Page 23 of The Alternate Captain
The coast is clear. There’s no Mike and there’s no Johnny. But there is an angry-looking queue of customers forming at the tills.
Bettsy’s late again. Itry calling him, but it goes to voicemail, and there’s no word from him on the group chat.
I can’t say I’m surprised, since his punctuality leaves a lot to be desired, but for him to be completely unresponsive is new. There’s a clock that hangs on the wall above the dressing room door that I keep checking. Every second that ticks further away from eight, the more I nibble my fingernails.
I turn and walk back to my cubby, just as the door to the dressing room opens, and Bettsy fills the doorway as he heaves his gear bag off his shoulder.
“Sorry, mate. I got a fucking parking ticket. Ending up having a fight with a traffic warden. Complete nightmare. Here’s a tip for you. Don’t park outside the railway station.” He wags his finger at me in a warning.
“I’d never park there. It’s pickup only,” I say, grabbing my gloves.
“Well, I wish you’d told me,” he says.
He settles himself in his cubby and is out of his clothes at lightning speed.
“I’m pretty sure it’s sign-posted everywhere,” I say.
“They should make the signs bigger.”
I tell him that the yellow hatchings painted on the road, labelled ‘No Parking’ are another giveaway, but he’s fighting with his underlayer, not listening to anything I’m saying.
“What were you doing there, anyway?”
“Just dropping off a friend.”
“A girlfriend?”
“Nah. Someone I had a fumble with last night. Definitely not a girlfriend.” He doesn’t make eye contact with me as he’s suiting up, but I can read him like a book.
“Rochelle?”
He clears his throat and nods once, keeping his eyes low. My immediate thought is to lecture him, ask him what he’s playing at. But I know Bettsy, and can tell he’s already feeling the judgement, so I drop it, telling him I’ll meet him on the ice.
It’s just us at the rink, except for the guys up in the office. I sweet-talked Bettsy into coming in thirty minutes early so we could have some quality practice time. All I care about is the upcoming weekend, until I skate past the advert for the university and my mind shifts to Kelly. She’s a student, and I wonder if she goes there too.
I circle around and spot Bettsy at the home bench, fixing his gloves, so I skate back to him and hop off the ice to grab my stick.
He reaches into a bucket of pucks, stacking them neatly on the shelf, making an upside-down heart shape. For God’s sake. He finishes up before reaching for his own stick, then smashes the stack of pucks towards the ice, causing them to scatter and bounce across the surface.
“You okay, bud?” I ask.
“I’m done with her for good,” he says.
I don’t know what to say because I’m shit at relationships, even online ones, apparently. Besides, that’s assuming you can call whatever he and Rochelle were doing a relationship. She was sleeping with him and at least one other guy; I honestly don’t understand why he put up with it.
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” I say.
“Anyway, playoffs,” Bettsy says, shrugging.
“Let’s get started,” I say.
Bettsy and I skate towards the boards at the far end, where the nets have been pushed aside for the Zamboni to finish up. We grab opposite ends of the first net and drag it into place. He slips the peg in his end, and I do mine, then we fix the posts in place.
“How’s your cardio been?” I ask.
“Fine. How’s yours been?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“How’s your cardio, Betts?” I ask again. “I’m not talking about your body count.”
