Page 9 of Tough Guy and the Show Off

I’m ashamed of my game, but worse, I let the team down. Nilsson had a bad night too, letting pucks in like he played for the other team, but it’s my job to keep those pucks far away from him and I failed. I failed Trav too.

The mood in the locker room is heavy. As team captain, it’s Trav’s job to say something to lift us up, but he doesn’t have time before Coach Hall enters the room and tears us apart, rightfully. He rips into Nilsson especially hard, making me flinch, but then his disappointed gaze turns to me.

“I don’t even know who that was out there,” Coach says. “But it wasn’t Beau Bozeman.”

“Sorry, Coach. I couldn’t find my groove tonight.”

“Obviously. Take the day off tomorrow to get your shit together. All of you. We play Toronto next and they won’t give us a break. Keep playing like that and you can kiss the playoffs goodbye.”

Coach stomps out of the locker room, leaving the air thick with our loss.

After we’re dressed, Harlson taps my shoulder. “We’re grabbing drinks in the hotel bar.”

Shaking my head, I focus on my feet. “I’m not. I don’t need alcohol right now.”

“One drink won’t hurt,” Harlson says as he tries to wrap his arm around my shoulders, but I shake him off. I feel like a dick when he raises his hands in surrender.

“Sorry, man. I’m not in the mood. I’d kill the vibe.”

“No worries. You coming, Show?”

Please say yes. Please. Please.

“Nah, not tonight,” Trav says, making my stomach do weird things. “I’m beat. You guys have fun though. Blow off some steam then get ready to work our asses off before Toronto.”

“Will do, Captain.”

Inside the hotel lobby, the team splinters off as most go to the bar and some head up to their rooms. As we crowd onto the elevator, my chest tightens and my stomach twists in knots. I need to get the fuck out of my head about this. Trav obviously doesn’t care, or maybe he’s just really good at pretending he doesn’t but secretly he thinks I’m a weirdo. I can’t handle my best friend thinking gross things about me.

Trav walks in front of me down the hall to our room, and once inside he plops down on his bed, staring down at his suitcase.

“Fuck,” he mutters after a second.

“What?”

He bends over and digs out the box of weird pepper gum he brought. “Not a good luck charm. Now what the fuck am I supposed to do with the twenty packages I still have left?”

Before I can react, he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“I had my eye on this salty licorice flavor from Finland. Maybe that’ll do the trick.”

After the game we just had, I should be thankful he’s focused on his gum fetish, but it feels like a smokescreen. It’s obviously not the gum’s fault we played so badly tonight.

It’s mine.

I threw the whole team off and the result was disastrous. Trav only managed one goal tonight, and that was because of a roughing penalty against New York.

He grins as he tosses his phone down on the bed. “Should arrive in two days—just in time for the game against Toronto.”

I watch as he stands and shrugs his suit jacket off, draping it over the back of the desk chair while I sit frozen on the edge of my bed.

“I heard Maxim Volkov is a huge dog guy. Apparently, he has, like, three or four and shows off pics of them in the locker room. He gets a paw print tattoo for each one. I wonder how he handles all the travel with dogs. I wanted to get a dog, remember that? But when would we spend time with it? I don’t know… Maybe after I retire.”

He’s babbling on about dogs while I’m having an internal breakdown. How does he just shut out a bad game?

“I was thinking we could watch the latest Sin City Cars episode,” he says, unbuttoning his dress shirt. Today’s suit is an odd shade of green, but it works on him. Everything works on him. “I think we’re a little behind.”