Page 81 of Delay of Game

“Dude, seriously, you good?” Zach asked him, again.

“Yeah, it’s just... I don’t know. When I first got drafted and the Cons sucked so bad for so long, I thought I was going to end up like Logan too. That I’d get traded or let go in free agency before I ever had a chance to win something here. And now it’s here and I almostcan’tbelieve it.”

Zach reached over and pinched Nate’s thigh through the leg of his pants, smirking a little. “Well, I just pinched you, and we are still on a plane to Vegas to play in the Cup finals, so—it’s real, bud.”

“You might have to pinch me again.”

Zach laughed, his eyes crinkling almost shut, and said, “Probably not in public, eh?”

The games themselves came fast and hard. Vegas was a tough team: they had a stacked center line, a huge defensive corps, and very good possession numbers. The Cons were definitely the underdogs by any metric: their regular season record wasn’t as good, the betting lines weren’t in their favor, and Moneypuck had given them a 41% chance of winning the series. That percentage dropped down to 30% after the Cons lost the first two games.

After that second loss, Nate did something he usually hated doing, which was to give a short speech in the locker room.

“Boys,” he said, “the bounces didn’t go our way tonight, but now isn’t the time to despair. It’s not the time to give up. Teams have come back from 3-0 deficits before, but I don’t want to have to play with our backs against the wall like that.” Somehow, it was easier to talk now without stammering, looking out at all of the teammates who had made this possible. Zach and Bee, his lineys. Mike, who’d grown up so much in a few seasons with the team. Gags and Belsky rising to the occasion. Mäkelä, playing out of his mind. Netty and Sally, dependable as always. He could still feel his face turning red, but it was easy to pretend that that was just exertion from the game. “I know we have something special here this season, with all of you. This isn’t the way it was meant to go. Let’s put these games behind us and come back to a fresh start in Philly in front of our home crowd. We’ve got this. I really do believe in you. Let’s fuckinggo.”

He turned away from the applause and hoots andwhoos, and took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his ears and sweat prickling the back of his neck. He thought about Gags starting therapy. He thought about telling someone all of the shit that knocked around the back of his head at the worst possible times. He thought about a lot of things, and somehow, it didn’t feel as daunting as it used to feel. He had already pushed through so fucking much to get to this point that doing something so terrifying seemed almost easy.

The game in Philly was like starting all over again. The fans at the Frank had always been intense: it was routinely voted one of opposing teams’ least favorite places to play for a reason. The fans were loud and they were rude and some of the sarcastic cheers they could come up with were absolutely devastating. There was probably nothing worse than flubbing a play at a crucial moment and then coming face to face with a drunk guy from South Philly, dressed up as Ben Franklin, pretending to moon you through the glass.

Philly hadn’t seen a Cup final since 1975, the last time the Cons had won it. They’d made it to the Eastern Conference finals a few times over the almost fifty years since the last time the Cup had come home, but those appearances were few and far between, and had always ended in heartbreak.

So to say that they were intense when the Cons came home to play was something of an understatement. With that kind of support it was easy to rally, it was easy to come back and win it. Vegas’s goalie might have been having an off night, but the Cons steamrolled them to the tune of 5-1, and for a second, Nate allowed himself to hope. They won the next game in Philly too, the series tied 2-2, and the excitement was beginning to reach a fever pitch.

Vegas came back to steal the fifth game, but this time, the mood in the locker room wasn’t grim. Nate didn’t know how to describe the way the guys had reacted: it was like everyone knew, deep down, that they were going to do it. There were the game-day jitters, of course; there were the nerves. But no one looked despondent. As they packed up their shit and headed back to the hotel to sleep it off for the sixth game, Nate felt...okay.

The Cons squeaked out a victory in the sixth game.

Their fate would be decided, at home, in game seven.

VI. SUMMER

Chapter Twelve

June

On the morning of the seventh and last game of the Cup finals, Nate woke up before his alarm, the same way he always did on days when he was worrying about something and felt like he was going to throw up. He’d been here before, in a way. The elimination game. They’d been playing the elimination game for most of the series, in a way. He’d never gotten this far in his life before, of course. But he knew the feeling of dread, of knowing that if he fucked it up again, that was it. All of the work he’d put in during the long eighty-two-game season would end up, once again, being for nothing.

But he hadn’t been here before. When he opened his eyes, the cold clammy sweat of anxiety still clinging to him, Zach was there, a warm and solid presence, even in sleep. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were closed, but when Nate shifted to take some of the pressure off of his arm, they opened, slowly. It took him a second to orient himself, but when he did, he smiled. “Morning, baby.”

“Hey,” Nate said, heart thumping in his chest.

“Let me guess,” Zach said with a yawn. He pressed one finger against Nate’s sternum. “You...are freaking out.”

“Itisthe Cup final,” Nate admitted. “An elimination game.”

“It’s going to be fine.”

“How do youknow?”

“I mean, I don’tknow, but... I do.” Zach stretched lazily; even though he was kind of freaking out internally, Nate’s brain took one long pause to admire the picture it made, the sun diffused through the curtains on Zach’s skin and tattoos, the way you could see every single muscle as he moved. “This is our year. I just have a feeling.”

“You have afeeling,” Nate repeated.

“Yeah,” Zach said, rolling over on top of him and pinning his arms down. “You know, just a gut feeling.”

Somehow, it was easier to forget his worries, get out of his own head, when Zach was kissing him, morning breath and all, when Zach’s body was warm and heavy on top of his own. Maybe, Nate thought hazily, this was the secret to winning the Cup the entire time. He’d just had to find someone to make out with him as a distraction. A human weighted blanket to quell his fears.

“Can I borrow your gut?” Nate said when they broke for air. “Mine is, uh. Not as confident.”

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