When finished, I drop on the couch and turn the camera so it faces me again. The screen adjusts so all four of our rectangles fill the screen. “The babies are okay?” I ask Jash.
He smiles. “Yes. I think Ravi’s doubled in size since you left. Chaaya says he was laughing the other day, but I think she’s lying.”
Our home life growing up was all a little different. My father was always very involved in my life as a kid and still is. Not in my daily routines of care or whatever, but we always spent a lot of time together.
Completely opposite, Anil and Alok’s father was entirely hands off. I think they only see him during morning and evening meals and their conversations feel clinical and rehearsed. It’s not uncommon but I don’t know that it’s incredibly common either.
Jash’s are somewhere in the middle. Not as present as mine, but not as absent as the brothers’. I think he loved how my father was always around when he’d come over, so that’s the father he’s trying to be. I love that. I’m not sure I want kids, but if I had them, I think that’s also the kind of father I’d want to be.
He also really loves his wife. Like he seriously adores her. Thinks she’s the best thing in the world. I’d really love to hate her since she’s the reason we broke up, but Jash is kind of right. It’s hard to dislike her when she’s just so… sweet. Genuinely kind. Before Pooja was born, we used to hang out there all thetime and she was a lot of fun. Really smart. An expert storyteller. She’d keep us enthralled in stories for ages.
Begrudgingly, I think Jash made the right decision. He’s living a very happy life. I’m not sure whether I was an experiment, but what I like to think is that we were learning about ourselves together. We took our rite-of-passage into adulthood together, which made everything more bearable.
In modern terms, I think Jash is probably pansexual. I’ve literally never once heard him comment on someone’s gender and have heard him note a whole variety of people as attractive. Since it’s not something that comes up in conversation, I’ve never asked. I just admire his ability to always live his best, happiest, authentic self.
In a lot of ways, I strive to be like Jash. Which might be one of the driving forces behind me signing up to be a mail-order husband in the first place. I’m not going to find the kind of life he has there that my heart craves. But maybe somewhere else I can.
Maybe here with Julian I can. It doesn’t feel so out of reach these days.
CHAPTER 11
JULIAN
I glanceup at the clock as I chase the puck to the other end. Patrik Dackell, our goalie, is already poised and ready. Not that it matters much. He’s let in four goals tonight.
How many have we gotten? Big, fat zero.
The thing is, I know we’re better than this. We play better than we’ve shown on the ice tonight. There’s something about the other team making a goal early in the game that sets us up for failure. We’ve already written the game off as a loss and so our play becomes shit.
Now that I’ve been on two NHL teams, I can see and feel the difference between being on a team that truly gets each other and one that’s playing five different games. Arizona wasn’t the best team, but they played hard every single time they were on the ice. There was some damn good talent there, too.
The issue isn’t the lack of talent on either team to explain why they’re having bad seasons. It’s that the talent needs to be spread between all layers of the team. There are twenty-odd players on a team. Having sixreallygood ones and the rest mediocre-to-good? It takes more than six to bring the team into the playoffs.
Maybe we need some team-building exercises.
Colin Backlore heads for the bench and out comes the rookie Nathan Ritchie. It’s his first season in pro hockey. He always hits the ice at full speed and this time isn’t any different. I pass the puck to him on my way to Columbus’ defensive zone and skate ahead.
By the time I’m at the net and turn around, Nathan is passing the puck back to me. There’s not a lot of time to think as I shift to catch it. Even less time to assess the situation around me. But I go for a goal because if I don’t take a chance, I’m definitely not going to make the goal.
As soon as the puck hits my stick, I fling it toward the goalie. Time around the net slows for just a blip and I see the moment that he hesitates to respond. He shifts to his glove side but I shoot low and he doesn’t correct in time to bring his pads down on the ice to form a wall.
The puck slides right under him and hits the net.
We’re at home so the loud buzzer fills the arena. The response in the crowd is loud whether we score the goal or they do. They’re either cheering or booing. It doesn’t matter. At least I finally managed to get us on the damn board with less than five minutes left in the game.
My teammates on the ice circle around me, hugging me.
“Nice shot,” Carter says, tapping the back of my helmet.
“Nice pass,” I tell Nathan. He flashes me a smile.
We gather at the center line and ready for another puck drop. I take a deep breath of the cold air. It feels good in my lungs since I’m sweating in my pads. Feels good on my face.
As I stare at the puck in the ref’s hand, I drown out the noise around us and concentrate solely on the game. The only thing I hear is the movement on the ice. A stick hitting it. A blade digging in. Someone to my right letting out a heavy breath. Columbus number eight bends his head to the right and I hear his vertebrae crack.
Then the puck is dropped and all I hear is sticks. Hitting the puck, hitting each other, hitting skates and pads, hitting the ice. Then blades dig in and we’re off. Chasing the puck like greyhounds around a racetrack.
It heads into our defensive zone. Columbus makes a wild shot and the puck whizzes through the air and lands in Patrik’s glove with aflack. The whistle is blown and we begin again. Unsurprisingly, we’re already back in our zone, trying to defend and get the puck away.
