Page 58 of He Has Pluck

We still stare at each other at odd moments during the day, but we say little.

Then this morning, maybe because the end of my stint with the Brawlers and the NHL looms with tonight’s elimination game and that promised land of the end of the season that Coach talked about could be at hand, I take a stupid, self-destructive risk.

Before our fucking potential elimination game, I stop at Starbucks on my way to the Garden and buy her a coffee the way she likes it. Fucking black and the largest size they have, fucking Venti hot, a full twenty ounces of rocket fuel. I find her in the equipment room where I knew she’d be unpacking her camera and prepping for filming because it’s early, a little after two pm.

“Here,” I say to her. She’s in her corner of the room, and I face her with my back to the door. I won’t lie; I’m hoping the equipment guys don’t notice, though ultimately, I could give two fucks.

She looks up at me, then darts a glance around, then back up at me, so many emotions flying around her usually cool face, or at least it’s been cool all week, cool since the last time we were in bed, which has been too fucking long ago.

She reaches out a hand and wraps it around the coffee cup. I don’t let go, covering her fingers with mine, too needy for her touch, a connection. I feel like a drunk going off the wagon.

“Thank you. I think. You didn’t poison it, did you?” she says.

I snort a relieved laugh. Her comment says so much. She hasn’t lost her sense of humor or her edge. She acknowledges the hostility between us, and at the same time, graciously accepts the olive branch.

I don’t know what the hell it means, probably nothing. But it’s so much more than we had five minutes ago that I’ll take it. Even if the truce, the relief of tension, only lasts until tonight when she doesn’t show up again and disappointment forces me to choose between desolate sadness and irrational anger, both a waste of my shrinking reserve of emotional energy. The energy I should be saving for hockey.

“I miss you in my bed,” I say. Her eyes flare. Those heart-stopping eyes shoot sparks at me, mixed with desire and anger, and I feel like balls of fire hit me, burning a hole in my chest.

“Right. Of course, you do. You’re a twenty-one-year-old horn-ball hockey boy.” She takes a few shallow breaths like she’s holding in her rage, her hurt, and I want to say I miss so much more, and it’s not about the sex, but do I have a right to say that?

Wasn’t it always supposed to be about the sex? Did our mutual obsession for that physical pleasure morph into something more? Or is she right, and I need to get looked at for a sexual disorder?

Fuck me because I know she’s wrong. The only disorder I have is a brain disorder because I’m completely irrational when it comes to her. Almost. I keep my hands fisted and in the pockets of my sweats when I want to fist them in her hair and take her against the wall.

Fuck. I rein it in and nod. “Don’t pretend, Juliette,” I whisper. “For just one minute.” My voice shakes, and my heart pounds because I’m more naked than I’ve ever been, open to whatever torture she might choose.

But she sucks in a breath, and her eyes shimmer with emotion unmasked. “What good will that do?”

I chuckle one of those humorless laughs, sounding empty.

“I have a game to play. Give me…something.” Shit. Am I begging now for any crumb of acknowledgment that she still…what? Wants me, that we have something? Or had something.

“It doesn’t matter if I miss you, if I still want you. Because we’re done. We have to be done.” She gives me a look that says pull up your big boy pants and deal with it.

I nod. “I have feelings too. Just so you know.” My voice is gravel, and pain wraps me in its hold like a boa constrictor as I turn away, not wanting to see her reaction, too chicken-shit, too shattered to take the possibility of indifference, or worse, to risk seeing her real emotion.

I thought releasing my emotional secret would relieve my tension and allow me to let go of her specter so I could concentrate on hockey and play the game. But the missing connection trails after me like a random piece of me, sparking and threatening to explode as I drag it around.

If I cut her loose, I will explode. So I stay in this limbo between loss and hope, keeping the possibility alive out of self-preservation until I can deal with whatever I need to deal with later.

Finn sits with me in the locker room as I force myself through the ritual of getting ready, stretching, dressing, talking trash and running drills through my head. Finn takes out a notebook and forces me to look through diagrams.

“Where’s your iPad with the film of Washington’s last game?” I say, snorting a laugh. He’s keeping me on task, and I’m grateful. It’s working, as the corner of my mind occupied by Juliette shrinks down to a small circle, even while she’s in the room with her camera, and I’m conscious of her avoiding me.

He gives me the finger. “I’ll bring it to the next game, shithead,” he says, and I believe him. He shoves me, and I shove him back, and we stand and start a team-wide shoving match where we mock-check each other and let out some of the collective tension.

Juliette films it all.

Then we parade out of the locker room, through the chute and onto the ice to start the game that could be my last in the NHL. Or it could be the beginning of my long, illustrious NHL career. I hold onto that thought as the cold air braces me, and I concentrate on the sound of my blades on the ice.

When the third period starts, and the game is tied one-to-one. I’m skating the first line with Rafe and O’Rourke. Rafe dumps the puck into the corner behind the Washington goal, and I go in for it. O’Rourke goes around the other side to help. I’m digging the puck from between the skates and stick of the defensemen when another Washington defenseman comes in quick.

He hits me just right as I’m turning, and I’m not quick enough to avoid him because I’ve been a step behind all game. I tumble backward, and my feet fly out from under me. Except my skate gets caught on something.

It all happens faster than a few blinks, and as I hit the ice, I see right in front of me what my blade caught on. Fucking shit.

O’Rourke is spurting blood from his left arm just above his glove. I crawl to him as he lands on the ice, and he’s swearing a blue streak and turning pale. He pulls his glove off, and I pull my shirt off.