Page 52 of The Home Game

“Yeah, shut up already!” Colton hollered and several more guys shouted their agreement. “We don’t want to hear it!”

“No, seriously. I’ve got an announcement to make,” Nico protested, laughing. “I got the all-clear to practice with you guys. Full-contact and everything!”

“Holy sh—nikes!” Matty said, tackling Nico and nearly knocking his plate out of his hand. “That’s awesome! Your head is all healed up, huh?”

“Yup. Turns out my head is pretty damn hard,” Nico joked.

“Oh, shocker,” Jonah teased. “Never would have guessed.”

The team laughed and Matty jostled Nico happily. This was such good news. Everyone took turns hugging and back-slapping Nico, treating him a lot more roughly than they had since his injury, glad to know he wasn’t so breakable now.

August looked both happy and worried and Matty imagined how hard it must be for him, knowing Nico would go back on the ice. If the doctors said Nico was ready, that meant he was, but it still had to be scary.

Matty glanced around to see Antoni standing by the table, helping himself to some salad Matty had made last night. There was a puzzled expression on his face as he watched the guys celebrate Nico’s good news.

“You look confused,” Matty said, stepping closer.

“Uhh, clearly I missed something,” Antoni said. “I mean, everyone’s happy and that’s great but I’m not sure I understand why.”

“Nico’s had a rough year,” Matty said softly. “Last fall, he had a couple of hard hits in a game and had a seizure on the ice.”

“Ohh. Yikes. That’s really scary.”

“It was. But that was the least of it really. It turns out he had a brain tumor. Not cancer but still really scary stuff. They had to open up his skull to remove it. Took a while for him to recover but he’s been doing really well since last spring. He’s been able to work out and train in other ways for a while. But they wouldn’t clear him to get on the ice until his skull was fully healed or whatever, and this is the all-clear. The news he’s been waiting for since last winter.”

“Full-contact means he can get hit again, yeah?” Antoni asked with a little frown.

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Antoni gave him a lopsided grin. “I’m not sure I would call that good news but I’m happy for him. And for you guys. You all seem really excited.”

Matty beamed. “We are. I mean, just having Nico back will be amazing. He’s an incredible player. Might take him a little bit to get his legs back under him, but man, the team really needs him.”

He glanced over to see Alexis hugging Nico and it made Matty happy. If she was a fan of the team, she’d probably seen the hit.

Matty shuddered. If he never saw anything like that happen again, it would be too soon.

“Hey! Where’d the pizza man go?” Dustin hollered from the doorway.

“Be right there!” Matty offered Antoni a little smile. “Sorry, gotta go.”

“Sure, no prob,” Antoni said, smiling back. “This salad is really good, by the way.”

“Glad you like it.”

When Matty met Dustin at the door, he raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” Matty assured him. “But you missed Nico’s announcement!”

“Yeah, he told me yesterday.”

“Ahh. Captain’s privilege,” Matty said with an understanding nod.

“Something like that,” Dustin agreed, smiling. “But I do like that guys are coming to me more with their problems and their good news.”

“You’re a good captain, D,” Matty assured him as he loaded the giant paddle with the final pizza and slid it into the oven. “And I have a great feeling about this season.”

“Yeah? Me too.”

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