Page 9 of Any Second Now
I could tell him she’s in England with her boyfriend—my teammate, Kellen.
But she would’ve told him that detail if she wanted him to know.
Me
why do you think that is, Richard?
Richard doesn’t respond. I imagine him clenching his jaw at the question. The only reason he’s even texting me is that his favorite child—and that’s not me—stopped responding to him six months ago.
Because he’s a dick.
So he’s debased himself by texting with his son.
Although now that Lucy’s moved to Colorado to work for the Blizzard and is blissfully happy with Kellen, she’s slightly less of a golden child than when she worked for our father in D.C.
I grab my gym bag and leave my apartment in downtown Fort Collins to hop in my Wrangler, which is parked in the small lot behind my building. I need to sweat this out at the team gym, which is thankfully relatively empty during the summer offseason. Fewer people to witness my sad recovery.
By now, I should be one hundred percent recovered from thegroin strain, which happened when some young asshole hotshot slammed into me after I’d made a quick cut and passed the puck to our center.
We scored. I limped off the ice. At least now I’m cleared to skate like normal again.
I used tobethat young asshole hotshot.
Now I feel middle-aged—at least in terms of hockey.
My goal is to be top of my game at the Skate for Kids charity tournament in New York City in August, which is technically still in the offseason. It’ll be six teams and two days of games, all raising money for a kids’ cancer charity. We’ll bring a smaller team than if it were a regular season game, based on who is available to play. Should be no pressure and all fun, but it’ll be a way to show my teammates and the hockey world that I’m doing just fine.
“Happy birthday, mate,” Lachlan says after I push my way through a set of double doors decorated with the Fort Collins Blizzard logo and a giant abominable snowman, and then a second propped keycard door. He’s sitting on a bench, apparently doing nothing. “Thirty, aye? Old man.”
“Aren’t you twenty-eight?” I attempt a snappy comeback, but only manage to sound like a curmudgeon.
“Yeah. Two whole entire years from thirty.” My Aussie teammate laughs and lifts a pair of heavy free weights, curling them against his biceps. A couple of our teammates are using leg machines across the room. “How’s the groin?” He looks pointedly at my crotch.
“It’s fine. Fucking fine.” I glare at Lachlan. He’s gotten way too much pleasure harassing me about my injury. Probably because it was relatively minor and the season was over, allowing me to recover the right way. But it feels like it’s been a battle to get back to where I was before.
More of a mental battle than a physical one.
“I can’t believe Armas is out.” Lachlan shakes his head andpicks up his phone, which is sitting next to him on the bench. “But better him than you, mate.”
Yeah. I’m absolutely better off than our teammate on the second line, who got injured in the same game. But his hip injury was more severe, and unfortunately it was a repeat injury. Bad enough that he’d decided that was enough for him. He hung up his skates and walked away from hockey.
“Oh—here’s another message from Kellen.” Lachlan taps his screen a few times and furrows his brow.
Our team captain—still in England with my sister—had texted us yesterday with the news. It hit too close to home. Armas played right wing, my position, and is only thirty-one, so he should’ve had a few more good years in him.
“What’d he have to say?” I focus on stretching, spending extra time on my legs and groin area. Pulling that muscle freaked me out. I took two weeks of total down time from exercising, with only light physical therapy. The downtime was okay—it was still the first part of the offseason so I tend to take it easy anyway. After that, it was a few weeks of light activity. I got on the ice a handful of times under the supervision of our skating coach, but it was basically like I was going on a stroll around the ice, like a tourist ice skating during the holidays. I’m glad not many people were around to see it.
Then it was a week of pushing myself harder.
Now I’ve been give the green light to act normal. But I don’t feel normal. When I faced the ice yesterday, I couldn’t bring myself to go full speed or trust my body. Or myself.
I look up when I realize Lachlan’s gone quiet. His eyes are wide and jaw’s dropped as he stares down at his phone.
“What?” I roll my eyes. Lachlan’s got an inclination for the dramatic.
“Mate. They signed Barrett Steele.” Lachlan looks up and lets out a shocked chuckle.
“Who signed him?” My eyes widen. Maybe he isn’t being dramatic this time.
