Page 35 of What If I Hate You
I get a few more quotes, all of them somehow orbiting Cunningham. “The Bear’s dialed in,” August says into my recorder. “If he’s pissed, that’s good for all of us. We play better when we have to keep up with his rage.”
Ledger, who I catch literally elbow-deep in a tub of Bio freeze, just shrugs and says, “He’s a professional. He’ll show up. He always does.”
I note the party line and don’t bother crossing the room to where Barrett sits, headphones on, gaze locked somewhere in the middle distance between his locker and oblivion. He’s stripped down to a compression shirt and shorts, legs splayed wide, arms loose at his sides. For a second, I think he’s asleep with his eyes open, he’s that still.
But the moment I turn to leave, I feel it. A slow, deliberate caress of his gaze lingering on the nape of my neck. I turn, and sure enough, Barrett’s eyes are on me. Just a flick, less than a second, but intense enough to send shivers down my spine. The charged moment is so brief I wonder if I imagined it, but my heart races, nonetheless. I make a show of tucking my notepad deeper into my bag, determined not to let him see how much he affects me.
I head for the corridor, already drafting my segment in my head. “Stars enter tonight’s matchup on high alert, with team chemistry at an all-time high and their notoriously unflappable goalie breaking sticks and egos in equal measure.”
I wonder what it’s like for Barrett, behind the mask. Not just the plastic and the wire, but the one he seems to wear every second he’s not in the crease. To be that locked down, all the time, has to be exhausting. I should know.
We actually have that in common.
Two closed-off people not wanting to show anyone how vulnerable we can actually be.
Fuck.
Maybe I don’t hate Barrett Cunningham as much as I want to.
Maybe that’s the real problem.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BARRETT
There’s a particular flavor of terror that comes with a one-goal lead and ninety seconds on the clock, but tonight I welcome it. I chase it down like it’s the last shot I’ll get for the rest of the season, because after three periods of getting pounded by Cincinnati and a hundred thousand reminders of my “Swiss cheese” nickname from every chirping mouth online, I’ll take adrenaline over shame any day.
The Scavengers have yanked their goalie and loaded the ice with six of their meanest, gnarliest forwards. They cycle the puck around our zone like a goddamn blender set to puree, and every time they snap a hit from the point, I feel the ripple of tension in my thighs, in my chest, in my last threadbare nerve. But here’s the thing, tonight, my body works. I’m tracking the puck. I’m shuffling post-to-post with surgical precision, no wasted movement, no telegraphing my glide.
The puck is a living thing tonight, mean and unpredictable, but I feel every twitch of its movement in my hands before I even see it with my eyes. They come at us in one relentless wave after another, and I stonewall every attempt, the thump of it off my pads the only music I ever need. I can hear Griffin barking orders, August laying his body flat on the ice to block a pass, thechaos of a dozen blades biting at my crease, but it all narrows down to the cold and the puck and the next save.
With forty seconds left, their captain goes full kamikaze, barreling straight at me through a wall of blue and gold, and I get both blocker and a desperate whiff of glove on the chip shot he takes at the rebound. It stings, but I eat it, and sprawl hard enough to send the puck spinning wide. The noise in my head is deafening. Sometimes I wonder if the crowd is even real, or if I hallucinate it all. But if this is delusion, let it come. Tonight, it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
When the buzzer finally hits, I stay splayed on the ice a beat too long, just sucking in air and letting the racket pour over me. August and Bodhi are the first to reach me, knocking their sticks on my helmet so hard I see stars.
“Fuck yeah, Teddy Bear! Way to fucking play!” August slaps my helmet. The rest of the team piles in, a heap of elbows and curses and giddy, boyish laughter. For once, nobody bitches about my style or my attitude. They just mob me, howling my name, and sling arms across my shoulders as we shake hands with the other side.
I barely remember the handshake line, just the burn in my palms and the taste of blood in my mouth. It’s a good pain. A real pain. The kind that lets you know you’re still a goddamn hockey star and this is the game you were born to play.
The locker room feels like the inside of a drum. Every surface echoes, sticks clatter to benches, gloves smack tile, bodies thump into cold metal stalls with the violence of pure relief. I slump onto the bench and let my head hang, helmet still on, breath fogging the scratched visor. Nobody talks to me right away, which is exactly how I like it. There’s a hierarchy to postgame adrenaline. The forwards burn it off in idiotic howls and towel snaps, the defensemen in primal grunts, and the goalies…we go silent. We metabolize the noise, let it settle into our bones, andonly speak when we’re sure nobody can hear what we’re really saying.
“Great game, fellas,” Coach Hicks’s voice rings out through the locker room. Marlee’s by his side. “You made Anaheim proud tonight.” He takes a clipboard from Marlee and reads her notes. “Magallan, Blackstone, Ollenberg, Dayne, Meers, and…”
Shit.
I know he’s going to call my name. And suddenly I’m back in middle school health class where if I just don’t make eye contact with the teacher, she won’t call my name to read the paragraph about the female reproductive system out loud.
“Cunningham.” Hicks looks up from his list. “Press room.”
Fuck.
I knew it.
Just when I thought this might be one of my better nights. Now I’ve got to finish it in the goddamn press room.
Doesn’t matter that I had a near perfect game.
Doesn’t matter that my body did all the things it needed to do.
