Center Ice (10 page)

But it wasn’t like Tyler and I were married, or even going out. I hadn’t even been willing to commit to showing up for a run.

I had no claim on him. It was none of my business what, or who, he did. I nodded at Natalie and said, “Okay. Goodnight,” and I went downstairs. It was hard not to imagine Tyler, his hair falling in his eyes as he directed his sexy grin at some other girl, as he let her hands run over his broad shoulders and down his tight chest and abs…

Damn it. I was pretty sure I’d made a huge mistake, walking away from him. It had felt right at the time, but obviously my brain could not be trusted on these matters. I pulled my dress off over my head and tossed it into the hamper, then flopped down on my bed. I ran my hand down my body, imagining that it was Tyler touching me, but it was no good. I kept picturing him with the bathroom girls, and then, even worse, Miranda, her perfect blond hair just a little mussed…

No. That image was not one I wanted in my brain.

For the millionth time that day, I wanted to talk to my mother. I wanted her to sit back on the ratty old sofa in our living room and pull me back to lean on her, just like she’d always done when I was upset. She’d smooth my hair away from my face and kiss me on the temple, and I’d feel safe and loved. We’d talk about it, and she’d mostly just listen. She’d ask questions, maybe, like she was really trying to figure it out, working through it with me.

That was what I wanted, and it was what I could never have. Thinking of that made all the nonsense with Tyler seem unimportant. My mother was gone. I was alone. Tyler was a distraction, but he wasn’t one that I could afford. I was still too messed up, and I didn’t need the complications.

He was a temptation I should try to resist.

Chapter Fifteen

- Tyler -

I hadn’t wanted to go back to the party after dropping Karen off, so I just walked around for a while. I kept thinking about Karen, and about my past. I wondered if I’d change it, if I could. Would I give up all those girls, all those women, for a chance with a girl like Karen?

Well, I wouldn’t have to give
all
of them up, I supposed. It wasn’t like Karen was expecting me to be a complete virgin. She just wasn’t looking for a total manwhore, either.

And that made me mad, for about a block of walking. I mean, she didn’t like people judging the puck bunnies for the choices
they
made, but she was going to judge
me
for the things
I’d
done. At least my activities were in the past, and I’d learned something from them. The puck bunnies were still going strong, and if I headed back down to the beach I could probably have one of them in my truck inside of five minutes. Hell, I could’ve probably had two or three of them. It didn’t seem fair that I wasn’t getting any credit at all for showing a little restraint and
not
taking advantage of what was being offered.

Yeah, that lasted for about a block. Then I remembered how confused and hurt Karen had looked, and the resentment faded out of me pretty damn fast. One of the things that I liked about her was the way she saw things from the outside and didn’t buy into the whole hockey-heroes thing. So I couldn’t turn around and
stop
liking that about her just because she didn’t give me the hockey-player immunity I was used to.

I wished she hadn’t looked so good tonight. With her hair up and that old-fashioned dress on, she’d looked… I don’t know. Delicate, I guess, except I’d run with her and knew how strong and fit she was, so I wasn’t sure the word worked. Classy, for sure. That was a good one. But it wasn’t all of it, because
classy
shouldn’t be enough to have made me want to touch her all the time, which I totally did. Just holding her hand had been as memorable as full-out sex with some of the other girls I’d been with.

When I reached the park I started along the path we both followed. It was dark in the woods, the leaves cutting out most of the moonlight, but I knew the path well and the lack of light kind of fit my mood.

But obviously I shouldn’t have been playing my emo game because I tripped over a root and fell forward, and my foot got caught somewhere behind me. For a split second, I thought I might actually hurt myself. Not a scraped knee, but an actual injury, something that would keep me on the sidelines for this, my big year where I was supposed to get scouted and drafted and go to the big league. And for that split second before my foot twisted free and I caught myself, I wasn’t scared.

I was relieved.

I stood there alone in the forest, trying to make any sense out of that reaction. I’d spent my whole life working on making my body into a hockey machine, and now my brain was trying to sabotage all my efforts. Was that what my dad was seeing, what he was trying to warn me about? Sure, my dad was power tripping, but wasn’t I being just as bad, acting like a rebellious little kid instead of a serious athlete?

If my attitude had deteriorated to the point where I was actually
happy
about the prospect of getting injured, then my attitude needed a readjustment. I would have to worry a little less about showing my dad who was boss and a little more about keeping myself on track. If I flaked out, it all would have been a waste. The missed birthday parties and school trips; the homework done in the back seat of the car, if it got done at all; the mornings I’d be on the ice before the sun came up, my mom sipping coffee in the stands with all the other dedicated parents; the afternoons I’d spend doing drills or practicing my shot instead of playing with the other kids; the nights spent watching videos, my dad pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of other players; the early bedtime so I could get up the next morning and start all over again.

I was in my fifth year of high school because when my coaches had suggested I take six classes a year instead of eight, my parents hadn’t even blinked. Hockey had been my life since the first time I’d strapped on a pair of skates, all in the service of the ultimate dream. If I didn’t make the NHL, I’d have nothing to show for the last
fifteen
years. My total reward for all that effort would be my two hundred and twenty dollars a week as an OHL player and a long list of barely remembered women who’d slept with me on the off chance that I might be somebody worth bragging about someday.

It was terrifying. Maybe that was why my brain was crapping out on me. Maybe it was trying to set up some defenses in case the worst happened. Because the truth was, I was a long way from a sure thing for the NHL. I was a solid player, but I wasn’t the best at anything. I could skate better than most, but I wasn’t the fastest guy out there, maybe not even the fastest on our team. I had a good shot, but I wasn’t the absolute best sniper. I hit hard, made good plays, hustled, took abuse… I did it all well. Some years, the league was looking for strong all-round players. Other years, they wanted specialists. And even in a year where they
were
looking for all-rounders, was I one of the absolute best?

I wanted a drink. No, that wasn’t quite right. I wanted a
lot
of drinks, and then I wanted to have a lot of sex, and then probably some more drinks, and then…yeah, probably then some more sex. I wanted to stop thinking about it all. I wanted to be distracted from the uncertainties, the things my dad pretended to be able to control with his bullshit about hard work and playing smart. The truth was that sometimes it didn’t matter how hard you worked or how smart you played; sometimes, you still wouldn’t be good enough, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about that.

I turned around and headed out of the forest, walking fast but more carefully than I had on the way in. I wasn’t going to let myself get injured. I wasn’t going to take the easy way out. But I was absolutely going to find some alcohol. And I was going to try to use it to turn off my brain. If the beer wasn’t enough…well, the beer and the puck bunnies were all in the same place. It seemed like the best place for me to be, too.

But I caught myself by the time I reached the street. I had no idea where things were with Karen. It was totally possible that things were blown forever, but maybe they weren’t. But going back to the party and hooking up with someone? If Karen found out,
that
would be the end. And I didn’t want to have to lie to her, didn’t want to sneak around or worry about getting busted. We didn’t have any secrets anymore, and I wanted to keep it that way.

So instead of turning toward the beach, I walked in the opposite direction. There were cars in the arena parking lot, enough to let me know what I was going to find when I went inside, and sure enough, there they were. The bar league hadn’t really started up yet, but some of the teams had booked ice time for practices already. A bunch of guys, from just out of high school to retirement age, skating around, stick handling and shooting, playing our game and having a hell of a good time.

I climbed up into the stands and sat down. The sounds were a strange mix of familiar and exotic. I was used to the slap of sticks on ice, the grunts of men working hard, the crash of padded bodies into boards. But there was more laughing here, less yelling, and no whistle blowing to send the players to their next drills. They were sorting it all out for themselves, doing their own things at their own speeds. I was jealous.

I barely noticed when someone else climbed up into the stands, but I turned to look when he sat down beside me. “Hey, Coach,” I said. I wasn’t sure what he was going to think about me hanging around the rink after hours. I was supposed to love the game, but I was supposed to be hanging out with the team and bonding, too.

But he didn’t seem too concerned. “Any good prospects out there?” he asked lightly.

I shrugged. “Number seventy-two’s got some hustle,” I said. Number seventy-two’s jersey number probably matched his age.

Coach nodded, and we both just sat there for a bit, watching. When a guy skated up to the boards and looked at us, I didn’t recognize him, but I guess he knew us. “Hey, Coach,” he said. “Hey, Tyler. You guys want to come show us how it’s done?” A couple other players skated over and laughed, but they were staring at us like they were expecting an answer.

“You already seem to know what you’re doing,” Coach said. He was pretty good at being diplomatic. But he surprised me when he said, “But maybe we could come down and skate with you a bit.” He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’re too tired?”

I probably wasn’t allowed to skate with them. I hadn’t read my contract too carefully, but my dad and my agent had made it clear that it would be incredibly stupid to get injured playing a game I wasn’t getting paid for. But if my coach said it was okay…. “I’m not too tired,” I said.

I still wasn’t sure if this was for real, but Coach stood up and pulled his locker room keys out of his pocket. “We’ll go get changed,” he said. “You guys have the ice for a while?”

“Another forty-five minutes.”

So Coach and me put our gear on and went out on the ice. At first the other players were kind of over-respectful, almost shy, but then Coach started trash talking me and I got brave enough to throw a few playful insults back, and everybody relaxed. It was weird to think that these grown men had been intimidated by a kid like me, but that was the hockey mystique.

When Coach and I hit the ice, the practice turned into a sort of loose scrimmage, and it felt good to just skate and play. I tried a few tricks I’d seen on TV, and they mostly didn’t work, but it was fun just to goof around. I played defense for a while, just for a change, skated backward and blocked shots and pretended to get mad when the other team’s players didn’t respect my goalie. Then I went back to my usual position as center, and I tried to make plays, tried to anticipate a game played at a different speed than the one I was used to. I didn’t do a great job, but after one of my passes led to a goal, the scorer skated up to me and said, “I’m going to tell everybody about this when you hit the big league. I’m going to point to you on the TV screen and tell them about the time I got an assist from Tyler MacDonald the NHL star.”

“
Star
, even,” I said. I didn’t want to be rude, but I really didn’t need one more person making assumptions about my future that I wasn’t sure I could live up to. “Not just making the league, but actually being a star. Damn. You’re a bit of an optimist, huh?”

“Nope,” he said with a confident grin. He glided away from me backward. “I’ve just got an eye for talent.”

I tried not to let it bug me. I just wanted to
play
. I wanted to remind myself that even if the NHL didn’t work out, I could still have this, could still skate around and take shots and have fun with my friends. But after the first guy said it, it seemed to set everyone else off, and they were all talking about the team’s prospects for the season, what teams I wanted to play for in the NHL, whether I’d get called up after this year or be back in the development leagues next fall. It was all stuff that I had no control over, and I guess it was fun for
them
to wonder about it because it wasn’t their lives they were talking about. For me? I wasn’t sorry when the next team came out on the ice for their practice time and Coach and I got to head off to the locker room.

I wasn’t all that sweaty, but I showered anyway. Coach was waiting for me when I came out with my wet hair dripping onto my dry shirt. “Shit, sorry,” I said. “Do you need to lock up?”

He shook his head and just looked at me. “You’re doing okay, Tyler,” he said.

It was nice to hear, but it shouldn’t have been something he needed to say. I shouldn’t have been seeming weak or needy or insecure or whatever it was that made him think I needed to hear it. So I smiled innocently and said, “Thanks. I’m trying.”

“I know you are,” he said.

I turned away quickly and bent over as if there was something wrong with my shoe. It was stupid for me to react so strongly to such simple words. I guess I’d gotten a bit too used to my dad’s approach, and it had left me unprepared for something softer.

“Thanks for letting me play tonight,” I said once I was sure I had my voice under control. “It was fun.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It was.” Then he clapped me on the shoulder. “Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. But I didn’t go home right away. Instead, I stayed in the shadows by the Zamboni door and watched the next bunch of players take the ice. They were just as varied as the previous team, just as enthusiastic about getting back on the ice after a long summer off. But this time, I didn’t let them see me. This time, I thought it would be better if I wasn’t noticed at all.