Page 37 of Puck the Coach's Son
My phone is face-down on my bag when I hear it buzz.
I pick it up.
I hold it under the jersey in my lap as if the other men in this room care what message I am getting, which they do not. I turn the phone over.
The message is from a number I do not have saved.
Waterfront. West pier. Seven tonight. M.
My face is hot.
The locker room goes on around me at the usual volume and I am in a bubble where the usual volume cannot reach. My hands are cold. My ears are hot. My chest is doing something I will not describe to myself. I am in full pads and base layer and my shoulder pads and half of my jersey, and I am sitting in a locker room with twenty men, and I have a text from Maddox Creed.
I look up.
I do not mean to.
He is across the room.
He is down to his base layer, shorts and a compression shirt. His hair is still wet. His phone is in his hand. He is not typing. He is watching me.
He does one thing with his face. His eyebrow, the one with the scar, goes up an eighth of an inch. That is all. No smile. No corner of the mouth. No mocking.
Just the question.
Yes or no, sweetheart?
I am holding my phone with both hands.
I feel the button under my thumb before I think about pressing it. I typeyes. I look at the wordyesfor two full seconds. I delete theyand put theyback. I look at it again. I press send.
He looks down.
He reads it.
His face does not change in any way anyone else in this room would catch.
His shoulders move. A breath. Just a breath.
He looks up at me.
He nods.
It is the smallest nod a man can make. It is a quarter of an inch of chin. It is the whole world.
I look down at my skates.
I breathe four in. Seven hold. Eight out.
I breathe four in. Seven hold. Eight out.
I do the ritual. I get the skates off. I get the base layer off. I get the towel off the hook. I walk to the showers with my eyes on the tile because if I look at Maddox in this room one more time today I am going to do something I am not supposed to do, and I do not have a map for what that thing is, and I do not have a map for what any of today is, and I am twenty years old and I have a text in my phone from an enforcer that saysseven tonight,andseven tonightis in ten hours, andseven tonightis the rest of my life.
I turn the water on hot.
I stand under it.
I do not cry.
