Page 15 of Gravity
“What time will you pick me up tomorrow?”
“One o’clock again?” We’re turning nocturnal.
But it’s worth it, because he says, “I can’t wait.”
* * *
I pickhim up at one p.m. with two large coffees and croissant sandwiches. Breakfast in the afternoon. We are hockey players, so we’re used to time having no meaning. Awake at night after our games, flying in and out cities at two and three in the morning. It’s hard to build a life outside of hockey when you can never escape the shackles of its routine.
We launch our kayaks from Hoover Dam and paddle down the meandering Colorado River. Tributaries open before us, and we explore each one. Waterfalls trickle down limestone and sandstone, creating side canyons that we turn into. When the water gets too shallow, we lug our kayaks over our shoulders and continue on foot. Cacti are blooming, the flowers delicate and new, pale with the hush of desert winter. The pink and purple hues are suggestions of colors, whispers of what’s to come. Again, I see myself reflected in the surroundings. In the emptiness. In the solitude. In the fragile hope of these blossoms.
We make it to Emerald Cove in a few hours and beach our kayaks inside a bank of boulders. Then we swim, exploring caves beneath the translucent surface. Underwater, Hunter's hair floats free around his head, a dark tangle I want to sink my hands into. I nearly forget to rise and breathe, because this ache in my lungs is too much. I’m already drowning. In thoughts, in imaginings, in what-ifs and hopes and terrors.
After, we paddle back to a shaded beach of shattered stone worn smooth by the lapping river, and we drag the kayaks out before flopping on the bank. We sit shirtless with our toes in the water, soaking up the sun.
Hunter and I have both collected the marks that come from a season of high-intensity professional hockey. I have welts from slashes and hacks at my ankles and behind my knees.Hunter looks polka-dotted with bruises. Vivid purple along his legs and arms, and deep green hollows left behind from blocked shots. His abdomen is one dark swatch of bruise-blue, and across his back and shoulder blades, three straight lines clearly show where he’s been cross-checked.
“Calisse.” I move to my knees behind him and trail my fingers across a long aubergine line, running from his shoulder to his ribcage. He’s warm from the sun and damp from the river. I almost rest my whole hand against his spine and stroke downward, but,non. “You take a lot of punishment on the ice.”
“Part of the job.” He tips his head back and looks up at me. Water drips from the ends of his hair to my wrists. My breath catches, and I nearly fall into the dark pools of his eyes.
My fingers find a solid knot of hardened muscle below his shoulder blade and along his spine. An older injury, not a recent bruise, but tightness where there shouldn’t be. Without thinking, I dig my fingers into the knot, trying to unwind the pain.
Hunter groans. His eyes flutter closed, and first he arches backward, his hair brushing against my arms and my abs, before slumping forward and sagging. He breathes deeply in long, slow inhales as I work my thumbs and fingers into his solid slab of muscle.
He must be able to hear how fast my heart is beating, or feel the thunder of my pulse where my fingers are touching his skin.
I torture myself until I feel the knot give way, and then squeeze his shoulders and slip past him, jumping from the beach into the river with a splash. He follows, and we swim for another hour before hauling ourselves to the beach again. We let the sun dry the water from our skin as our shoulders brush.He’s sitting forward, his arms braced across his knees. I’m beside him, cross-legged, playing with a river rock like it’s a hockey puck.
We are alone. There are no other paddlers. There are no other hockey players. This river is ours, like this day is ours. Here we both are, in a place renowned for thousands of tourist attractions, for bars and clubs and shady delights, and we are whiling away hours alone in the sunshine.
We are compatible, on the ice and off.
But tomorrow, we’re going to fly back to our separate teams. Montréal and Carolina are not going to play each other again this season. I frantically searched the schedule last night in my hotel room, hoping—
Non.In less than twenty-four hours, Hunter will be gone, and I will be back in Montréal.
And then what? What happens? Will I be alone with my thoughts again? On the ice, in my truck, alone at home, alone within my team, staring into the future with all these questions hovering on the edge of answers?
My eyes trace the path of a water droplet as it winds from the ends of his hair, over his clavicle, and down between his pecs. “What will you do after hockey?” I ask.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead. It's hard to think forward when I can't even believe all this is really happening now. It still feels like it's make-believe, you know? I’m paid to play hockey?” He shakes his head. “I have no idea what I’ll do when this ride ends.” He throws me a helpless look. “But I probably need to start thinking more about that. Carolina isn’t going to hold on to me for forever.”
“Calisse, if they’re smart, they will. You should be the future of their team.”
He smiles sadly. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. This weekend?” He looks me in the eyes. “It’s going to be the highlight of my career. I already know that.”
It is already the highlight of my life. Meeting him, and having these minutes and moments together. Every pass we made on the ice that electrified this bond between us, every time our gazes met, every inhale that’s caught inside me as I look at him andimagine.
I roll my lower lip between my teeth. The rock in my hands cuts into my palms. I’m squeezing it so hard my fingers are going numb.
“What about you?” Hunter leans into my side, then away. “What will you do after hockey? Not that you have to think aboutthatfor years.” He winks. “You’ll be the best even when you’re forty.”
“Non, don’t talk bullshit,” I chuckle. “I’ll be broken in half long before then.” We both laugh, but it’s the laugh of the injured, of men who know they’re using their bodies to the breaking point.
Quiet falls between us. My toes sink into the river sand. “Je ne sais pas.” My voice is a whisper. “I keep asking myself what I am doing with this life.”
“You’re playing hockey. You’re the best hockey player of the generation.”
