Page 22 of Goaltender Interference

“Matt...”

“It’s fine. I was prepared for it. I was even thinking that maybe they’d try to flip me at the trade deadline, if I’d agree to waive my no-move clause. The thing I wanted to tell you is that my agent said that at the last deadline, anyway, the only team that really seemed seriously interested were the Libs. And obviously, there’s the NMC, but I told him that either way, I’d retire before that happened.”

Aiden had to take a minute to process that. The last and only time he’d played with Matt was the Winter Olympics after they’dbroken up, and they hadn’t been talking at that point. “This was—”

“Before we—all of this. Yeah. But I still... I don’t know. It wouldn’t feel right playing there if you weren’t. New York’syours.”

“Not anymore.” It wasn’t sad or bitter, it just was.

“It’ll always be yours, Aiden.”

Aiden wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his anymore, no matter how softly Matt said it; that the worst thing about retirement was the feeling that a city that used to bring him so much joy mostly felt like a prison, when he missed playing so much it felt like a cramp in his entire body. But he was already in over his head.

He thought about his own father, a former professional hockey player who’d never really been the same afterhisretirement. Dad had only ever come alive when they were watching games on TV, when he accompanied Aiden to the rink and watched him battling his way onto rosters and, eventually, into what was probably going to be a Hall of Fame career. Aiden had always had a memory of coming down the stairs silently one night, of Dad’s morose face, lit by the blue light of the television in the dark, staring longingly at something he could no longer access. Aiden had always pushed that memory down, in the box of things he chose not to look at too closely. The things he couldn’t avoid anymore now.

Instead, he said, “It’s really just not the same right now. Maybe you’ll understand what that means one day. I hope you don’t.”

Matt was silent for a while, and finally said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” The sun had dipped below the skyline, although the diffused orange glow remained for those few moments. “Not your problem.”

Matt laughed. More than a little rueful. “No, I guess you’re right.”

Aiden didn’t say anything for a bit, just watched the fading light and listened to the sound of Matt’s breath on the other line, then the faint noise of water running and the clink of dishes, the strange shift between the normalcy of some parts of the conversation—like they were picking up where they’d left off, no time in between—and the surreal quality of talking about the ends of both of their careers. And studiously not talking about the way other things had ended.

“I should go,” Aiden said, reluctantly.

“Okay. Night, b—buddy.”

The more Matt thought about Aiden retiring, the more it fucked him up. Obviously, he’d known retirement was in the cards for him. For both of them. It was the inevitability of hockey. You couldn’t play forever. But when you were young it was easy to pretend that it would never happen, or that it was so far in the distant future that it didn’t actually seem real. You couldn’t play forever, but you could basically pretend. Even with his knee the way it had been, Matt hadn’t liked to think about it too much. It was better to thinkI can always sign another contract, of course they’ll want me back,or even,I guess I could test free agency if I really had to.

Aiden retiring felt a little like a friend dying.

Even after they’d broken up, Matt liked knowing that Aiden was out there still. It made the matchups with the Libs more intense, even if they’d never spoken during them the way they had when they were dating.

Even if it was mostly spite, Matt had always made it a mission to get on the scoreboard during those games. It was worth itto watch Aiden’s frown behind the cage on the Jumbotron, the way he’d pull off his helmet to shake out his sweaty hair and the bitchy little twist of his mouth he’d make during stoppages in play, the way he’d work through his water bottle visualization exercise, watching the droplets arc and fall in an attempt to get his mind back into the game.

And now it was just Matt and his bum knee, leading a team of aging vets and baby rookies back out onto the ice. A reminder that retirement loomed ahead of him too, whether it was next season, or a few seasons after that. He was only thirty-five, but hockey years were like dog years, and he was an old man now. And he hadn’treallythought about not playing, or what he’d do if he wasn’t playing, until Aiden’s situation made him do it.

By now, development camp had started, and the kids were all on the ice, kids who were still playing in juniors, some who were still in college and hadn’t even signed entry-level contracts yet. Technically Matt didn’t need to be there, but he showed up anyway. It was a good chance to get to know the new kids, to figure out who would be making the roster and who wouldn’t.

“What do you think of the boys?” Jammer asked, standing at his side. They were watching the group running through their drills with the coach.

“Pretty solid this year. I bet Jack Crane’s a lock,” Matt said, watching Crane roofing the puck over the goalie’s shoulder. They’d been lucky for him to fall to tenth overall because of his size, but he’d shown his last season in juniors that there wasn’t any more for him to learn. Some of the others, like Rémi Cormier or Joel Koskinen, were a little more of a gamble. “I like Cormier’s grit. Doesn’t lose a board battle often.”

“Koskinen’s got a good eye down the middle,” Jammer said, as they watched the ebb and flow of the exercise.

They were kids, though. All of them looked so fucking young, goofing off on the ice, chirping each other for missed shots inthe drills, pushing and shoving with mock seriousness when the coaches weren’t looking. They hadn’t noticed him watching in the stands of the practice facility.

Hockey in Montreal was a religion, and people showed the fuck up for church, even when it was just to watch rookies who might not even sniff the roster for a few years yet. It was easy to blend in at first, until the fans noticed and started asking him for autographs.

Matt didn’t want to be a distraction. He went down to the boards, Jammer tagging along, and greeted all of the rookies, wished them good luck, told them they should feel free to text him if they had any questions or concerns. They all looked at him, wide-eyed, when he said that. He knew from experience there would be only one or two of them brave enough to do it.

And then, because he didn’t want to be a distraction, Matt beat a retreat for the steps. It was still good to get back into the practice facility at Brossard. There, he knew so clearly who he was and what his role was. It was hard to think about what he’d do when he didn’t have that option.

What Aiden was doing now that he didn’t have that option.

But the thing was...now, he could ask.

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