Page 74 of Rookie Recovery

We crossed at the same time.

“Shit, Sullivan,” Bowie said, his chest rising and falling heavier than usual. “Not as slow as you look.”

“I think I just out-skated a literal pro.” I gathered up another puck, carried it backwards around the net with me so I could keep facing him. I didn’t want to look away, not from his grin or his eyes or the way he kept looking at me.

“I was going half speed.”

“Fuck that.” I flipped the puck into the top corner of the empty net as I rounded it. “You’re breathing hard.”

“You guys gonna join the game?”

The unfamiliar voice jerked me back to the present. Shit, there were other players out here. An older guy with a goatee and a black jersey peered up at me from behind the grating of a rusty cage.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Right.”

“Posts, three on three,” he said, eyes flitting from me to Bowie. Then he turned to lead the way to the dark-jersey bench. I followed, nerves racing over me again. Nerves, but something else, too. Excitement, I realized.

I wanted to fucking play.

Even if it was just a stupid pickup game with a bunch of old guys, no goalies—posts—and a reduced lineup. I wanted to play. For the first time in ten fucking years.

“Offense or defense, kid?” The older guy asked me, and I had to bite back a grin. I couldn’t recall the last time someone had called me kid. Years. A decade, maybe.

But, I did feel like a kid again. “Wherever. I’ll play anything.”

“Defense.” He bobbed his head towards the ice. “Make sure that other kid doesn’t score.”

Out at the center face-off dot, Bowie shifted his skates back and forth. I felt his gaze from here. “Sure.”

Adrenaline pulsed through me as I took the ice at the back of the center circle, my eyes fixed on the man with the blond locks poking through his helmet, the smirk tilting the corners of his mouth. He needed to take it easy, I reminded myself.

But I knew he was going to let me have a little fun.

That’s why we were here, wasn’t it?

The realization hit me as he crouched behind his teammate. We weren’t here for him, as a distraction.

We were here for me.

Because I’d said …

Shit.

Shit.

The game started with two fifty-something men hacking at each other’s sticks trying to win a faux face-off. The puck broke free, catching me flat-footed. Because I was busy looking at Bowie looking at me. Watching me. Waiting for me to get back into the sport I loved.

Then an old guy in a white jersey barreled towards me, and my body launched into reflexive action. My skates moved of their own accord to put myself between the puck and the empty net behind me.

So silly, really.

And yet, I was smiling as I flew backwards. My stick shot out to poke the puck out of his control. Bowie, naturally, swooped in to collect the drop. Reading the play like a pro. He could’ve sent that puck tinking against the pipes of the net with the minutest flick of his wrist.

But I cut in front first.

The grin took over his whole face as he flew towards me, stick and puck extended. I hadn’t skated in ten years. He couldn’t stickhandle well with that over-wrapped shoulder.

I’d consider us an even matchup.

---