Page 5 of Taking It To Overtime
“Thank you,” I say, flexing my fingers around the steering wheel. “You play?”
The teen shakes their head, green strands flopping into dark-smudged eyes. “Me? No. My girlfriend does, and she says you’re everything.You got out of this place. You left this dump and got famous. That’s so cool.”
Right. Cool.
“Can I get your autograph or something?” Marcy—at least that’s the name printed on their name tag—shoves a wad of napkins through the window at me and my hand reaches for them on instinct. Just a teenager. Just a kid. I can sign something for a kid.
There’s a pen in my dad’s cupholder and I uncap it with my mouth, holding the plastic between my teeth as I drape one napkin over the steering wheel. It’s harder than it sounds,autographing a thin drive-thru napkin with a gel pen. At first, I push too hard and stab right through the paper, honking the horn. I turn and prop the napkin on the car door, but it still isn’t working.
“Hand me a bakery bag,” I say, and when the cashier passes one out the window, I’m able to scribble my name and jersey number in semi-legible letters. “Want me to do one for your girlfriend, too?”
“Holy shit. Yes.” Marcy passes over another bag. “Brigit’s going to think I’m the best girlfriend ever.”
I scratch out my name again and hand the waxy paper back through the window. Marcy folds both into careful squares and slides them into the front pocket of the uniform shirt.
“Have a great day Mr. Oakes.” The change in attentiveness almost makes me smile. I guess I’m more exciting than a minimum wage service job, even if any of my teammates would fall over themselves to inform the kid of all the ways I’m not. “Thanks for stopping by.”
I roll the window back up and slide my right hand into the bag on my lap, turning back onto the main road. I have one more month before I’m due back in Quarry Creek to condition for pre-season and another thirty minutes before I hit the Genosa County Airport. I will not waste a single second of the silence or a single crumb of pastry.
Radio stations in this neck of the woods are few and far between. I scroll through the static, past two men sharing an off-color joke, and settle on classic rock. Led Zeppelin pumps through the old speakers, tinny and too-bright. Next time I come home, I’m going to drive my truck and be able to stretch my legs. Even with the driver's seat pushed all the way back, my knees almost hit the steering wheel.
The drive is as easy as they come. A straight shot down an empty two-lane highway. I pass field after field, the occasionalband of cows meandering through the grass. They’re oblivious to the sound of the motor, and for a fleeting moment, I have the urge to press my palm against the center of the steering wheel. Lay on the horn. See if something, anything, would make them to lift their heads from their mid-day snack.
I fist my hand against the top of the wheel. The cows get smaller in my rearview mirror.
Genosa is barely larger than Kimmelwick in square footage, but double the population density. That means it can boast about its international airport—international only because of the flights to Toronto—that sits on the edge of the sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls.
Despite being the only airport in this area of the state, it’s still small and unassuming. The only people flying in and out are intending to stay in the area. There’s no cell phone lot to sit in, no circling the arrivals lane fifteen times waiting to spot Spags’ shaggy blonde head. He’s only six feet tall—shorter than a good number of our teammates and something he’s teased about in the locker room—but still easy to spot in a crowd of non-hockey players. There isn’t even a parking garage at the Genosa Airport, just a regular lot boasting reasonable rates for long-term stays.
Quarry Creek isn’t an enormous city by any stretch of the imagination—I would know, I’ve played in several—but it’s still bigger than Genosa. I think everything is.
I park the old car into a spot near the front gate and unfold myself from the passenger seat, pulling my toes up to stretch out my calves. Even in the offseason, I can’t quite shake the muscle aches. It’s a catch-22. During the height of our regular season, my body takes a serious beating, but the constant use also feels like the norm. Pop a handful of ibuprofen in the morning, stretch out the hurt with the training staff, massage away the pain. The tightness in my limbs has been lingering, though. Itmight just be a part of my thirties, but I suspect it’s more than that. I’m notyounganymore.
It’s not a secret that at some point my body is going to give out. I’m already a good four and a half years older than the league average. There’s a year left on my Arctic contract. Maybe it’s time I consider what I want to do at the end of next season. Maybe it’s worth it to go out on my own terms, before I can’t lace my skates anymore, or keep up with the rookies. Before they send me down to the farm team or trade me off like a broken down work horse.
I lock the car doors out of habit more than necessity, and start for the stark-white crosswalk that will lead me to the lower level of the Genosa International Airport and baggage claim. There’s no way Spags flew without checking a bag. Not when he needed to bring his sticks and pads and gear. At least, Ihopehe brought them. I didn’t text him a reminder. I bet Tristan did.
I spot his flyaway hair just as I step out of the direct line of the sun. He has a bag slung over one shoulder, his hand wrapped around the strap. A larger duffle and his stick bag rest at his feet. He’s wearing in a suit despite the heat, and I feel the corners of my mouth twitch. It was probably Tristan, our social media manager and my best mate’s wife, that beat that little detail into him, one smack of her hand at a time. We have to dress up to travel with the team. Apparently, Spags took that to mean he had to dress up to flyeverytime.
It’s a good thing the kid’s a damn talented hockey player because otherwise he’d be a disaster. Okay, a disaster who’s better with women than any other guy I know. They must love the clumsy puppy look. That, and because even with a single season under his belt, the kid still has all his teeth. Although that’s because Vic and I make him wear a mouth guard to every skate, practice, and game. When he hits my age, with limited dentures, he’ll thank us.
He’s already found a woman to chat up, leaning one shoulder against the concrete wall. Even from across the street, I can see his dimples grow as he meets my eyes over the top of her head and then turns his smile back on her upturned face. A wave of annoyance washes over me. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help the hot slide through my veins. It’s a visceral reaction, one I can’t explain, even if all I can see of the woman is the back of her head, red-brown hair flirting with the tops of her pale shoulders.
That shade is distinctive. It reminds me of the one woman I try to push from my thoughts. Brown at first glance, but the sheen of cherries in the sun. Dr. Pepper hair, she used to call it. Cherry coke with ice. She got frothing mad when people called her a ginger. She’d grip the silky strands between her fists and shake it at whomever had the misfortune of singling her out.
“Does this look orange to you?” she’d yell, green eyes flashing. “I’m a brunette, not a red-head.”
I never had the heart to say it was the freckles that prompted the names. I love her freckles, loved using the tips of my fingers to trace patterns between the tiny spots, like I was drawing constellations in the sky, but also because her hair was red. Not copper, but still red. Last time I checked, she was still sporting the same unique color. Not that I keep tabs on her or anything, I just have a google-alert set for her name, but I don’t even check all the notifications. Not anymore. I’m not creepy, I just…care.
That has to be the reason for the lead weight in my gut. The woman talking to my teammate has a similar color and cut to her hair, and for a moment my brain must have glitched. It wasn’t frustration so much as a pang of jealousy, an aching clench in my gut. As if the woman standing there in a light blue pair of leggings and a gauzy top slipping off the curve of her shoulders was mine. As if Spags was some kind of threat.
He isn’t.
Sheisn’t.
I drop my eyes away from them as I cross the last street, trying to appear unconcerned with the kid’s new friend. I bet they came in on the same flight—there aren’t a ton of options—and they’re just passing time while waiting for a ride. She’s probably not headed to Kimmelwick, and she’s definitely not in any way, shape, or form, mine.
Besides, Vera was photographed with a blonde girl ducking into a store on Rodeo Drive just the other day. Rodeo Drive as in Los Angeles. As in across the country. Not in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, New York. Not that I believe this woman is her, or read the gossip article that popped into my inbox. I’m just tapped out from the drive over, and the prospect of babysitting the human equivalent of a teething puppy for the next week.
