Page 76 of Delay of Game

Nate felt exhausted by the end of it even though there was at least one more round to play—they had the Eastern Conference finals waiting for them before they could even sniff the Cup finals. He suspected that it was going to be Tampa in the Conference final again, based on the way that the Mariners had been playing all year. And maybe Vegas in the West, if they made it to the finals. But he’d never been good at predicting things that way.

They swept the Oaks in the second round in four games, but there was no real joy in it. Nate felt like there were definitely going to be some major changes down in Carolina in the next season, even though they’d beaten the Hornets to get there. It wasn’t the same as beating a team that had really made them work for it. Still: it wasn’t really his problem, when it came down to it. He had the Conference finals to look forward to.

Gags had seemed to be keeping it together, whenever Nate or Zach checked in with him, and that was good. It was also the only time that Nate ever talked to Zach anymore, mostly in passing or by short text messages confined solely to conversations about the rookie. It felt, a little bit, like having 50/50 custody in a nasty divorce, but he didn’t have the time to think about it very much, because they only had a few days’ respite before the Conference finals began.

This was the furthest he’d ever been in the playoffs by far.

Since Nate had been a roster player for the Cons, they’d been a bottom-feeding team. There had been the rebuild. It had been shorter than anyone had expected, mostly thanks to Bee, but they had still failed to make it out of the second round each season since they’d had her.

And now Nate was in the Conference finals, and the whole team was relying on him to lead them to the end. Nate spent the whole year pretending to be a different person than he was, but now he had to do it with all the amps turned to eleven.

They lost the first game against the Mariners, which felt like a bad omen. Tampa had always been tough to play against, fast and aggressive and just toeing the line of dirty. The fourth line had been the only one to crack the problem of the Mariners’ goalie, and unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough.

One game wasn’t the end of the world, but Nate was superstitious at the best of times and an anxious mess at the worst of times. It was hard to feel very confident about getting to the finals when he was still having trouble sleeping, when he’d wake up in the middle of the night and turn over, half expecting to feel Zach in the bed next to him. When they’d still been involved, it had been shockingly easy to fall back asleep if he woke up in the middle of the night. Something about Zach’s solid, warm body made it easy. And now, well.

Nate woke up every day with dark circles under his eyes just as bad as Gags’s, and a feeling of dread knitted around his damn bones.

The second game was a shit show from the start too. The Mariners came out with cannons blazing, and defensive breakdowns and unfortunately timed screens in front of Mäkelä resulted in two goals against before they even got to the halfway mark of the first period. In other years, that would have been a death knell: there would be no way they could come back. Now the Cons were still in it, but that didn’t mean that it was easy to claw back a victory against one of the toughest teams in the league.

The second period started just as bad, chippier and chippier after Bee put one past the Mariners’ goalie, high glove side, and then Mike, who had joined in the rush and was coasting by a passing lane where no one expected to see him, managed a chip-in shot from a rebound. Nate was used to getting cross-checked in the kidneys in the playoffs; it hurt every time. Cameron had been one of the major offenders before he got traded, but the rest of the Tampa team played on that edge too. It was one of the few times he was relieved to be as large as he was, because he was able to shrug off a lot of things that someone smaller might not have.

Someone like Zach, Nate realized, as he turned toward the bench at the end of his shift to get ready for the change. He looked up just in time to see Zach, who had just passed the puck to Lindy, go careening toward the ice as one of the Mariners’ defensemen clipped him in the mouth with the blade of his stick as he was changing direction in pursuit of the puck.

Everything after that happened in a matter of seconds. Nate saw Zach, on his knees, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it, slow to get up. He spat some blood onto the ice. The Tampa defenseman—Leo Cohen, Nate saw now—smirked and said, “Sorry, gotta keep your head up, Reed.” It had happened right in front of the referee, but this was the playoffs, and apparently there wasn’t going to be a call. And then one of the forwards skating by said, “Come on, get up, you fuckin’ diver, you already won the Oscar for this one,” and Cohen laughed.

Before Nate could think about what he was doing, his gloves were on the ground, and he was charging forward. He had never fought before. Had neverseriouslyconsidered fighting before. But right now, he was not thinking. It was like seeing Zach on the ground and Cohen laughing had just snapped some thin, fraying rope he hadn’t even realized was at the point of breaking.

He could see Cohen’s face, his eyes widening, like he was shocked that Nate was even considering this. But once he saw that they were on a collision course and the only option to avoid it was to surrender before the fight had even started, he dropped his gloves too.

Nate immediately realized that he had no clue what he was doing. Cohen was smaller than he was, but not by much. He was maybe six feet if you were being generous, barely 190 pounds soaking wet. That didn’t mean he didn’t fight like he was Nate’s size. Nate whaled away with his fists, which connected hard against Cohen’s cheekbone and nose. Blindly, Nate realized that Cohen was hitting him too, but he couldn’t feel it at all. He had the advantage of height and reach at least, even if he was flailing and awkward.

By the time the ref and linesmen separated them, Nate realized that his nose was gushing blood and he was probably sporting the beginnings of a black eye. Cohen, somehow, didn’t look much better. That was fairly impressive considering Nate had thrown himself into the fight with his eyes closed and hoped for the best.

Everything in his head was all mixed up. He couldn’t believe he’d done that. It wasn’t even like he’d lost his temper, it was just—something he’d had to do. And strangely, for once, he didn’t feel nervous or anxious or anything. He felt strangely, deeply calm, like gears that had been grinding against each other, jammed with debris, were suddenly moving smoothly again. He could hear, across the ice, his teammates smacking their sticks against the boards.

“Are you okay?” he managed to yell to Zach, as he was escorted to the box.

“Fine,” Zach said. He had managed to haul himself to his feet, and he spat out some more blood, wiped his mouth on the back of his glove. “Just a high stick.”

Looking at him, in that moment, Nate knew two things.

First: they were going to win the game.

Second: they needed to talk.

Before he could do any of that he needed to sit for five minutes for the penalty. He didn’t get the instigator because even though the original high stick hadn’t been called, the ref who’d given him his penalty had seen it and apparently factored that in. So it would be regular old five-on-five hockey for the next five minutes and until the stoppage of play, and Nate had to watch, agonized and hopeful, while his team went on without him.

It was a weird experience, sitting there that long, especially in the Conference finals like this. Nate had been a Sportsmanship Award finalist almost every year he’d played, and he was pretty sure that this was his first major penalty.

It was like the team had seen what had happened and they were determined not to lose it for him. Even though the lines had been messed up by his absence, Sally managed to put them ahead by one, breaking the defender’s ankles as he maneuvered toward the goal. In the box, Nate was on his feet yelling; he could already picture the announcers laughing about it. Sally had talent and Sally had positioning, but he wasn’t exactly known for his wheels.

At the intermission, Nate checked in on Zach, who hadn’t had to go through protocol but had a pretty nasty scab forming on his lip. They didn’t actually say anything, but there was a strange look on Zach’s face when he saw him, like he was trying to puzzle something out about Nate. He was still watching when Netty burst into the locker room and grabbed Nate’s head to noogie him, yelling about the fight, but whatever Zach was thinking, he kept it to himself. Somehow, the team managed to hold on until the last few seconds. It was a narrow win at 3-2, but Nate was satisfied.

And then, after, he managed to make it through the postgame interviews and the shower, even though his head was turning over what he was going to say like a tumbler. As if it was a rough rock he could polish. There was nothing he could say to make this better, nothing he could say to really fix it. But he was going to have to try.

By the time he managed to get Zach alone, it was almost two and a half hours after the game, and both of them were exhausted. Zach, at least, didn’t immediately make an excuse and hightail it out of the locker room when Nate said, “Zach?”

Instead, he just looked again, quiet and measuring. “What?”

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