One
Kyle
The flurry of action in the corner had my attention.
Our captain was locked up with Alex Garcia, one of the young stallions on the Arizona Raptors’ roster. The puck was under Alex’s skate by the looks. To be honest, it was kind of hard to tell from my position in net, as more Rebels and Raptors joined the knot.
I glanced back when a shout nearby erupted. Apparently, Austin Rowe had said something that had an incredibly bad impact on the Raptors captain, Vladislav Novikov, the massive Russian who looked like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV and was nicknamed “Iceberg” due to his icy personality. Vlad looked furious, which was rather scary.
It was unusual for Austin to say anything that would ever make anyone mad. My roommate was one of the sweetest guys I had ever met. Well, Austin might be second to Christian Gauthier from back home in Eagle Ridge, Manitoba. Thinking of Christian was too distracting, so I shook away the bittersweet images of times past and glanced to the corner.
One of the linesmen had started shouting at the players to break it up and get the puck into play. Something— or someone— impacted me hard. As I went down in a tangle with Vlad on top of me, my shoulder popped out of the socket. The pain was incredible. My left arm went completely numb after a few seconds. My net popped off its moorings. A rush of shapes— my teammates, I was sure— moved around me as I lay on the ice moaning in pain.
“Sorry, he pushed me,” Vlad said as he was pulled off me by Marquis, then slapped upside his head. Vlad, being a hockey player, slapped Marquis back. Tate Collins got into the scrum, but not to throw punches. He was on one knee beside me, protecting me from the snarl of players now throwing down gloves.
“You hurt?” Tate asked as I was finally freed from the massive Russian. I growled out a reply, then rolled from my injured shoulder to my good one. Jaw locked, fighting back tears, I cursed madly, knowing this was far more than a dislocated shoulder. I’d felt something rip. “Lie still,” Tate said, his hand on my hip as he turned to bellow for our trainer. “It’s okay, man, you’re good. Here’s your captain.”
“Renco, hey, Wally’s coming,” Xander said, trying to get me to my skates. I nodded, gritted my teeth, and cradled my left arm in my right hand. Blinking away the dampness, I saw our new backup goalie getting on his gear. Generally, I would have fought to stay in, but there was no way I was going to finish this game. That sucked. We only played the Raptors twice a year, and the next time would be in late April out in Arizona. I’d really wanted a win against this team that had clawed its way out of the NHL sewers to be a true contender for the Cup. Wally arrived, his face a mask of concern, and started peppering me with questions.
“It’s bad,” I ground out and that was it. I was helped to my skates and then off the ice, Wally and Xander at my side, as the Rebels fans clapped and both teams tapped their sticks on the ice.
“It’ll be fine, Renco,” Xander said before I stepped off the ice, my vision blurring at the white-hot pain in my shoulder. I appreciated his cheery words, but knew, deep down, it was going to be anything but fine.
* * * * *
It took a little over two hours for the surgeons at the hospital to verify what I already knew. I’d torn something in my rotator cuff upon impact with Vlad, who, as it turned out, had been shoved into me by Austin. I’d watched the replay a dozen times as I’d been poked, prodded, x-rayed, and flirted with by a really cute nurse named Tim. Not that I was interested in Tim or any other guy right now. I was in too much pain and feeling as low as a seal’s belly, as Pop would say. Ugh. I’d have to call my parents when I got home and tell them the bad news. Both had been watching the game— they never missed one. Mom had already called as I’d been riding to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. Nick had insisted on the ambulance, and who was I to argue with the team owner?
The tear would require arthroscopic surgery and would put me on the injured reserve list for one to six months. My eyeballs nearly fell out of my head when the chief of sports medicine said that. I doubted it would be six months. I’d work hard, do therapy several times a week, and be back in net by the end of the All-Star break. At least I didn’t have to worry about a place on the Olympic team representing Canada, because DiCosta and Delaney had those main spots, each the best kind of goalies in their own right.
My heart hadn’t been in it because I wasn’t even disappointed.
I sighed, wincing at the dull throb in my shoulder, and watched the replay of the end of the game on my phone as a nurse— not cute Tim— fiddled with the IV in my right arm. They were giving me some pain meds, which was nice. I was scheduled for surgery tomorrow at six a.m. and would be sent home a day or two later. The nurse was humming “Jingle Bells” as she moved around the room taking vitals and plumping pillows.
“You have some company waiting in the hall.” I looked up from my phone. She was an older woman with graying hair and a kind smile. Her name tag said “Mona.” My head was getting a little sloppy as the pain meds kicked in.
“Is it my parents?” I asked, then corrected myself. “No, I know it’s not them. They’re in Eagle Ridge. That’s in Manitoba. Right on Hudson Bay. Pops says we have more polar bears than people in Eagle Ridge.”
She gave me a smile. “I’d stay away from the polar bears, if I were you.”
“Oh yah, we do.”
“Visiting hours are over, but Dr. Kalmar said they could come for a few minutes.” She offered me some water, which I declined, as the creeping dread I carried deep in my psyche flared up.
“Who is it?” I asked, clutching my phone in my hand as a wave of something near panic bubbled to the surface. My heart rate started to spike. Not even the meds that made things soft could keep away the sudden fear that gripped me— that someone was out there wanting to hurt me. The fears that I always carried with me, and the shadows I jumped at, were right next to me as Mona gave me a worried look.
“Your teammates. Shall I send them home?”
Relief flooded me. No one was here to hurt me. No one was waiting for a moment to drag me from my bed and kill me. I was safe.
I’m safe.
“No, no, please send them in.” The unexplained anxiety quieted a bit, knowing that someone would be in the room with me.
She gave me a long look. “I’m good. Just feeling a little funny from the medication. I’d like to see them.” She gave me a maternal look that made me pine for my mother. “Five minutes, no more.”
I worked up a smile. “Thank you. Five minutes.” She left, and I melted back into the too-stiff pillows behind me. Eyes closed, I took a cleansing breath. It was fine. All was fine. There was nothing here to hurt me. The hospital was safe. Filled with people. The shadow man couldn’t get me in here. I was fine. Safe. I was safe.
“Hey,” Xander’s soft voice pulled me from the abyss of mysterious, unnamable fear that rode my back. “Nurse Mona said we had five minutes.”
I saw Austin slip in behind Xander with a hangdog look, his bright eyes melancholy.
“I’m having surgery tomorrow,” I said for no sensible reason. “I have a sling.” I tried to lift my arm and was rewarded with a zing of pain that raced to my toes. “I have medication too.”
“Yeah, we can see.” Xander nudged Austin forward as he smiled at me. I liked Xander. He was gay, like me, and was a good captain. Just as good as Brady Rowe, Austin’s cousin, had been. “Austin wanted to talk to you badly. I told him you needed rest, but he insisted.”
“Okay.” I felt sluggish and silly, the creeping unseen that prowled my nightmares pushed back into the shadows by the arrival of my friends. This was why I always had a roommate. The unseen only came at me in the darkest, loneliest places like sleep.
“I’m super sorry,” Austin stated, standing beside my bed, looking blue. “I was trying to get under Novikov’s skin, you know, like Marquis and Moral do, right? But when I try to chirp people, they either snort at me as if I were stupid or they get mad. Vlad got mad. He called me a stupid baby who could never hope to be as talented at Tennant and should stick to sharpening Ten’s skates.”
“Ouch,” I said, and not because my shoulder hurt.
Austin sighed. Xander patted his shoulder.
“I lost my temper and shoved him. Right into you,” Austin whispered as he stared down at his sneakers.
“It happens. Accidents. It’s slippery on the ice,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound as fuzzy as I was feeling. Austin’s bright eyes lifted from the floor. “It’s good yeah. I get to go home for the holidays. It’s been years. Pops and Mom will make food for days. Did you know that polar bears can smell their prey up to a kilometer away?”
“We didn’t know that. Cool trivia!” Xander said as Austin gaped at me. “So, now that Rowe has apologized for being a bonehead and you’re not mad at him, we’re going home. We’ll drop by tomorrow after your surgery, okay?”
“I bet Mom makes flapper pie,” I replied. They both smiled, then kind of melted away as I slipped into a deep and thankfully dream-free sleep.
* * * * *
I did a lot of sleeping for a day or so after the surgery. All of it at home and with Austin there most of the time. He still felt bad and was fetching me everything I asked for, as well as things I didn’t ask for. He heated me soup, changed my socks, made me tea, and tried to comb my hair. When he offered to help me use the toilet, I drew the line. Politely of course because I am Canadian, and Austin is a nice guy. We watched old movies— lots of Rocky, as I loved Sly Stallone flicks— and wrapped presents. Austin wrapped. I sat there in my pajamas with my arm in a sling being utterly useless and grumpy. Austin claimed I was far from grumpy, but I felt grumpy. Like a polar bear with a burr on its butt. I was beginning to notice that people from Eagle Ridge have a lot of polar bear references.
When Austin wasn’t home, I pulled my old wooden goalie paddle out from under the bed and tucked it under the covers. No one knew I did that, thank God. It was a childhood thing, a way of calming myself when the unseen would appear at night or in my dreams. It was stupid for a twenty-five-year-old man to sleep with a kid’s hockey stick… I knew that. My life would be better if I slept with men. A man. Christian. The only man I’d ever slept with, if I were being honest. Not that I hadn’t had chances to have sex with guys. I did, lots of them, but they weren’t quite what I was looking for in a man. They weren’t Christian.
For a long time, I wondered if there was something off with me and my libido. I wanted sex. I enjoyed sex, I even yearned for it at times, but when the opportunity presented itself, I would balk. As when I’d been in Aruba with the guys for Xander’s thirtieth birthday. One of the hotel bellhops had come onto me big time, making it really clear he would bring me whatever I wanted. He was cute in a blond twink sort of way, and no one would have known.
Being gay wasn’t the issue. It was me. After a long time spent reading and dwelling on my sexuality, I came to the conclusion that I was gay and demiromantic. Having casual sex just didn’t do it for me. I had to have a romantic connection first. And since I traveled all the time, and was on the ice when I wasn’t in the air, that left little time for romance. Seeing as how I had to have that connection to a person before I could sleep with them…
Yeah. I spent a lot of time jerking off while fantasizing about the way Christian kissed or the way he would call my name in a heated rush as he came.
But Christian was a thing from the past, and he’d moved on when I’d moved away. He was in Manitoba ‘being fabulous’ according to my parents. Working in the Gauthier family store, part-timing as a search and rescue volunteer, and coaching the Eagle Ridge Eaglets junior hockey team. And here I was in Boston, playing on an NHL team and being… well, not fabulous.
“Do you want help packing?” Austin asked as I lugged a suitcase out of my closet, then tossed it to my bed. He was hovering, being sweet and solicitous, as I bumbled around with my arm in a sling.
“No thanks. I can do it.” I gave him a forced smile. It felt odd to be getting ready to go home with presents in red and green wrapping paper to take to my parents. Generally, it was the summer whenever I managed short trips home but I mostly stayed in Boston and invited my parents visit me. I cited my need to be here as business. Which was partly true. I did own half of a whale watching/ deep-sea fishing charter business that operated out of the harbor. So, I spent a lot of time on the sea, which was something I’d grown to love as a kid being raised beside Hudson Bay. But a lot of my reticence about going home was because Christian was there. I think Mom suspected that, but she never said it. “I’m going to miss traveling with you guys.”
“I’m sorry,” Austin whispered. I knew he was.
“It’s okay. Really, I needed to go home and recharge.” That was a lie. I did not need to go back to Manitoba and see Christian. “This will be a nice break! I’ll do my rehab at home, eat lots of great food, and come back in time for the playoff run.”
He tried to smile, but failed. “Yeah, sure. Let me carry that to the curb when you’re ready to go, okay?”
“I’m not leaving for another two days,” I reminded him. Two days. Shit. Maybe I should actually tell my parents I was coming home. My last call with them was all about rehab and how Christmas would be quiet, but there was something in Mom’s tone, a deep sadness that slapped me around the face and told me I needed to man the fuck up and get my weary ass home— if only for a few days. Best-case scenario I would roll up to their house and surprise them, see their excited faces, and we would have the best Christmas ever— I could even see Christian. But my alternative best-case scenario was that something would happen to keep me in Boston, and maybe I paid for them to come here instead. Maybe I should do that? Then I wouldn’t have to see Christian at all. Or Eagle Ridge. Or the resignation in my parents’ eyes because I hardly ever went home.
“Yeah, I know,” Austin continued and yanked me out of my thoughts. “I just want to help. You should keep an eye on the weather. Carl the weatherman on WCBV said something about a winter storm they’re keeping an eye on.”
“I’m from Manitoba. A tiny blizzard don’t bother us none.” I said it just to razz him a little since he was from Toronto. It was a thing we did. Saying Manitoba was colder and snowier than Toronto and vice versa. Just posturing a little as friends did. “But thanks for the heads up. You can go see Robbie now. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure, yeah, of course you will be.” He blushed, then muttered something before backing out of my room. I dropped down on the bed, shoulder aching, and nudged the little wooden goalie paddle back under the bed with my heel. I hoped I wouldn’t need it back home. Sometimes the unseen was stronger around my parents for some bizarre reason. And this time, I couldn’t rely on Christian to hold onto when the nightmares came for me because I doubted he’d even talk to me.
