Page 74 of Goaltender Interference

“No one is, really. Take the shot, then.”

“Hölökynkölökyn,” Aiden said, lifting the glass. It was easier to get the entire word out, drunk.

“Bless you?”

“No—hölökynkölökyn. It’s like cheers.”

“Oh, you’ve been talking to Saari? Good, I’m happy.” Matt beamed at him, incandescent and so handsome that it felt like a punch in the chest, before he knocked back his own drink.

Aiden looked at him from the corner of his eye, watched him swallow, the movement of his throat.

Matt caught him at it, grinned slow and lazy: “Aidy,youhaven’t gone yet.”

The thing was: Aiden might have been introverted and quiet, but he wasn’tshy. He didn’t care if he was in the net in front of twenty thousand fans or playing guitar in front of an entire team. Hobey used to make fun of him for it, egg him on if they were in a hotel lobby in some shitty city and the guys were bored, knowing Aiden didn’t really give a shit about who heard him. Aiden had always shrugged and just gone for it, even if he knew that Hobey was laughing both at him and with him. It was fine being the butt of the joke when it wasyourteam. Drunkenly singing in front of a bunch of Royal was no different, really, but—

“You’re the captain, Matthew,” Aiden said, digging his elbow into Matt’s side. “Think you should go first.”

Saarinen dropped into the table across from them, eyebrows up. “Well, you two look comfortable, but Safy, you’re up. We’re gonna do a duet.”

Aiden let him go, not sure what to expect.

The two of them stumbled up onto the stage. It was a study in contrasts: Saarinen was the kind of guy who was a naturalentertainer, unafraid to make a fool out of himself, anytime, anywhere. Matt was reserved and earnest, but willing to take one for the team.

Together, they managed a truly terrible rendition of some pop song Aiden didn’t really recognize but must have been popular, considering the crowd reaction it got. Watching Matt singing was surreal enough, considering Aiden had never seen it before this. His voice was not very good, and he knew it, but he belted it out anyway with such a serious, almost martyred expression.

Saarinen was also not very good, but he was doing an improvised, exaggerated dance, completely uncaring that he looked ridiculous. The rookies were laughing; Morozov and Singh wolf whistled as Saarinen finished with a flourish, down on his knees, arms thrust out toward the audience.

Matt half-jumped and half-slithered off the stage when they were done, loped over to where Aiden was sitting still and hauled him bodily from the seat. “Your turn” was the only thing he said.

“Fine, fine,” Aiden grumbled, pulling himself up on the stage. He flipped through the selections, some of which he recognized and some of which were foreign to him. Finally he picked an easy one, something he could do in his sleep or, in this case, swaying-on-his-feet drunk. An old standard, one of the first songs he’d ever learned how to play on the guitar: the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong.”

Aiden took a breath and launched into the song.

About a verse in he realized it was a huge mistake, because the lyrics were a little too on the nose for him to handle right now, and the mood was not a party mood, and all he could think about was how he didn’t want this to end but that it was going to, one way or another. He couldn’t really see much beyond the spotlight shining in his face, couldn’t see what Matt was doing, kept pushing through the lump in his throat.

This whole thing was a mistake, really, that he thought he could do this and then, finally: the song was winding down and he was done. Aiden carefully set the mic down on the stool and made a break for it.

“Buddy,” Saarinen said, when Aiden stumbled back to the table. “Buddy.I didn’t know you could sing?”

“Like—a limited amount of things,” Aiden mumbled, embarrassed.

“That was kind of a bummer of a choice, though. Wow, man, you got some stuff you need to talk about?”

Maybe it was just the drinking catching up with him, but Aiden was suddenly very tired, and he put his head down on the table while he watched Morozov and Singh butchering “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

This wasn’thisteam. This was Matt’s team. Matt belonged here, with them, whether that was this season, or next season, or any season after that.

“Hey,” Matt said, hand between Aiden’s shoulder blades, “you wanna get out of here?”

He did. So they went.

Chapter Eight

November

November was early enough in the season that Matt shouldn’t have been having this much trouble with his knee, but he had accepted it as a new fact of life this year. No matter how carefully he tended to it with foam rollers and stretching and cold/hot soaks and diclofenac gel, it was just going to ache after every game. And during every game. By now, the Toradol injections were frequently part of his pregame routine, even though he knew he shouldn’t have been using it that often. In the short term, he needed to be able toplay. He thought,nothing happens to anyone that they can’t endure.Philosophers aside, he had been enduring it for several seasons now.

In his youth he’d had one of the longest active Iron Man streaks in the league and it had been something he’d been proud of. His surgeries had cut that abruptly short, but in between, he worked at regaining it. He knew it was kind of fucked up, especially because he didn’t have anything he needed to prove, but that was always the kind of guy he was. He hadn’t even missed a game the time he’d needed seventy stitches after getting cut with a skate: he’d just worn a cage for the third period.

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