“Engage your core, Nicky! Hold! Hold!”
There’s sweat rolling down my temples. The beads are hot and salty. I’m trying to ignore the way they make my eyes burn. My quads scream from the effort to stay level on the balance board as Robbie Hodge, my goalie coach, tosses rubber ballsat me to swat away. It’s easily the most demented version of dodgeball I’ve ever known, but as I send another ball flying back to Robbie, I know it’s worth it.
“Five more!” Robbie launches three at once. Two at my left and one on my right. The board beneath my feet wobbles, and I grit my teeth. I miss one, but hit the others. A sharp exhale parts my lips, a grunt tagging on the end as Robbie lobs the final two balls. With them bouncing against the floor from my dismissal, I relax my stance and step off the board. I try not to groan when I make it over to the bench, bending to reach my water bottle and a towel.
It’s only the second day of pre-season camp, and while I have worked out all summer, being with the training staff hits a little different. Everything is more intense. More real. And I don’t take that for granted.
Growing up, I dreamed of this. Playing professional hockey didn’t seem like it would be possible for the poor kid raised by a single mom, but I never stopped wanting it. Secondhand skates, a blocker held together with duct tape, and a jersey two sizes too big in rec league teams didn’t exactly scream “future NHL player.” But it was my happy place and taught me more than just how to play the game.
The discipline I developed was woven into the repetitive exercises and skating until the blades were so dull I could barely stay upright on the ice. It was the determination to make a life for myself. I wasn’t going to let the few dollars my mom could spare go to waste. Even when I didn’t get any offers from colleges, I kept believing hockey was the key to my life.
I took a job at the local AHL arena as the Zamboni driver in exchange for ice time and a steady paycheck, and I never gave up. I had to believe my time would come, and it finally did. The AHL coach watched me practice and invited me to join in some morning skates. When the team was out of goalies duringa home game some six months later, I was activated as the emergency backup. One minute I was parking the Zamboni after resurfacing the ice during the intermission between periods, and the next, I was putting on gear and watching the equipment manager press my last name onto the back of jersey number twenty-eight.
“Looking sharp.” Robbie drops a hand to my shoulder, teeth flashing bright against his mahogany skin, pulling me from my memories. He’s in his late fifties, a retired player turned specialties coach, and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. I respect the hell out of him, feeling something akin to intangible familiarity from the way our childhoods share similarities. While many of the other kids on his block were honing their jump shots or tackling form, Robbie chose hockey. He earned scholarships and sponsorships, and retired at thirty-two after helping the Houston Galaxy win their Stanley Cup. As much as we have in common, I never forget that my experience with poverty wasn’t ever as challenging as his, and how I’m treated in this league because of it is different, too.
“What’s next?” I ask, trying to ignore the flash of the camera that hovers near the incline press, and the way I am suddenly intensely aware of the microphone wire that’s come loose under my damp shirt. Not for the first time in the last ten days, I question my decision to participate in this ridiculous documentary. But I did agree, for reasons I remind myself of as Robbie leads me over to the smooth wall next to a bank of mirrors.
I agreed not because the team asked, but because I want Natalia to see, when she’s older, what I was doing all the time I was away. I was never gone because Iwantedto miss the big and small moments of her childhood. The opportunity felt like a good chance to do that. My mom worked all the time when I was little, but I didn’t really understand it, and I was never includedin it. Ms. Jenkins, who lived across the hall, would just pat me on the head and tell me to finish my homework.
A bright beam of emerald light reflecting off the wall pushes away the rest of my thoughts, and I can’t help but groan. I give Robbie a look that hopefully conveys my annoyance. He just grins back at me and moves the laser pointer to a different spot on the wall before blinking it on and off a few times.
“I’m not afucking cat, Rob. I’m not going to shake my ass with excitement before—” I cut myself off as my hand shoots out to cover the green dot just above my left shoulder, reflexes on point.
“You were saying?” Robbie taunts, then moves the light. And I follow. Exactly like a damn cat.
My irritation doesn’t last long when I hear her laugh. I’d recognize it anywhere; uniquely raspy and low, it rumbles across the gym, and I can’t stop myself from stealing a glance to where she leans against another wall, out of the shot.
Bea’s eyes dance under the fluorescent lights as she covers her mouth to stifle the sound. I wish she wouldn’t. Her laughter is infectious. As I let my gaze linger, she drops her hand into the pocket of her black slacks and offers me a soft smile, jerking her head slightly toward the wall where Robbie has moved the light again. I don’t need to turn back to perfectly capture it under my hand. Bea’s eyebrow arches, her head cocking to the side as she watches me, and I can’t fight the twitch at the corner of my lips. They curl in a half smile at her.
“Nicky!” Robbie’s calling of my name is a gentle redirection, and I lock in on my exercise and ignore the pretty public relations officer.
In the hallwayoutside the locker room, Bea leans against the wall, thumbs flying across the screen of her phone as she types. I take a moment, even if I feel a little like a creep, to watch. A pinch of concentration forms between her eyebrows as she types. It’s cute. Bea has been by my side for every meeting and every filming session. She’s professional, personable, and polite as she helps me navigate this experience and maintain the boundaries I’ve set.
She’s slipping into my life in a way that’s comfortable, but not entirely unexpected, given the frequency of the time we’ve spent together. It makes me glad that I have her on my side, that I can count on her to do her job. And maybe even consider her a friend. Aside from the boys on the team and Violet, I don’t have many of those.
“How much would you hate me if I showed Nat that little laser pointer game?” Bea teases as she tucks her phone away. Her head cocks to the left, chocolate curls tumbling over her shoulder.
“Don’t know,” I say after considering, hitching the strap of my backpack higher. “Do you think it would help or hurt my case that now is a terrible time to get a cat?”
She smiles, and my heart gives a pathetic flip-flop. It’s been getting easier to do this with her over the last few days: the jokes, the smiles. Well, maybe not the smiles, but I do more than nod along now. I find my voice to say a few words. But all of that comes with a current of desire that’s getting harder to ignore.
“Meow,” Bea replies, curling her fingers like claws before she glances to the end of the hallway where the camera crew is gathered. They’re not allowed inside the locker room unless given express permission by Coach—and that likely won’t happen. “Andy wants to do an interview about today’s training and what the rest of the week looks like, okay?”
At the center of the cluster is Andy Quinn, the documentary’s segment producer assigned to follow me around. They’re scrolling through their phone and giving directions before the rest of the crew heads farther down the hall to the tunnels. Andy turns and begins walking toward me. Their hair is shocking blue and close cut to their head, muting all the other features of their face except hazel eyes rimmed in kohl and two gold hoops in their left nostril.
“We’re going to set up in the walk-in tunnel, okay?” Andy asks Bea, who gives a nod. They turn to me next, looking up from about my shoulders, a smile on their face. As far as people who are here to catch every moment of my daily life go, Andy’s great to work with. “Just a short discussion about your training habits and what you do to stay in shape during the off-season.”
The three of us start down the hall to the interview area together, Andy walking me through some other discussion topics. “I was hoping we could talk about the differences in the intensity of training you’ve had during your career. How does this compare to things in the AHL, high school, even when you were a kid?”
“Sure.”
There’s a chair and lighting set up in the arrivals tunnel, the wall with The Midnight logo serving as the backdrop. More members of the crew who only come for interviews are waiting: a makeup artist, someone behind a set of video monitors who scuttles over to Andy as we round the corner, and a few others checking cables on the ground. In a way I’m used to from games,the action happens around me, and I watch, waiting for the moment I’m needed to act.
“Let me take this?” Bea appears next to me, her small hand ghosting along my bicep to the strap of my backpack. There’s a tingling left in the wake of her fingers, and I wish I could find a way to have her touch me again. She lifts the bag off my shoulder, and I drop slightly to let her take the weight, recognized by a smile at the corner of her mouth. She’s still more than six inches shorter than me, even in her tall heels today, and I like that I can catch the barest hint of her scent as she passes in front of me. It’s bright and citrusy, like a freshly peeled orange in the grove. The delicate floral notes underneath linger, causing me to lean subconsciously after her. The makeup artist steps to my other side, keeping me from toppling over. Sponge in hand, I turn my jaw toward her, but keep my eyes on Bea as she moves behind the monitors.
A few minutes later, I’m mic’d up again and seated across from Andy in front of the cameras. Nerves flutter uncertainly in my stomach, the way they always do when I’m required to do press. But they don’t disappear when the set begins to quiet. This isn’t a ten-second soundbite forSportsCenterwhen I have to recap the game. We’re going to be talking aboutme, and suddenly the enormity of what I’ve agreed to slams into me at once, making the flutter feel like a hailstorm. The lights are too bright. The chair too small. The microphone feels like an anchor on my chest.
“Nicky, look at me.”
