had everyone in the room howling. Eminem turned a little red and rolled his eyes; Ziggy was never, ever going to let him forget that time in major juniors when he’d drawn a double minor after some fresh stitches had come unraveled. Everyone knew he’d already been bleeding when the other kid had high-sticked him, but boy, had Eminem sold it, and with blood on his jersey, he’d scored a game-winning goal on the resulting power play.
Yeah. Eminem was fine.
Eventually, my adrenaline would come back down, and I could chill the hell out. Right?
I wasn’t going to stay like this the whole game. Was I?
Fuck. Maybe?
I snatched my water bottle off the bench and poured some down the back of my neck, letting the cold pull my focus away from my reeling mind. It helped a little, but… not much. Not enough.
Come on, come on. Get it together!
I needed to. Intermission was almost over. In T-minus six minutes, I had to be able to play, focusing only on what was happening on the ice, not in the locker room or anywhere else.
I could do this. I’d done it before, so I could do it now.
This had never been like me. Unless someone was scraped off the ice and wheeled out on a stretcher, I didn’t let it rattle me. Let it piss me off, maybe, because that made me play harder and score, but this jitteryoh fuck oh fuckfeeling was new.
Why couldn’t I cope with a teammate getting even slightly hurt now?
Because I’m the captain. Because I’m responsible for these men in ways I wasn’t before.
That had to be it.
Right?
Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to entertain anyotherexplanation.
CHAPTER 8
PEYTON
I didn’t know what to make of Avery. No one seemed to. Even after Eminem came back—he only missed one game—our captain was still edgy in ways that were hard to define. He socialized in the locker room and in the players’ lounge, but it seemed… forced? Like it took work to laugh at things that would’ve had him rolling before? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
During games, his temper flared explosively fast. He’d rarely been one to drop gloves throughout his career, but in the last four games, he’d been in two fights. Three if you counted the brief scuffle that the refs broke up before it escalated. All of those scrums had been on the heels of an opposing player committing a dirty but not overly egregious play. Slashing. Tripping. A rough check.
He’d almost gotten into it after someone slashed Davis hard enough to send him off the ice for a couple of shifts until his hand stopped tingling. Another time, a player checked me when I didn’t have the puck, shoving me against the goal just right to knock it from its mooring. The refs didn’t bother to call the obvious interference penalty,but they did blow the whistle because the net was dislodged. That stoppage gave Ollie, one of our defensemen, a chance to get in Avery’s way and talk him down from a fight.
Throughout his whole career, even as far back as major juniors, he’d been known for having a cool head most of the time. He could lose his shit just like any hockey player, but he was extremely disciplined most of the time.
These days? Holy hell.
And judging by the worried and sometimes uncomfortable glances our teammates threw his way when he wasn’t looking, I wasn’t imagining anything. I sometimes caught his longtime teammates—especially Baddy and Eminem—murmuring to each other and exchanging concerned glances. The whole vibe around the locker room was that something was wrong, but no one wanted to be the one to bring it up.
I didn’t know how to bring it up, if Ishouldbring it up, or who I should bring it upto.
The best thing I could think of at this point was to defer to the men who knew him best, especially Eminem and Baddy.
Though they didn’t seem to know what to do about him either. What Baddy did do was lean hard into his role as alternate captain; he stepped up and led the younger guys. I saw him consulting with Coach during practices and intermissions. Mix, the other alternate, followed his lead.
So they seemed to know something was off about Avery, but they didn’t have a clue how to address it or if they should, only that they should step up.
