Page 35 of Puck Shots
“No. I didn’t mean… the blobs look weird. You look great. I mean, you look like you. Normal. I…”
He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and I chuckle.
“Relax, I think the blobs are fine. It shows me the joints well so I can see what it wants me to do, sort of. Anyway, can we lay over top of the first video with this so I can see if there are any other differences I’ve missed?”
He turns the laptop toward him and starts typing.
“It will take me a few minutes.”
“No worries. I’m going to see if I can figure out that double tap part, let me know when you have it.”
He nods, and I skate over to the center of the ice. My legs are warm, muscle memory kicking in and sending me down the ice with ease. I scoop the puck, turn and fly toward the opposite net. When I pass Eli, he picks up his chin and watches me. My heart pounds faster, a fire building inside, propelling me forward. I want this to work. I want it to work for me, to land my super-speed slap shot, but feeling his eyes on me, I realize I want this for him, too. To show him how brilliant he is. My stomach is a nervous ball of energy. I hit the puck harder than the normal push I give it before trying for a shot, then swing my stick back higher and bring it down hard for the second hit. Only I sent the puck too far ahead and I have to stretch a little to get it and the move sends me off balance, spinning, I bend forward, skim my gloves and stick across the ice regaining my control before standing upright again and gliding toward the puck, my face hot and sweaty.
I glance toward Eli, but he’s not watching anymore, his face is concentrated, stern as he frantically taps away. Did he see me miss the shot? It was the first go at it. I’m good, but I almost never get anything at first go.
“I’ll get it,” I call out to him as I make my way back up the ice to my starting position.
“I have zero doubts.” He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the adorable way that they do when his smile is directed at me. It’s not like the smile he has when he wins a piece in chess, or when he folds one of his label origami animals. It’s bigger, brighter, like I somehow make him shine. Maybe I’m just seeing what I feel mirrored in him. Because ever since that first day when I saw him figuring out how to knock the lacrosse stick from the tree, determined, confident and a little cheeky, somekind of switch inside me turned on and I started to see a world beyond hockey. I saw him.
“Okay, I have it overlaid, come watch,” Eli calls, skating nervously onto the ice. His legs wobble just a little as he balances the laptop in his hands, but he’s gotten so much better in just two days. He slows, and I grab his wrists to stop him completely.
“Click play,” he says, and I watch as a sort of purple blob figure starts off skating down the ice. As it moves, it begins to separate, one faint red figure, the other faint blue. The knees of the blue bend more through the whole scene, and the strides are shorter, with deeper knee bends, and then the blue one falls behind a little but the red one misses the puck while the blue does the double tap and sends it flying into the computerized net.
I watch twice more, picking up on a few other tweaks to the way I move in the first video.
“Okay, I think I have it down,” I say, and he clicks pause and skates to the edge.
“Give me one sec, I want to film you again so we can upload the new videos to see the progression in real time.”
“Okay, say when,” I call, and when he comes to a slow stop about halfway between me and the net, he yells out, “Go.”
I take off with my usual long strides, pushing off at about a forty-five-degree angle to maximize power, then once I’m going, I shorten my strides, bending my knees a little more than I’m used to, the muscles in my legs warm, a tight ache moving through them. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be to get the stride shown in the video. My legs want to fall back on what they know, what’s easy, but I turn at the net and make my way back again, this time it’s easier, but just a little.
“I’ll go for it on this run,” I say, passing him, and he holds the phone up a little higher.
The cool air zooms past my face as I lean forward, keeping my center of gravity balanced, moving the puck side to side as I go,like I would do in a real game to keep the defenders guessing and make it harder for them to poke the puck away. That is if they can catch me. I pass Eli, my heart thumping with almost as much energy as it does in a real game. And when I tap the puck forward, then bring the stick back and swing with full force and it connects, a rush of adrenaline sweeps over me. The puck skims down the ice and rebounds off the back wall.
I zoom toward Eli, throwing down my stick and off my gloves before I wrap him in my arms and spin him in place.
“Woooo, fuck yeah!” I cheer, slowing our spin and lowering him back down, a lump now in my throat as his dark green eyes look up at me. “Sorry,” I say, releasing my hands.
“It’s okay,” he replies, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand the way he does when he’s nervous and he doesn’t have a bottle to fiddle with the label. I’ve started to notice I do that a lot. Make him nervous, and I’m starting to realize, I like it. I like being the reason his face flushes a light pink, and he smiles that bright smile that seems only for me.
***
“My legs don’t do that,” Luka complains as he tries for the tenth time to match my form and my speed on the ice.
“We’re made up of the same body parts on the inside,” I say, flying past him.
“Then tell me how you get your legs to do it.”
“You just have to watch and learn, my friend.”
He goes again, leaning forward to steady himself, hands cupped in front as he focuses on the way his knees are bending and the angle he pushes out with his skates. It’s not quite right, but better than before.
“Grab your stick and try it the full length of the ice,” Eli says, and I rush to beat Luka to the far wall, ready to race him.
“Not everything is a competition,” he chuckles as I get into starting position like a track star waiting for the gun to sound.
