My hands kept moving. I pulled my jersey off, then my pads. The motions were automatic, and that was good because the rest of me had frozen somewhere between my chest and my throat.
Joel was with the man whose voice was filling this room right now, whose face was on magazine covers and billboards, who got to stand next to Joel at charity events and touch him like it was nothing. Joel had moved to Colorado Springs and found someone who could be public about it, someone who didn't have to hide.
I didn't look at the speaker. I kept undressing while Henderson nodded along to the beat, and nobody noticed that my jaw had locked or that my fingers had gone clumsy on my laces.
The song was still playing when I finished changing. I grabbed my bag and headed for the door before it could end.
Vega caught my eye on the way out. He was sitting at his stall with a towel around his shoulders, watching me go with that flat, unreadable expression.
That night I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
I'd called Derek after the game. Dad had been asleep already. Good day, Derek said.
He had asked about me, as if he remembered he had a son somewhere. I held onto that for a while, turning it over in my mind like a stone I'd found on the beach.
I picked up my phone and put it down. Then picked it up again.
Milo's tour schedule was easy to find. I scrolled through the dates without really seeing, telling myself I was just curious, just killing time, just doing something with my hands so I didn't have to think about the laugh I'd faked in the locker room or the song I'd fled from.
One of the stops was Salt Lake City on March 2nd.
If Milo was playing here, Joel would be here. In my city. In the same arena where I'd just scored my first NHL goal.
I could ignore it. I could stay home that night and let Joel pass through without ever knowing how close we'd been. I could keep my head down and play hockey and call Derek every night and be exactly the person everyone expected me to be.
My thumb moved before I could stop it.
I bought two tickets in the front row.
I put the phone down and stared at the ceiling some more. The room was quiet in a way that still didn't feel right. No TV playing through the walls, no rough breathing from the next room, no game shows on low volume because the sound helped him sleep.
I didn't know what I was going to do with that second ticket. I didn't know what I was going to do about any of it.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Joel standing in the audience while Milo sang, tried not to think about what his face would look like in the light from the stage.
I lay there until my alarm went off, and then I got up and went to practice and did it all over again.
MARCH
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the frame.
I pressed my fingers to the hand-shaped mark on my cheek. It still stung.
Something crashed against the wall inside, and I flinched, backing away. God dammit. Damn him. Damn me. Why didn't I—
I broke off the thought and forced my other hand to stop shaking, forced the fingers open from the fist I'd been making.
Part of me was already standing outside myself, watching. Noting the way my breathing had gone shallow, the tremor I couldn't quite suppress. Joel Coffey, who had put Danny in the hospital in fifteen seconds, flinching at a sound through a door.
I'd known what I was doing when I pushed him. Milo ran hot before shows, all that nervous energy looking for somewhere to land, and I'd picked at him anyway. Told him his new song was derivative. Watched his face change and kept going.
I'd seen the swing coming. My body knew exactly what to do with it—the block, the counter, the way to put him on the ground before his hand ever reached my face.
I'd let it land.
Behind the door, Milo was crying big, theatrical sobs that would translate well to an Instagram story later. I noted the observation, noted the cruelty of it, noted that I was standing here dissecting his performance while my cheek throbbed where he'd hit me.
My mother made excuses for the men who hurt her. I made observations about them.
