When Coach blew the final whistle, the locker room buzzed with the usual post-practice energy. Guys peeled off gear, headed for showers, and debated lunch plans. I moved through my routine on autopilot while trying not to think about what Jacks had done to me fourteen hours ago, then again as the sun rose this morning.
I failed.
The memories surfaced, and all I knew was his mouth, his hands, and the sound he’d made when I kissed him. I felt my face flush so violently that I had to shove my head into my locker and pretend to look for something.
“You okay in there?” Tyler’s voice came from behind me. “You’ve been rummaging in your lockerfor two minutes. It’s not that deep.”
“Looking for my phone.”
“It’s in your hand.”
I pulled my head out of the locker.
Tyler was leaning against the stall divider, freshly showered, arms crossed, and wearing an expression I’d seen a hundred times, the one that said, “I know something’s going on, and I’m going to wait right here until you tell me what it is.”
“Got a minute?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Not here. Grab a shower and meet me in the film room.”
That was unusual.
The film room was where we went for serious conversations, generally about injury news, lineup changes, or the occasional come-to-Jesus talk when someone’s effort wasn’t meeting expectations.
My stomach clenched.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything’s great.” He smiled, but it was his patient smile, the one with layers. “Shower. Film room. Ten minutes.”
I showered in seven.
Tyler had commandeered two rolling chairs and positioned them facing each other in the middle of the tape room. The whiteboard behind him was covered in Coach’s offensive zone diagrams, arrows and X’s mapping plays we’d been running all week. The flat-screen on the wall was dark.
I dropped into the chair across from him and waited.
Tyler studied me for a long moment.
“So,” he said. “You going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Skyler Bernard Shaw.”
Oh, shit. This was bad.
He’d used my full name, the one few knew because the whole Bernard Shaw thing was too cliché to be real. He hadn’t called me Cap or Shaw like normal.
“You’ve been different for weeks,” he said. “First you were distracted, then anxious, then distracted again. You almost bit Murph’s head off in Vancouver for no reason. Then you went outside alone in Calgary after Erik’s speech and came back lookinglike you’d seen a ghost. Today, you walk in looking like sunshine personified and play the best hockey of your career, probably of your life.” He leaned forward. “Something happened. It’s clearly something big, and I think you need to talk about it.”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Tyler waited.
He was maddeningly good at waiting.
