Page 57 of Goaltender Interference

Out on the ice, he felt a little more at ease. Jammer waggled his eyebrows at him under the visor, but didn’t say anything, and Matt was grateful for the ambiguity. The thought of the whole team getting into his business before he was even truly sure what he wanted to say about it, how he wanted to handle it on his own terms—it was a little overwhelming.

It felt better to skate hard, to listen to the short, barked instructions from the coaching staff. By now, the drills and exercises were familiar to him, and he was able to do them almost in his sleep, do them with half of his attention and enough left over to correct the rookies if any of them got out of step. It helped that the three new forwards were focused and competitive, even with Manny Singh buzzing and chirping around them.

“Manny, go easy on the rooks,” Matt said, during a break in the drills.

“Hey, I’m just making sure they have what it takes,” Manny replied, “especially if the line rushes are any indication of how things are gonna shake out during the season. Looks like I’m gonna have Koski as a center and Cormier on the wing, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“I just have to make sure they can hang,” he said, his eyes wounded. “If I’m out there talking shit, they’re gonna get it back, you know?”

Matt would have pinched the bridge of his nose if he wasn’t wearing gloves. “Go easy on Cormier. That kid isshy.”

“Throwing him into the water’s the best way to get him to swim,” Manny said, with a little sniff. “That’s what my dad did to me when I was a kid.”

“You know, this explains an awful lot about you, Manny.”

Manny shot him another wounded look. “Low blow, Safy.”

“Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, eh?”

Manny made an exaggerated face, nose wrinkled. “Fine, I’ll go easy on Cormier. Koski’s fair game, though.”

Koskinen, who’d been skating by, came to a sharp stop and looked from Matt to Manny, a little suspiciously. He had very pale gray eyes that were a little unsettling when he looked at you directly. “Are you talking about me?”

“I’ve been telling Manny to go easy on you and Cormier,” Matt said. “He likes to talk. You don’t have to listen unless it’s about on-ice stuff.”

“I have three older brothers, Cap. Nothing he says will bother me.”

“See?” Manny said, smiling his toothless smile. “A perfect match.”

Matt shook his head—even this made him feel more settled, more like himself—and said, “Enough. Any more time chatting, and Coach Roy will be on all of our asses. Come on. Back to work.”

Aiden had told Matt that he was fine, and strangely, he was. The world didn’t feel any different, he was still breathing the same, sitting in Matt’s condo the same, feeling a little rudderless the same.

Well, this was definitely something he would have to talk about with Dr. Gauthier.

To keep himself busy while Matt was at camp, Aiden started meal prepping, which he had generally taken over as his responsibility.

Today he was making a definitely not Jain-approved version of the comfort food his mom used to cook at home, particularly on days he’d not been feeling well, or was coming home from after time away in his billet. Dal bhat, the fluffy rice perfect inits steamer pan, the dal liberally spiced but sweet with jaggery; bateta nu shaak, with the addition of chicken for extra protein, even though Aiden could feel his mother’s anguish across the entire continent. Wheat rotli, carefully rolled into perfect circles every time. That mechanical ability was also thanks to his mother, who’d hovered like a hawk over his and Hannah’s shoulders so many times to correct their motions.

They weren’t finicky recipes, especially because he’d made them so many times, but it was time-consuming. It was something to do, at least.

It helped that Ellie had been emailing him, so while he waited for the timer to go off and put the pot into the oven, he wrote back to answer her questions about positioning and which skates she should get for her sixth birthday.

The correspondence had been a little halting but rewarding: she obviously needed help with some of the writing. Sometimes Jess sent him a picture of Ellie during her practices, small and determined in her pads and cage, and Aiden smiled and saved them to his phone. She had picked 31 as her number for the new team. Aiden’s old number.

Aiden felt—something—about it.

By the time Matt returned from Brossard, the condo smelled like home in Winnipeg and Aiden was chopping up the vegetables for kachumber. Matt’s eyes widened, briefly, when he breathed in. He sighed happily, slouching up behind Aiden to rest his chin on his shoulder.

“Did you read it?”

“Probably won’t,” Aiden said, pausing mid-chop so his shoulder didn’t send Matt’s teeth through his lip. The guy just hadnosense of self-preservation.

“Why not?”

“Don’t want to know what she’s got to say about it. Don’t want to see the comments.”

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