Hat Trick 3: Penalty Shot (24 page)

“Could’ve been a lot worse.” The intermission buzzer sounded and TJ was already through the rink door. Bryan met him halfway across the ice and gave him a brief, awkward hug. I knew from experience hugs in hockey gear weren’t easy, especially when moving across the ice. I loved how comfortable they were. “I’m going to the bench, I’ll see you after the game.”

I closed the rink door behind me and quickly crossed the ice. TJ was skating around a bit as Hillary talked to the team to get them ready for the last period. It was a good one, too, as we won three-to-two.

I was in one of the community center’s meeting rooms, finishing notes about the meeting I’d just had, when my phone chirped with a text message. I ignored it because it wasn’t Alex’s tone and I needed to get these notes down. I’d finished my second meeting with Clare, a fifteen-year-old who wanted to figure out how to come out to her parents. She was already secretly in the gay-straight alliance at her school as well as making visits here. The problem, as she saw it, was that her parents were very religious and she wasn’t sure how they’d react.

I was referring her to one of our religious counselors. We had several gay friendly churches that we worked with and I was going to find someone who could help.

Once I documented everything, I pulled my phone. The text was from Alex’s mom wondering where he was. Ugh. Given the time, he should be in class, which would be wrapping up in about ten minutes. I didn’t want to answer this. She still wasn’t my favorite person. In fact this was the first time she’d contacted me since she’d gone back to Dawson. However, I needed to be a grown up and respond, keeping my grudge in the background. I typed quickly and hit send:
He should be out of class in about ten minutes. You’ll probably hear from him then.

I’d barely put the phone down before it rang. No surprise it was her.

“Hello, Martha,” I said, doing my best to sound like I wanted to talk to her.

“Well at least one of you answers me,” she said with no hello. “How’d PT go this morning? I didn’t hear from him after.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him since breakfast.”

“What?” Her voice jumped in volume.

“I’m not going with him every day anymore. Both he and the doc said it wasn’t necessary.”

“What kind of support is that? Of course you have to go with him. What if he needs help after?”

“If he and the doctor say it’s okay. I believe them. They know how to get in touch with me if they need to.”

“But what if he can’t?”

“They won’t let him leave if he’s unable.” It was difficult to not lose my temper, but that wasn’t going to do any good.

I recognized the click on the line as another call coming in for her. It wasn’t a surprise who it was. “That’s Alex now. I have to go.”

Just like that she was gone. She used to have manners. Martha and John were the second people I came out to. She took care of me when I got thrown out of my house. I didn’t recognize her anymore.

I put the phone on the table and held my head in my hands, massaging my temples to ease the tension.

“Simon?” It was Trevor. How long had he been standing in the doorway? “You okay?”

I looked up and shrugged.

He came in and closed the door. I was thankful in so many ways for Trevor. He was a fantastic mentor. I learned things from him every day that were going to make me better in my career, and in working with people in general. He was also a great boss, giving me the leeway to handle school, the team, the occasional wild hare like going to coach at camp last summer and now the flexibility to do what was needed to support Alex.

“What’s up?” And now he knew I needed to talk.

“Alex’s mom. She pinged me because she hadn’t heard from him this morning. It was not a nice conversation. I got yelled at because I’m not going to therapy with him every day. I get that she’s a worried mom, but what she’s doing isn’t helping either one of us. I can take it, but Alex has enough going on that he doesn’t need his mother to make him feel like he’s making bad choices.”

“It’s not an easy position to be in, for any of you. How’s his dad feel?”

“Last time I talked to him, he was still trying to get her to back off. I don’t think she’s making things easy for him either. If she could, I think she’d come here and force Alex to go home.” I groaned. “Is family ever easy?”

Trevor looked at me. He wanted me to answer that. It was one of his tricks that I found myself often using with young people to let them figure things out.

“Evil,” I said. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to contain a laugh. “I’ll tell you what you already know. Family can be easy. We see evidence of that here all the time. We see the flip side way too often, too. What’s never easy is crisis.”

“So why is she trying to make it worse?”

“She’s having a pretty normal reaction for a mother whose only son got a horrible diagnosis. She’s probably never dealt with anything like this. Do you really think she’s trying to hurt anyone?”

I thought for a moment and as much as I wanted to say yes, I couldn’t. “I hope not. I just wish she could see the chaos she’s causing.”

“Maybe you could help her see that. Try to help her see what she’s doing.”

“I’ve tried, but she ends up pushing my buttons. It’s hard to guide when under fire.”

Trevor nodded. “I’ve been there. The best you can do is keep trying.”

“My mom’s trying, too. They’ve talked, but it’s like she can’t see that she’s asking for the wrong thing. It’s like she thinks Alex is twelve instead of twenty-two.

My phone rang this time, and it was Alex’s tone. Trevor saw the screen and stood up. “You should take that. Stop by later, we’ll grab a coffee and talk about things that have nothing to do with overprotective moms.”

“You got it. Thanks, Trevor.” I answered the call. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”

“How’s my favorite counselor?”

“It’s a good day so far, nothing too crazy.”

“Except my mother calling. She told me. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. It was brief. Luckily you called her so she won’t worry for a while. How was therapy?”

“It was fine. It’s amazing how many ways there are to stretch. Seriously, I think one day he’s going to make me bend completely backwards or something.”

“Is there really a use for that?”

“Competitive Twister, maybe.” We laughed. His mom’s call didn’t seem to upset him very much. “I mean, it’s supposed to help make sure my nerves communicate correctly. I’m glad it’s just me and the doc doing this stuff, sometimes the positions are embarrassing.”

I conjured some images in my mind that I quite liked. “Maybe you could show me sometime.”

A low growl escaped from Alex. “That might be fun. I’m supposed to start doing some of these before bed.”

“I propose naked bedtime stretching then.”

“You realize that we may be late for bed, or we don’t finish the stretches.”

“I’d make it a rule that we’d have to finish the exercises. Important for your health after all. Besides, I imagine I’ll quite like being on the floor doing them next to you.”

“Oh, man. If you were on campus right now I’d say meet me in the room.”

“Hold that thought until tonight?”

“I can do that. Love you.”

“Love you. Call me later if you want.”

Nothing like a talk with Trevor and a call from Alex to reset my mood.

We were way early getting to practice, like forty-five minutes early. I still enjoyed morning practices best, even when I was short on sleep. It was fun and gave me the energy to get through the morning. This one was extra special because it was Alex’s return to practice as a skater. He wasn’t cleared for contact, but he could skate, do drills and could play in scrimmages as long as he wasn’t checked. It was an early Christmas present getting to re-join practice a couple days before going home for break.

This was the doctor’s way of letting him come back slow. Alex wanted to start skating last week, even if it was on his own, but they didn’t want to rush and I wouldn’t let him cheat on that either. There was no reason to be risky. Plus, in my non-medical opinion, last week he needed to rest and focus on finals instead of coming back to practice.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as we geared up.

“Actually a little nervous,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone this long without skating, much less playing. And then there’s what happened the last time I was on this ice.”

“It’s time to put all that behind you.”

“Yup,” he said, in full agreement. “I’m glad coach said I could go out early, just to make sure it feels alright.”

“And if anything feels weird, you’ll stop, right?”

“Yes, Mom.” I scowled at him and he flinched. “Sorry, that was probably the worst thing I could say.”

“Yup. It kinda was. But you’re forgiven.”

“I’ll stop if anything’s off though. I know you and coach, and probably everyone else are going to be watching like a hawk. I probably couldn’t get anything past you guys even if I wanted to.”

He was moving fast, so I stepped up my speed to make sure I went out with him. I was nervous about this, at least as much as he was. He said his legs were feeling good, and had been for a while. I know the docs wouldn’t have cleared him if he wasn’t physically ready. Still…

“I never thought I’d be scared to go out on the ice,” he said out of the blue as he was putting on his upper body pads. “I can walk, hell I’ve been jogging in therapy, there’s no reason I won’t be able to do this.”

“The mind likes to be stupid. It’s gonna be fine.”

He pulled on his jersey as I was getting my shoulder pads on. He looked at me with a mix of hurry up, and I’m sorry I’m asking you to hurry up. I finally put my helmet on, but he stopped me.

“Let’s just skate for a few minutes.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t going to debate anything he wanted to do, even if it was skate in a circle for a half hour. We headed out of the locker room towards the ice. We carried sticks and our helmets. As long as we didn’t have pucks on the ice, we’d be able to leave the helmets off.

“Then we’ll do something more hardcore,” he finally added.

“Whatever you want. This is your time.”

The player’s entrance was open so we walked up to the edge of the ice. He turned to me. “Here goes nothing,” he said with a wink and a smile. In that smile I saw his old confidence, whether he knew it was there or not.

He put one skate on the ice and pushed off with the other, gliding across the ice towards the bench. No problem with that. I joined him and we put our stuff down. This was a flashback to the Central rink when we used to have time with just us, or with Jackson and Leo, too.

“Come on,” he said. He held out his hand, and I took it.

We skated off, staying along the boards, which gave us the maximum amount of ice to cover. We weren’t going slow, but we weren’t going game speed either. He seemed to relax as his legs proved that they remembered how skating worked. The speed increased ever so slightly with each lap. As we completed a fourth lap, he squeezed my hand before letting it go and speeding up even more, adding crossovers in the turns. I adjusted my speed and stayed in next to him as we looped. After a few laps he brought us to a stop behind a goal line. He didn’t even have to tell me what this was for.

“Really?” I asked. “You’re back for five minutes and you’re going to try to beat me?”

“Scared I might actually win?”

I snorted. “Like that’ll happen.”

Truth was, over the years we were pretty equal on the suicide races. The winning traded off and we were always super close. More than anything we liked the trash talk and posturing.

“Maybe I’ll let you win. You know, given your condition and all.”

“Oh, fuck you,” he said with a wink.

I got into position without another word and he followed suit.

As was our tradition, we did the count together. “One, two, three, go.” And we were off. He was strong. He’d lost nothing in therapy. I was cranked at full speed and he had to be, too. We were pushing hard for the win and it was a photo finish at the other end of the ice.

“Not bad,” he said. “I kinda figured you’d win that.”

He wasn’t joking. He’d surprised himself.

“You were flying,” I said, putting aside any competition. “Kudos to the doc for keeping you strong. I think you might be stronger now. I was pushing, maybe more than usual.”

“Did you lose a little something while you weren’t racing against me?” Some swagger resurfaced in his voice.

“Maybe I need a more decisive victory to remind you who the person to beat is,” I said, refusing to be one-upped.

This time it was Alex who stepped up to the line ready to go. We sprinted again and I did edge him out just a bit this time, hitting the plexi behind the goal line first by a fraction of a second.

“Show off,” he said, grinning. “That felt good. I’ve missed this. A lot. One more?”

“Let’s do it.”

Down we went again with another finish that was too close to call.

“Looks like this battle goes to me since I had the only decisive victory in that set.”

“Whatever. I can’t show you up my first day back, you might hold it against me.” He came up close and planted a kiss on my sweaty cheek. “Can we do some passing?”

“Yup.” We headed to the bench to get what we needed. “I’m glad you’re back. I didn’t realize how weird it’s been having you at the rink but not on the ice until just now. Your energy’s been here, but on the ice is where you’re supposed to be. I’m glad I didn’t focus on that too much or I might have really screwed up my game.”

He didn’t respond, which was good. There really was no comment he could’ve given that wouldn’t have been too sappy.

Alex tossed a puck out on the ice. “Simple, tight give and go that we’ll widen out?”

“Alright.” We took it at about half game speed and passed tight and sharp. He was near center ice and I was along the boards. At the goal line, we’d swing around and start up again. As we went, we’d change up our distance to each other, maybe even cross and change the lane we were in. We fell into our old groove with no problem.