Page 72 of Puck the Coach's Son

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“And Theo?”

I lift my chin.

“Yes.”

“Unlock the door when you're in this house.”

“Yes.”

He goes back down the stairs.

I close the door.

I don't lock it.

I sit down on the bed and pull the phone out from under the pillow and my hand is trembling so hard I can barely hold it.

There's a new message from Maddox.

fuck. baby.

Then:you did so good.

I stare at the two messages and the shaking in my hand gets worse, not better, and I realize I'm smiling. I'm smiling with my eyes full and my heart still hammering from Paul's voice on the other side of the door and my body still humming from what I just did forhim,and it should feel like I'm coming apart.

It doesn't.

It feels like the only part of my life that's mine.

I type backok.

I delete it.

I typethank you.

I delete that too.

I type, and send, before I can think about it:when can I see you again?

12

MADDOX

Wednesday, 7:15 PM. The rink squats at the end of a half-empty parking lot like a low concrete animal. Visitor buses at the far door. A kid on a bike going nowhere in circles by the box office. The cold off the asphalt already has the rink-tang of ozone and rubber mats riding on it.

Two weeks into a pro hockey season your nose stops registering it. Right now, mine is telling me every single thing about it. The cold of the concrete, the rubber mats, the sour tang of the hallway where the Zamboni lives. Theo is somewhere in this building putting on pads. I'm going to be on the ice with him in forty minutes.

I feel fucking great.

I slept. I ate. I jerked off in the shower this morning with his voice in my head sayingmy dad is downstairsand came harder than I've come to my own hand in a decade. The video is still on my phone. I watched it four times last night. Woke up once at two in the morning and watched it again. Then I set an alarm so I would stop.

I walk into the locker room whistling.

Phoenix looks up from his stall.

“No.”

I spread my hands.

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