Colt gets to his feet, taps his posts, and raises his stick to the crowd as a sign he’s okay. Everyone cheers, even the other side’s fans. No one wants to see a goalie or any other player actually hurt.
The ref calls a two-minute penalty, and Coach yells, “Raines.”
It’s our queue to get the top unit out there, and we’re over the rail a moment later, ready to make the most of our advantage. We’ve run these plays a hundred times or more. We’ve set up variations on variations, all reactive to what the other team might do, but it’s not until you’re actually running the plays that you find out if your mind and body can actually pull them off.
We win the face-off, and we’re like a well-oiled machine moving down the ice, passing back and forth to keep the attention of their players constantly shifting. Then I get the puck and spot a chance for a breakaway, if I can pull off a spin around their D-man headed my way. I glance at Reid. As if in that split second I can see his answer to my question, I pass the puck the way we’ve planned it instead, and then when it drops back to White, and he shoots, and that buzzer sounds, we slam into each other in celebration.
I catch Reid’s gaze, his smile wide and directed straight at me. My chest swells. Sure, I might have been able to pull off the trick play and win the crowd’s cheers, but at what cost? Reid would have been pissed at me, and I’d rather play it safe if it means I get to see him smile at me like that every game.
The coach calls the line change, and we reset for a center dot face-off.
Reid sits beside me, nudging my knee with his.
“Nice moves, rook,” he says without looking my way, but I can still see the smile teasing at the corners of his mouth.
“You too,” I reply, nudging him back. Only, after I do, he adjusts his leg so that his knee stays right beside mine and sends heat flooding to where we touch. I know we said we’d keep things separate, but maybe this showed him that we can handle blurring the lines a little.
Chapter twenty-four
Reid
“Ihaven’tseenyouand the rook in here super early the last few days. Did you finally convince him to lighten up on the extra sessions?” Topher asks and I feel the smirk teasing at my mouth. It’s not that I talked Luka into not pushing himself too far, we’ve just been working out most mornings in another more . . . naked way. But I’m not telling him that.
“Yeah, he’s learning to pace himself,” I say instead.
“Great. So, can we expect him to give us any new trick plays this weekend? He hasn’t really been pulling those out lately. My nieces are obsessed with the short videos of him online.”
“What?”
“The short vids. You know, those videos people create by splicing together different clips and overlaying popular music and effect trends.”
“I have no clue what more than half of those words even mean,” I laugh, and he pulls out his phone and steps closer.
“This is one my niece Tiff shared yesterday,” he says, and I take the phone. “Sexy and I Know It” is playing as the video jumps between different angled shots of Luka moving through his puck-toss trick play. Tiny hearts and other symbols, along with comments like “So hot” and “My new favorite player” float up from the bottom of the screen.
“Wow, they really love him, huh?”
“Yeah, the rookies seem to be pulling out all the moves this year; that Flash kid for Boston is just as popular with the younger generation.”
Not just the younger generation, it seems. Half of these people’s profile pictures look closer to my age. But it’s consistency that wins games, not flash and dazzle. We basically handed the other team a goal when I fucked up that trick play he convinced me to try, and the media were all over it. They didn’t know it was a failed attempt at a trick play at the time, though. They thought I just lost control on my way around the net. I’m not sure which is worse. The word retirement keeps coming up over and over. Are they right? Should I be thinking about what my life looks like after this sport already? No. I’m thirty, and in my prime. Retirement is years away.
“I’m not sure this sport needs players trying for the next big flashy trick play,” I say, passing back his phone.
“Well needed or not, they’re here now. Keep that nose safe. If you have any trouble breathing, let me know.”
“Sure thing,” I say, and he turns his attention to his phone, smiling at the short vids playing as he walks away. I guess I know how he feels about these trick plays.
The videos do make it seem like something super exciting, with the different angles and the music and the purple and blue light they added over it, but when we get closer to playoffs, and the media start reporting on how many times we handed over the puck because of a failed attempt at a flashy play, those videos won’t mean much.
I get home, and Luka’s car isn’t there, so I shoot off a text to check that he’s still coming over. We play tomorrow, so it’d make sense to get a good night’s sleep, but what better way to ensure that than coming here and letting me blow him before bed?
REID: Hey, just checking if you’re still coming over? I’m grilling steaks, FYI.
I head inside and find both boys in the living room, faces buried in their phones.
“Have you guys seen those short videos of hockey trick playing things?” I ask.
“Yeah, they’re like constantly popping up on my socials,” Benji replies.
