Across the locker room, Grentley is suiting up too. Our eyes meet for a moment. His expression is unreadable.
We start filing toward the tunnel. The sound of skates on concrete echoes off the walls. Somewhere above us, the crowd is already roaring.
This is it. Game time.
Sloane is at home, in my apartment, in my tub. Nope—I absolutely cannot focus on that mental magnificence.
All I have to do is survive the next three periods without getting killed.
Then I can go jerk off about it.
I follow my teammates into the tunnel, the roar of the crowd getting louder with each step. The lights, the ice, the game—it all waits ahead.
Here we go.
CHAPTER 25
SLOANE
Tucker’s been gonefor days on a long series of away games, but he’s coming back tonight.
After he plays at seven.
Despite saying I would never watch another one of these games, I’m on the couch by six-thirty with the pre-game show on Tucker’s massive television. I have my laptop open like I'm going to work on my sociology coursework, but really, I'm just waiting.
When the broadcast starts, I close the laptop.
The St. Louis arena is loud, the camera panning across a sea of blue jerseys in the crowd. The announcer runs through the lineups, and I hold my breath until I hear "Number 41, another Stag—Tucker, right wing."
There he is, skating onto the ice with the rest of the team. Even through the TV screen, I can pick him out—something about the way he moves, confident and loose.
Number 34 skates past him. Josh Grentley. They don't look at each other.
Well, I don’t want to look at Josh, either. I try to ignore him as the game gets going, and it goes about as well as me trying to ignore the swoops in my belly as I watch Tucker glide around the ice, swoops that have nothing to do with his babies inside me.
The first period is fast, aggressive. Pittsburgh scores early, then St. Louis answers back. I find myself leaning forward, tracking Tucker every time he's on screen.
He's not a scorer—I've tangled myself with another defender. But Tucker’s also an enforcer. His job is different. Harder to see unless you're looking for it.
Halfway through the second period, I see it.
A St. Louis player—huge, mean-looking—slams into Alder near the boards. Tucker’s twin goes down hard and doesn't get up immediately. Before I can even process what's happening, Tucker is there.
He drops his gloves. The other guy does too. And then they're fighting—actual fighting, fists flying, crowd roaring.
My stomach lurches. I should look away but I can't.
Tucker takes a hit to the face but lands two solid punches in return. The refs finally pull them apart, both players breathing hard, Tucker's face already swelling from the look of things as he skates toward the box.
I should know more about the strategy of it all by now. I realize that in a few years, these kids will ask what it means if Tucker gets a five-minute penalty for fighting. They’ll want to know if his team is angry with him. The camera catches his face as he sits in the naughty chair, hand on a hockey stick. He’s smiling while he gnaws on a mouthguard, split lip and a rising bruise on his cheek.
“Damn,” I whisper to the empty apartment.
This is his job. This is what he does.
I watch the rest of the game with my hand on my stomach, feeling the babies flutter. They're moving more now, little tumbles and kicks that Dr. Patel says are perfectly normal.
Are they feeling my anxiety? Can they sense when I'm scared?
