Page 2 of When Alec Met Evie
“You know I will.” Tucker cocks an eyebrow and smirks. “I know you older guys need more sleep than the rest of us.”
I clamp a hand down on his shoulder and squeeze a little too hard. “Do you think it’s my age or my sleep that makes me faster than you?”
Carter and Theo let out identicaloooohs,but Tucker only chuckles.
“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here, old man.”
I leave the bar, ignoring the ache in my right knee. Considering how I’ve been feeling lately,old manisn’t that far off. At thirty-two, I’m one of the oldest guys on the team, maybe even in the league. And my body seems to be taking every opportunity to let me know.
Even after an off-season of careful training and intentional rest, I’m already feeling my time on the ice, and we haven’t even played a game yet. After an ACL injury my last season of college, and two more once I went pro, impacting both my ACL and MCL, I’ve gotten used to my knee giving me trouble. But there’s a new depth to the pain I definitely need to talk over with one of the Appies trainers. They’ve been telling me this might happen. That at some point, I’ll have to weigh my desire to keep playing against my desire to have general mobility once I retire—walking, running, hiking. Regular life stuff.
Hard to think about a life that doesn’t include pro hockey, but I get it.
The late September air is cool when I step into the parking lot, fall leaves crunching under my feet. I take a deep breath of mountain air. I used to think I’d move back to New York as soon as I could, but I’m not so sure anymore. It’d be nice to be closer to family, but there’s something about these mountains that makes me think I could live here too. Even when I no longer have to.
I’m halfway home when my phone buzzes with a call, and I answer it through my car’s sound system. “Hey, Meg,” I say.
“Hey!” My younger sister’s voice comes through with all the enthusiasm I’ve grown to expect. “I didn’t think you’d answer.”
“No?”
“Well, I mean, it’s Friday night, and you’re you. You aren’t out? On a date?”
“On my way home,” I say. “Got a game tomorrow.”
“Ohhh, that’s right. I’ve seen the news talking about it. Everyone’s out to take down the Calder Cup champions. Did you read the Sports News Daily article?” she asks. “They were not nice to you.”
The article Megan is referencingwasn’tnice to me. Well, it wassort ofnice to me, but in a backhanded way. The point of the article was to identify all the players on the Appies hockey team whoshouldbe playing in the NHL, listing most of our first and second lines, as well as me and Nathan, who I usually play with as a defensive partner.
It’s not entirely untrue. Most AHL contracts are signed through the team’s NHL affiliate so players can easily shift from one organization to the other, according to what’s needed and where.
But the Appies aren’t typical. With our social media presence and huge fan following, there’s a lot of money in this team, even though it’s technically minor league. The Appies offer specific perks that give guys reasons to play here instead of aiming for the NHL. Which just means there’s a lot of talent on the Appies’ ice, and we’re hard to beat.
Logan, our first-line left winger, has the most NHL experience and will likely be recalled sooner than later. A few others play with the same possibility, knowing they could shift teams any minute. But a lot of us signed AHL-only contracts that aren’t up for renegotiation for another year or two. That meanswe’re likely to keep dominating, which is starting to piss off the other teams in our league.
My name was mentioned a few times in the article, including one memorable line that called me a “very talented idiot who should give up online dance trends and stick to hockey where he actually belongs.”
Flattering, I know.
What the articledidn’tmention is that my reason for staying with the Appies has a lot less to do with the dancing (though I don’t really mind it) and a lot more to do with my knee.
It throbs as I shift my leg, easing off the gas to make a left turn.
I’m doing everything I can to make sure this isn’t my last season of professional hockey, but if it is, I’d rather finish proud with the teammates who have come to feel more like brothers than play for someone else just because some stupid article says I should. The Appies have been good to me. It’s not like I need the money.
“It’s fine,” I say to Megan. “You know I don’t care what they say.”
She makes a grumbling sound of complaint. “But you aren’t an idiot.”
“And Sports News Daily calling me one doesn’t make that any less true,” I say. “What’s up with you? How are Mom and Dad?”
“They just won a pickleball tournament in the over-seventy-five category,” Megan says.
Technically, Mom and Dad are actually Grandma and Grandpa, but they’ve been raising us since three days after Megan was born when our actual mother—their only daughter—walked out on all of us.
We didn’t see her for ten years, not until she showed up one random afternoon two weeks before I headed to Cornell for myfreshman year of college. She was finally clean and sober and had a new husband, two stepchildren, and a brand new baby in her arms.
I barely recognized her, and Megan didn’t at all, so when she told her toddler-aged stepchildren we were their aunt and uncle, we went along with it. We’d already been calling our grandparents Mom and Dad for years anyway. From then on, we called our actual mom Stacy and thought of her kids, including our half-brother, as our nieces and nephews.
