Page 15 of The Shots You Take

Mom sniffed, and said, “Did he? He barely ever talked about it.”

Riley managed to laugh.

“We probably should have buried him in it,” Mom continued.

Riley laughed harder, even as tears streamed down his face. “Jesus, Mom.”

They broke apart, and he saw the tears in Mom’s eyes too. “You have to laugh when you can,” she said, “otherwise you get swallowed up.”

Riley nodded and wiped a hand over his face. Swallowed up was exactly how he felt, by grief, by anger, and now, with Adam here, with the old feelings of longing and misery that had plagued him for years.

“You look tired,” Mom said.

“I’m exhausted,” Riley admitted.

“Go home. Get some sleep. Come by in the morning to say goodbye to Josh and the girls, okay?”

“I will.”

“And take some eggs. Jerry dropped off two dozen this afternoon, and Sandy gave me two dozen yesterday. They think I’m drowning my sorrows in soufflés or something.”

“I’ll take some. I’m glad Lindsay is staying.”

“Me too, of course, but I told her it isn’t necessary. Still, it’ll be nice to have her around a bit.” She paused a moment, then added, “Adam seems like he’d like to help.”

Riley took a step back. “Yeah. Well.”

Mom patted his arm. “You boys were such good friends.”She headed for the fridge, and Riley’s heart twisted in his chest. They’d been fuckinggreatfriends, and maybe if they’d been able to leave it at that, they’d still be great friends.

He left a few minutes later, Lucky in the passenger seat of his truck, panting happily. He drove to the end of town, then turned left toward the ocean. His house was about fifteen minutes away from his parents’ place, down a dark stretch of road lined by thick forest. Eventually it met up with the road along the ocean, where there was a mix of small summer cottages, large vacation homes that had been recently built, and some of the original houses in the area. Riley owned one of those houses. He’d bought it as a fixer-upper a few months after he’d quit hockey, thinking it would be good for him to have a project to work on. He hadn’t been the handiest guy in the world at the time, but he’d since learned a lot of skills over the past decade of renovating it. He was proud of his home.

Lucky ran ahead of him, as always, as if the dog could unlock the door. He paced impatiently on the front stoop as Riley gathered the food Mom had unloaded on him from the back seat.

“Give me a second,” Riley grumbled. When he finally got to the house, balancing the food while fumbling the key from his pocket, Lucky stood with his front paws on the door. “It would be easier if you moved,” Riley said.

He got the door open, despite Lucky’s refusal to move, then carried the food to the kitchen while Lucky tore around the house, inspecting every room as if there’d be a surprise there. Riley put the food in the fridge, which had been mostly empty, then made his way to the living room, where he promptly collapsed on the sofa in an exhausted heap.

“Fuck,” he said to no one. What a day.

What was Adam expecting? A chat? There was no way theycould talk about anything without talking abouteverything. And Riley really didn’t want to talk abouteverything.

Things like, “Do you remember when I told you that I was in love with you and you laughed in my face?”

Or, “Did you ever tell your wife about the night we won the Cup?”

Or, “Do you even care what happened to me after that, or were you just relieved that I was gone?”

Adam had hurt him deeply and repeatedly. Riley had barely survived the pain, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. After Riley went to Dallas, Adam had broken more records, raised his kids, and loved his beautiful wife. During that same time, Riley’s life had been mostly undiagnosed depression, alcohol, sleeping pills, and weighing the pros and cons of ending it all.

It was Lindsay who’d told him to come home, during a tear-filled phone call when Riley had, for the first time, admitted out loud how bad he was doing. How he didn’t think he could play hockey anymore, and that it might actually kill him if he stayed in Dallas. Nothing personal against the city of Dallas—Riley hadn’t given it a fair chance—but it was over two thousand miles from home, and at that time he’d felt every single one of them.

Quitting the NHL at the age of twenty-nine was the hardest decision he’d ever had to make. He’d worked his whole life to get there, and he’d still been in decent physical health. If his brain had cooperated, he probably could have had at least five more good seasons in the league. Maybe even ten, like Adam had managed. Instead, he more or less fell apart over one and a half seasons in Dallas: he’d missed practices, he’d been scratched from the lineup and benched a few times, and he’d even gotten into a fight with a teammate during a practice. Some days he’d been so depressed he couldn’t force himself to get out of bed. Other days he’d been too hungover to function. At the time itwas basically unheard of for an NHL player to quit for mental health reasons. Honestly, it had been unheard of for an NHL player tohavemental health issues. So Riley had been vague, claiming that he simply felt it was the right decision for him. The hockey world mostly translated that as Riley being a lazy drunk who had gone nuts. A wasted talent. A joke.

Dallas hadn’t been sorry to lose him.

Things got better after he’d come home. He quit drinking, found a good therapist in Halifax he sometimes saw in person but usually talked to on the phone, and, through his family doctor, had been able to figure out the most effective antidepressants. Riley liked living in Avery River, and with time, he made a nice life for himself. A full life, even without a partner or reliable regular sex. Being a single gay man in a small Nova Scotia town wasn’t ideal, but he wasn’t celibate. The apps worked here, even if the pickings were slim.

Lucky, either satisfied or disappointed that everything in the house was as they’d left it, returned to the living room and jumped up on the sofa. He slumped over Riley’s thighs and rested his head on Riley’s chest. Riley idly scratched Lucky’s ears and continued to stare at the ceiling. He’d hung a vintage chandelier made from iron and stained glass in the center, a piece that he’d fallen in love with in an antiques store four years ago. He’d decorated the whole living room to complement the rich jewel tones of the geometric glass pattern. His sofa and matching armchair were from the forties, both reupholstered in dark teal velvet and accented with embroidered gold and blue pillows. A large Persian-style rug spread over the refinished wood floor, ending just in front of the brick hearth that supported his cast-iron wood stove. It was a cozy, beautiful room, and Riley felt comfortable here. Even now, when that comfort was spiked with loneliness.

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