Page 12 of Breaking the Ice
But it was like the last four years hadn’t happened. None of the pain. None of the distance and the special agonythathad brought Gavin, and he didn’t have the motivation to do it.
“Hmmm?”
“I want you to see something,” Zach said.
“What is it?” Gavin felt so comfortable, so relaxed, he might just float away on a cloud of serotonin.
For the first time in what felt like hours, Zach tensed, and then it was like he forced himself to relax. “You haven’t been following hockey at all, have you?”
“No,” Gavin said. “I mean . . .I’ll occasionally, like . . .I don’t know. Fall down a rabbit hole. I know better, but it happens. And then after I . . .”
“What if I was here after?” Zach asked quietly. Somehow his hand—and God, his hands had gotten big, too, as big as the rest of him—was on Gavin’s knee, squeezing lightly.
It would not suck as much, that was for sure.
He’d have someone to pull him back out. AndGod, Gavin wanted it.
“I just want to show you something,” Zach said. Then suddenly he was gone, his warmth missing, and Gavin nearly complained about it.
But that would be weird. Even weirder than this was, anyway.
Thirty seconds later, Zach was back, and he was carrying a backpack. He pulled a laptop out of the bag and set it on the coffee table. “I’m not trying to convince you, I just . . .I just want you to see. Why I came here.”
“You came here to see if I actually put shells in my rifle,” Gavin said drowsily.
Zach chuckled, but when Gavin focused on the screen he could see that Zach was queuing up some game film.
Gavin would have to have buried himself out here for a lot longer than four years to not recognize the Evergreens’ green and white uniforms.
“This is from last year,” Zach said, gesturing at the screen. “Second to the last game of the year.”
There was a part of Gavin that really wanted to look away. That wanted to shut the laptop and tell Zach he didn’t want to see. He didn’twantto be convinced. But he couldn’t, because Zach cared enough about this to come out here.
There was a line change on the screen, and Gavin straightened, because the energy on the ice suddenly shifted. The team, while not sluggish before, began driving harder, faster towards the net, finding a new gear.
Pushing them was a smaller guy, the right winger, but the center and the left winger were right there with him. Gavin remembered, abruptly, why he didn’t let himself do this, because he was leaning forward, eyes glued to the screen, watching the play unfold.
Watching the three of them pass the puck like they were born to do it, and the right wing take a brilliant fucking shot, top shelf, the goalie not having a chance in hell of stopping it.
Gavin didn’t say anything, because he knew Zach was going to tell him what he wanted to know.
“That’s Elliott Jones,” Zach said. “He was eighteen there. Nineteen now. He spent the whole season on the second line, but the Evergreens were on a five-game losing streak, getting outscored and outplayed, so the coach changed the lines up.”
“He’s . . .” Well, Gavin didn’t even need to say it. Zach could see it. You could probably see it from the freakingmoon. The kid was probably going to be a big star. Drafted-in-the-first-round big star.
“Here’s the thing,” Zach said. “He wasn’t that good on the second line.”
“What?”
“I mean, he wasn’tbad. He couldn’t ever be bad, probably. But he went from decent to extraordinary with those two.”
Gavin didn’t want to ask. He asked anyway. “Why?”
“See the left wing?”
Gavin nodded.
“That’s Malcolm McCoy. He’ll be a senior. Drafted by the Leafs, but wanted to stay in school. He’s solid, reliable, but when Jones gets out there? He’s better, too. He turns from a guy barely hanging onto being drafted into Jack freaking Hughes. Jones and McCoy only played on the same line for the last two games. But in those two games? They had five goals and six assists.”
