Page 103 of Perfect Playbook

A whirlwind of thoughts swirl in my head, but none of the words are worth saying. Not even the whole alphabet could change my situation. And I can’t take it personally. People are traded all the time, especially because of the salary caps. Reggie wouldn’t want me taking less. No player wants to devalue themselves, so when a hotshot player comes in, a lot of times, someone else has to go.

It is the life we live in the NHL.

It’s just not the life I thought I was living in anymore. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking I was going to go off to work and come home to Shay and Nino and suffer in that pattern a bit until my off-season break. Then do it all over again until my abnormal schedule becomes normal. I’ve been protected by this halo of love. I forgot to brace myself for change.

Coach scrubs a hand down his sullen, remorseful face. He might have been pissed at me a million times over but he’s a mentor. And mentors always have trouble letting go.

I know it’s not him. He’s given me so many approving nods and tips in the past few weeks. I know it’s not him.

“It is what it is,” I say bluntly.

“Maybe there are schools where you go for your son?”

I shrug, because refuting him takes more energy than I have.

He gazes at me intently and leaves me with three final words. “You have choices.”

I didn’t say a word in the car to the airport. I’m not sure I even blinked. My body was so numb transporting myself from that moment in that hallway lit up like some deathbed tunnel.

Traded. After all this. Fucking traded.

I hardly notice any of my teammates around me. My feet drag around automatically. I’ve been through this drill a thousand times. I don’t need conscious thought to get me from point A to point B.

But when I finally nestle into my seat on the plane, Ashton places his hand on my arm, stopping me from putting in my earbuds.

“You gonna talk to me?” he asks.

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

A silent laugh jerks his chest. “That means you’ll never be ready so you might as well talk.”

He’s right. This news will never get any easier. Not after listening to a Nate Smith album. Not after eating. Not after even a glass of fucking wine. This will never get better.

I spill it. “I’m getting traded at the end of the season.”

Ashton is as frozen as I’ve been for the past hour.

“Yup. And you know my deal. Shay and Nino can’t move.”

“Shiiit.”His sympathies are present in every letter of that word.

“But what the fuck am I going to do?” I throw my hand up. “I’m too fucking old to fly somewhere after practice, then there are away games even if I wanted to try it, just… It’s fucked. I honestly can’t say fuck enough times to express how I’m feeling right now.”

Ashton lets me sit with my feelings.

A beat of silence passes, and just when I think we might let it drop, another wave of frustration spits out of me.

“I finally get my shit together. I finally have a reason not to be…” I pause, and the realization hits. All those years of running from loneliness. From feeling like I didn’t do life the way I should. I finally course correct with the woman I love, and life fucking steals it away. “I finally stopped being afraid of getting old.”

Ashton’s eyebrows lift. Getting old is something all sportspeople understand. We’re well aware of our mortality before many other people our same age are. My non-pro sports friends who are thirty-seven like me don’t have a hip in need of resurfacing and fingers that don’t straighten out anymore. We’re knobby by the time we’re forty in this profession, and it makes you consider what life will be when you’re seventy. Eighty. You want light in it because your bones aren’t going to be the thing making you happy the way they did when they attacked a goal at twenty.

It’s why having Shay and Nino is everything. When I’m old and gray and my arthritis is going off on my rocker swing on the porch, I want other thrills around me besides hockey. I want the thrill of staring into Shay’s face when the sun is setting. Of watching Nino grow up. Of more kids and even grandkids.

I can’t have it all. I was right when I said it’s the biggest fallacy of our age.

“Fuck,” I hiss out, venting more frustration.

“Yup,” Ashton agrees. “But…” He sighs. “It sounds like you’re having a pity party to me.”

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