Page 83 of Over the Line

For the moment…

I’m horny too. Any chance you want to get hired on as an equipment manager or something so you can come on road trips with me?

LOL Do you really want to deal with the noise complaints?

Pretty sure I could keep you quiet.

Oh God

I chuckled to myself as I imagined him getting flustered and breathless.

And my God, I couldn’t wait to have some time alone with the horny man I’d left in Pittsburgh.

Every time I saw Chris in the locker room, on the ice, on the bus, on the plane, I had the same thought:

I want you to know I’m seeing your dad.

It rang in my ears like an opposing team’s goal horn.

I understood why we weren’t telling him yet. That we’d tell him when the time was right. Once Garrett and I had a better grip on what we were doing and where this was going, we’d sit Chris down privately and tell him. How public we’d be after that—well, we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

Assuming we got that far, of course. We were still firmly in the honeymoon phase, so there was no telling yet if we were in it for any kind of long haul.

It didn’t help that for hockey players, the honeymoon phase could either be super short or seriously protracted. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground, at least from what I’d observed. For the better part of every year, hockey dominated our lives. There was no way around it. Hockey could even feel like a third member of a relationship, which was often what separated the flings from the forever partners.

Temo and Ximena had met during the off season after his rookie year. They’d only been together maybe a month when training camp started, so she’d been thrown into the regular season fray almost from the start. We’d become friends years later, after he’d been traded to Pittsburgh, and he’d told me one night that he’d known by Thanksgiving that she was the one. She’d easily rolled with the punches of his career even when things had gotten tough, like when he changed teams twice in six months or when an injury flattened him for a couple of weeks.

“That woman’s tougher than I am,” he’d told me, his voice full of love and fondness. “She put up with my bullshit and the League’s.” Raising his glass, he’d added, “Wasn’t letting her go—no way.”

Unsurprisingly, out of all the Pittsburgh wives, Ximena had the biggest rock on her hand.

At the other end of the spectrum was Mikko Haavisto, one of our top six forwards, who’d had several girlfriends before meeting his wife. Gossip pages mused that he got bored and went through women like he went through stick tape. The reality, though, was that he’d just had a string of women who thought they could handle the hockey life, but learned very quickly they weren’t wired for it. The breakups weren’t even that bad, mostly; they’d just realized this wasn’t the life for them, and they’d moved on. It wasn’t all that surprising that he’d ultimately ended up with the ex-wife of another player—her divorce hadn’t had anything to do with hockey, and she knew what she’d be getting into before their first date.

Maybe all that was why so many of the guys married their high school or college girlfriends (or boyfriends, in a few cases)—they didn’t want to try to establish a new relationship during the chaos of playing pro hockey. I got it. I hadn’t had the bandwidth to date much during my career; I couldn’t get my head around how the men around me managed to build and maintain long-term relationships. Maybe they were just better at it than I was. I didn’t know.

What I did know was that this honeymoon phase I was in with Garrett probably wouldn’t last long. He’d either get tired of feeling like he was playing second fiddle to hockey, or he’d adapt to the reality of my career.

I hoped it was the latter. I liked him a lot, and… I mean, what could I say? I liked not feeling so goddamned lonely for a change. I liked how, even this early on, the possibility of life with him made the prospect of life after hockey less daunting. I didn’t want to lose him or that.

I worried incessantly that I would, though, and tonight that worry was amplified.

I was on the road, for one thing, having flown out right after last night’s game for a three-game road trip. Those road trips could make or break a relationship, especially a fledgling one.

And on top of that, after a demoralizing loss to New York last night followed by a flight to Washington, I was at the bar tonight with Chris and some of our teammates.

Despite the loss, the guys were keeping the vibe upbeat with chirps about the video game several of them liked to play on the plane. It helped shift the focus away from last night’s shitshow on ice.

Mostly. Because I wasn’t the only player whose head was elsewhere.

“Hey.” I nudged Chris, who was staring into his beer beside me. “You all right?”

He turned a miserable expression on me. “Just keep thinking about last night.” He broke eye contact and watch himself pick at a napkin he’d already partially shredded.

Though I wasn’t a mind reader, I could read my teammate as if his emotions had been broadcast onto a Jumbotron for all to see. Partly because he wore them on his sleeve. Partly—mostly, if I was honest—because I could see myself in the furrows between his eyebrows, the tightness of his lips, and the creases in his forehead.

“Kanes. Listen.” I twisted toward him. “That loss? That wasn’t your fault.”

He winced. “Two of those goals against were completely my fault.”