Page 68 of He Has Pluck

“Don’t worry about me,” I say. I notice Juliette slip out of the room. I guess she doesn’t need any more semi-nude locker room shots.

After eating, I’m tempted to skip PT, but Coach stands at the exit and watches everyone as they turn right down the hallway toward the PT and training room at the facility. I hang back to finally grab a few private words with Juliette.

She’s talking with Carlos while he sits at a table still eating, so I wait and wonder if she has bothered to eat anything. She has a habit of neglecting to eat while she’s working, and I mentally make a note to stop on the way home to get her some takeout whether she asks or not.

When she turns and heads for the small hallway near the restrooms, she darts me a glance, and I follow her. Cornering her against the wall outside the ladies’ room door, I bend my head and kiss her lips as if I’m a man wandering a desert who’s just found an oasis. After I drink her in for too short a time, I separate my mouth from hers but rest my forehead on hers, my body against hers, and my hands float up and down her sides.

“Looks like we’re not going to have a chance to talk much until after the game,” I say, more disappointed about the non-talking activities that will have to wait. Still, there’s that knot of uncertainty underneath all the pleasure and warmth between us that makes me feel off, like skating on a blade with a chink in it that could trip me up at any time.

“Don’t worry about me,” she says. “You just worry about winning the game.”

“If we don’t—”

“My hands are full with filming and then post filming edits and production. We’ll have a few more interviews for the narrative on some of the clips and the like. So I’ll be around another two weeks working on this thing.” She’s careful not to say the words when the season ends.

But it’s going to end at some point, even if it’s not tonight, and the idea that she’ll be in my bed for at least two weeks afterward with nothing for me to do except worship her body has my focus off hockey for a precious beat.

“Good to know,” I say. My dick appreciates it, and my smirk tells her what I’m thinking.

“You’re a pig.”

“But I’m your pig,” I say.

She keeps a straight face with only the twinkle in those heart-stopping eyes giving away her amusement.

***

The game is tense on both sides of the puck, and for all our focus, individually and as a team, Washington matches us. They’re on fucking fire. Not that we aren’t, but our flame burns like a bonfire while theirs is more like a raging forest fire.

It’s halfway through the third period, and the score is two-to-one in our favor when our line takes the ice, minus O’Rourke. I pass the puck to Rafe, and he expects it, catches it, but in a lightning-quick move of anticipation, Washington’s fucking defenseman pokes it away, and the damn puck goes to their fucking star forward.

Skating hard with my lungs screaming, I reach my stick to poke the puck from him and instead catch his skate. As soon as the fucker falls to the ice, the ref blows his whistle.

“Two minutes for tripping.”

“Fuck,” I mutter as I follow the ref to the penalty box, which never felt more like the Sin Bin than right now. I can feel the coach’s eyes burning into my back. Rafe skates by and taps my shins with his stick.

“Sorry, man,” I say, shaking my head.

“Shit happens,” he says. “You’re not the only one to get a penalty today.”

I grunt and take my seat in the box. With my heart pounding, I watch my teammates try to neutralize my penalty, fighting short-handed to keep us ahead in this game. Too bad Washington has other ideas. The intensity on their team kicks up even more than before, and it’s like watching a war of wills. I feel like the damn rope in the tug of war. When the rope snaps, it’s Washington that shoots the puck into the net, and the crowd that had been on their feet a second before deflates.

Shoving back out onto the ice, Coach waves me over to the bench. He sends a guy from the third line out in my place. Fuck. My heart beats out of control now, and I force myself to put aside that sinking feeling because there’s still time to win this fucking game. I swear to myself that if Coach lets me back in, I will score a fucking goal.

Instead, with two minutes left in the game, Washington scores against Tony G’s line, putting them ahead. I stay on the bench until thirty seconds to go and the last line change.

“Get your ass out there, Tansem. See if you can give us a one-timer.” I jump over the boards and catch up to the rest of my line on Washington’s end. Rafe digs the puck out of the corner, and I give it a shot, but the puck goes wide. Our defenseman gets the rebound and passes the puck out front. Rafe catches and shoots, and Washington’s goalie makes an impossible save.

We have one more shot on the faceoff with only a few ticks left on the clock. I can feel the expectation of my teammates, of the entire Garden, focused on me as Rafe takes his place for the puck drop. He glances at me and nods. I know what I need to do. Catch the puck on my stick and one-time it into the net.

The puck drops, and there’s no clear winner of the faceoff, so the puck doesn’t make it out of the circle, and as I rush for it, Washington’s left wing smacks the puck out of reach and past the blue line. The buzzer goes off louder than I’ve ever heard, signaling the end of the game—and possibly the end of my NHL career.

I skate away with my teammates, unable to watch Washington celebrate their fucking win. Though I have to admit, somewhere deep down, they deserve it. My chest squeezes, and I automatically look to where I know Juliette is sitting, expecting to see her looking through her camera, but she’s not. She’s standing on the other side of the gate watching me, everything in her heart showing on her face, most of all care and concern for me.

It takes everything in me not to lose it, not to reach out and haul her into my arms the minute I step off the ice and pull off my helmet. Instead, she comes to me, wraps her arms around me and walks with me and the team back to the locker room, defeated.

Postgame is a blur of media; family, friends and teammates consoling each other and making the first steps to get past the disappointment, the anger, the sadness and the frustration. Some guys are better at coping than others. I’m lucky I have Juliette holding me up, preventing me from going into that negative spiral, that black hole that hovers at the edges. The place where my dad went when he let life discourage him permanently.