ZACH
MARCH
The games keep comingand we’ve clinched a playoff spot which should feel like something except it mostly just means the deadline to come clean is now moved back again. Every week we don’t tell him adds another week to the pile and the pile is getting heavy enough that I can feel it in every part of my body, in the way I hold my stick tighter when Jack skates past, in the way I have to remind myself to breathe when he says my name.
I gave her a key three weeks ago. Now she lets herself in when I’m at practice. I come home and there’s Mackie on my couch with her laptop and Shredder is swimming in circles behind her. The apartment smells like her coconut-vanilla shampoo that lives in my shower next to my unscented bar soap like they’re roommates and every time I walk through the door I have to stop for a second because it looks like a life. Like a real one. Something I didn’t know I was missing until she showed up and rearranged everything.
Rodriguez came over last week to watch film and stood in the hallway sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Your apartment smells tropical, bro. Did you buy a candle?” I told him I switched body wash and he squinted at me for a full thirty seconds before dropping it, which I know isn’t dropping it, because he’ll just come back to it later.
Speaking of Rodriguez. He went to Toronto for the Olympic break in February and came back dating Juliette—the same Juliette who wouldn’t look at him for months, who shook her head at every coffee he brought her, who made him work harder than anything I’ve ever seen him work for off the ice. He will not shut up about it. I’m happy for him. But Rodriguez with a girlfriend is Rodriguez with a mission, and the mission is making sure everyone around him is also in love because he’s discovered that feelings are incredible and wants to share.
“When are you going to tell me who she is,” he says during warm-ups, skating in circles around me like this is a normal thing to do while I’m trying to stretch.
“There’s no she.”
“Z. Come on. Juliette and I want to do a double date thing. She’s got this friend from the skating program, really pretty, super nice, but I told her no because you’re clearly already seeing someone and I would never set you up behind your girl’s back because that’s a violation of bro code and I take bro code seriously.”
“There is no girl and no bro code violation happening because there’s nobody to violate it with.”
“The tropical body wash says otherwise.”
“It’s BODY WASH.”
“Nobody switches to tropical body wash unless a woman is involved. That’s not even a theory. That’s a fact.”
Barrett’s whistle cuts across the ice. “RODRIGUEZ. WARM-UP MEANS WARMING UP. NOT PODCASTING.”
Rodriguez skates off and I watch him go and think about how two months ago he was camping out by my net asking about perfume in my hallway and now he wants me to go on double dates, and I don’t know how to tell him that the reason I can’t isn’t because I don’t have someone but because the someone I have is sitting in the family section of every home game pretending she doesn’t know me.
Practice runs long.Barrett has us doing breakout drills until my legs are shaking and Jack skates past twice and taps my pads both times and says “looking good, kid”. I catch everything Dex throws at me and don’t let myself think about anything except angles and release points and the weight of the puck against my glove.
After practice I’m sitting in my stall pulling off my chest protector when my phone buzzes. I almost don’t check it because Rodriguez is three stalls down and has been watching me like a detective all week, but the preview catches my eye and my whole body goes still.
It’s a photo. Mackie, from the neck down, in a black bra and underwear, taken in what looks like a bathroom mirror.
Mackie
I have a surprise for you
equipment storage hallway. Past the lounge, left at the end. The door with the busted lock.
you have 10 minutes
I stare at my phone. Myface is on fire.
Me
Mackie. I am sitting in a locker room full of my teammates.
Mackie
then stop sitting and start walking
Me
there’s a team meeting in 20 minutes
Mackie
