Page 59 of Goaltender Interference

I haven’t been to a game since I retired and I don’t know how it’s going to feel, but I’ll do my best.

thx, soupy. i miss u. its not the same practicing with knighter.

You got this, buddy.

In response, Gabe sent him back a litany of heart emojis in the Royal’s blue, white, and red.

In the end Aiden was both surprised and not surprised that things died down quickly after the article came out. There had been a bit of a stir when it was first published because there were so few players, activeorretired, who were out. It wasn’t as notable now as it would have been if he’d done it at twenty-six and still an All-Star; and he didn’t look himself up on the internet anyway. He got an occasional shitty comment on his social media, but he had gotten used to those anyway after an off night and a hard loss.

Easy to ignore.

It was strange when Matt started playing the preseason games. It was the first time in a long time that Aiden was actually at home watching a game solely as a spectator and not as a child hoping to get there one day or a potential competitor observing his opponents.

The Royal usually played most of their exhibition games at home, but Aiden couldn’t bring himself to go. It was one thing to get out on the ice himself, another thing entirely to watch Matt on it, to hear the bite of skates on the ice and the players shouting to each other, and to have to watch it from the stands with plexiglass between him and the thing he’d loved most in life. He still had to make up his mind about whether he was going to the Liberty’s home opener, but that was a problem for another Aiden.

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said, as Matt got ready to drive over to l’Arène and Aiden helped him grab the shit he had lost track of last minute: his keys and phone and wallet. “I’m, uh, not ready to go to a game.”

“It’s fine,” Matt said, distracted, as Aiden handed him his keys; pressed a quick kiss at the corner of Aiden’s mouth. “You have a standing invite.”

And then he was gone, and Aiden was left alone to figure out what to do until game time. He tried to read one of Matt’s books, because the title wasMeditations, which sounded like something he would be into after years of mindfulness and meditation to keep himself on an even keel for games. But it turned out that the book wasn’t about meditations as much as it was some Roman emperor going on and on about the things his family had taught him and things he was thankful the gods had given him. Aiden found himself reading the first page about ten times before giving up. It was hard to imagine meditating going very well with this guy; that was an awful lot of fucking words. He put the book back on the shelf.

But he still felt restless and unsettled. Instead of trying to read more of the book, he decided to work on actual meditation. Aiden put down his yoga mat and stretched his legs out. By the end of his exercise, he was loose and marginally relaxed, although he immediately tensed up when he realized it was almost game time. He had an intense internal debate about whether he was actually going to watch it, but ultimately, he ended up fumbling for the remote.

Aiden watched most of the game from the floor, alternately draped over the coffee table to get a better view of the TV, or fully prone, like he was when Fournier let in a goal and the Royal fell behind. He felt overwhelmed: there was the anxiety of his personal investment in Matt doing well, the anxiety of watching the game, thinking about the way he’d have positioned himself when they showed shots of the goalies, missing the way he could just shift into that calm zone with no thoughts, just reaction. Now it was like the worst of both worlds, with his brainscreaming at him about rebounds, and he wasn’t even in the same building to do anything about it.

During the intermission, he lay down on his back between the couch and the table, closed his eyes, and worked on an actual meditation, no thanks to Marcus fucking Aurelius. The rest of the game was less exciting. Matt tied it up about fifteen seconds into the second period. One of the Morin twins slammed home a rebound for the insurance goal five minutes later, and the Justice couldn’t get it back.

Aiden still felt like he couldn’t entirely breathe until the time ticked down and the final horn sounded, and the win song played over the rink speakers.

He hadn’t watched Matt in a postgame interview in years, and only a few since he got the C in his fourth season with the Royal. It was a little surreal. Aiden could see the same person in him, the way Matt always talked about hockey back when they were kids, but now he had a little gray at his temples and his beard, now he had the added weight of responsibility when he answered questions.

There was no smile when he said the necessary things, just that familiar intent look in his dark eyes and a curious angle to the way he cocked his head to better hear the reporters. It was just an exhibition game, but it was also a reminder that the season would be starting in earnest.

Aiden hauled himself to his feet. Matt would be home in a few hours. He should get his head together.

And the rest of him.

Chapter Six

October

Matt didn’t play all of the preseason games, generally. He was as much of a sure thing as the Royal had: at this point, he was their longest-tenured player. It wasn’t a responsibility that he took lightly, though, so when he was in the games, he gave it his all.

This year was different. The knee was going to be an issue going into it, he knew that already. An entire summer of rehabbing it after the last injury hadn’t seemed to have made much of a difference. If he said something to the trainers, that would lead to more tests and potentially to more time out, which he couldn’t afford, especially so early in the season itself. No: he was just going to have to play and manage it as best he could and lean on Toradol if it got unbearable and ask for Percocet if it got worse than that. There would be time for tests later on and maybe another arthroscopic procedure in the offseason if he needed it.

And in the meantime, it was good to get back on the ice.

“Man, you fucking love playing Toronto, don’t you,” Jammer said, as they were dressing for the fourth game against the Justice. “Kind of a traitor to Ontario, huh?”

Jammer was American, so he hadn’t been raised around the cult-like atmosphere that surrounded the Justice even when you lived over an hour’s drive away from Toronto. Matthadbeen raised watching their games, but as soon as he’d been drafted by the Royal it hadn’t even taken him a second thought before he folded up all of the jerseys he’d worn as a child, packed them away at his parents’ house, and embraced a new side of the rivalry.

“Jesus, Jams. Do I give you this hard of a time when we play in California?”

“Idon’t have any childhood loyalties,” Jammer said, with a little sniff. “My parents mostly watched football.”

Matt surveyed the room: Manny, teasing Rémi Cormier about the game last night, where his skate blade had snapped and Matt had had to drag him like a drowned kitten by the neck of his jersey across the ice to the boards; Jack Crane, deep in concentration in a pregame meditative routine that reminded Matt of nothing so much as Aiden in his youth even though Jack wasn’t a goalie; Saari, taping his stick with the single-minded, repetitive movement that looked almost robotic. It hit him again how much he was going to miss them when he had to retire. And again, thinking about Aiden, at home, how much he probably missed this, too.

It wasn’t an easy loss: sometimes, Matt thought the ones that they lost by only one goal were worse than the blowouts, just because they’d been so close to winning. Matt pushed himself too hard and by the end of the game, he was feeling it. Tested out the knee as he hopped over the boards and felt the ache.

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