GAGE
Despite the chill from the rink frosting over me, my adrenaline is like oxygen to the uncontained fire smoldering in my chest. Every muscle in my body is swollen with an ache that only hockey gives me, and my fucking sinuses are on fire from the ice-cold atmosphere.
It’s 5-5. There’s only a minute left in the game. We need to win this. We’re on a winning streak, and if we want to make it to playoffs this season, then we have to uphold it.
Sweat bleeds into my eyes, blurring the figures of my teammates, and hockey-padded silhouettes skirt along my peripheral, closing in on the goal. The screams from the stands meld with the shouts from the ice, and it’s a sensory overload to every charred nerve ending. I have my legs in a half-split that hurts like hell, my grip on my stick is wavering with each passing second, and I’m not sure how many more beats my heart can take before it bursts from my chest.
The Denver Dingos are a few feet from the goal, and a giant number thirty is blared across the pixelated screen, signaling that if I don’t save this next shot, the Reapers are gonna take home a loss.
You can do this, Gage. You’ve done this a million times before. Try and guess his next move—look at where his eyes dart, how his arm twitches. Cover as much of the goal as you can.
As a black-and-red player charges at me, swinging his stick completely backward before slapping the thick of the puck, I take a mental note of the arc of his arm, and the bulk of my body flies toward the upper righthand corner of the net.
Everything slows—time, my breath, my heart. My outstretched arm is the first to contact the edge of the disc, but as I continue to torque my spine, something in my hip strains, causing the rest of my body to crumple from the overextension. The puck continues its perfect trajectory into the nylon, and the eruption of the crowd drowns out the deafening pulse of blood in my ears, as well as the scream projecting from deep within my chest.
Fuck.
I can’t move. I can feel every little needle pricking the lower half of me, preparing my body for the brunt of the pain, like a clear sky before a mosh pit of storm clouds. And then the needles transform into a legion of miniature knives, rendering me helpless in layers of suffocating gear. I can feel hot tears bubble up in my burning eyes.
Shit, shit, shit. What just happened?
I attempt to lift my leg to my chest, but I can’t even test my mobility without a searing throb in my lower abdomen. I don’t know how long I’m face-down on the ground. Puffs of heated breath slip through the metal bars covering my face, gusting against the pockmarked surface of the ice; that’s the only indication I haven’t passed out yet. The world’s moving on without me, the raucous cheers from the winning team making my stomach sling sickness up my throat.
“Gage! Gage, are you okay?”
I think it’s Fulton, my best friend, but I don’t want to open my eyes to check. The last thing I need is a migraine to complicate the unbearable sting wrapping around my leg a goddamn spike strip.
“My hip,” I grit out through my teeth, trying to siphon air into my heaving lungs. And as if my body’s playing some sick trick on me, a violent spasm rips through my hip’s muscle fibers, confirming that I did, in fact, fuck up my hip in a single, goalie-proof move.
“Okay. Don’t worry. A medic is coming over right now. You’re gonna be fine,” he says, though I’m pretty sure it’s more for his sake than mine.
Once other voices join the conversation, all wobbling with varying degrees of concern, everything becomes fuzzy. I don’t remember getting escorted off the ice; I don’t remember the state of the stands after our disappointing loss; I don’t remember even seeing Coach or talking with my teammates. All I remember is feeling weak, like I could barely stand on my own two feet, and I hate that feeling. Powerless, helpless, vulnerable. I was all too familiar with that feeling after what happened to my little brother, and I swore to myself that I’d never feel that way ever again.
“Looks like you tore your hip flexor pretty badly. There’s no need for surgery, and you will be able to walk again, but you’ll need at least three months to recover until you can be back on the ice,” our team’s physical therapist discloses, offering me a consolatory smile. “I suggest keeping diligent about at-home treatment, but I’m also going to propose three physical therapy sessions a week until you hit that three-month mark, and then we can see how you’re doing.”
My stupid, injured hip taunts me, and my frustration at the situation shifts into utter hysterics as a clipped laugh shoots out of me. “Fucking great. That’s great. I’m useless for three months.”
“You’ll still be able to go about your day. You may just need more help when it comes to walking.”
So, useless.
I position my legs carefully over the edge of the table, grimacing from the pain moving my hip a mere two inches causes. I know this isn’t a life-threatening injury, but how am I supposed to get around? Will the guys just give me a piss bag instead of wheeling me into the bathroom every time I need to go? Will they stock my mini fridge with food because I won’t be able to get down the stairs? Or will they have to install one of those old-person stairlifts in the house? Oh, God. I need my legs.
And what about sex? Does that mean I’m going to have to enter a dry spell for three months? I don’t think I’m strong enough for that. I think I’d rather just amputate the leg and get it over with.
“How do you expect me to stay off the ice for three months? I can’t just sit around and do nothing,” I grumble.
Hockey is something I enjoy. It’s the epicenter of my life, and everything else I do is based around it. If you take that away, I don’t know how to function. And if you throw in a handicap, then I seriously can’t function.
Don, the physical therapist who’s been with our team for twelve years, rubs the pronounced smile lines bracketing his lips. “I’m sorry, Gage. You’ll have to get used to letting your body rest if you want to recover.”
“Can’t you just give me a bottle of painkillers and slap a Band-Aid on it?”
He chuckles softly. “If only healing was that simple.”
I throw my head back, focusing on the ceiling tiles overhead, exhaling the weighted realization of my new life off my chest. I won’t be able to help my teammates for at least thirty games. I may be at games physically, sure, but I won’t be with my team spiritually. I won’t be able to share in celebrations or feel like I’m making any difference. And I’m the reason we lost tonight. If I had blocked that shot, we would’ve tied. I let my team down.
I can’t think of a worse hell to be trapped in. Not only that, but my car is still in the shop undergoing damage repairs after that crazy chick t-boned me. So even if I wanted to drive—which wouldn’t be a good idea—I couldn’t.
As my eyes travel over squares of white, I can’t help but jump to the conclusion that staring at a boring-ass ceiling will be the highlight of my days while I hibernate in my king-sized bed. I’ll go insane. I’ll start scratching tally marks into the walls to keep track of how long I’m stuck in my room.
“Besides physical therapy, is there anything else I can do to speed up the recovery process?” I ask, pleading for a scrap of hope.
Don pushes his horn-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “If you want to work on mobility and flexibility, taking a dance or yoga class could benefit you.”
Uh. I’ve never taken either one of those. Yeah, I’m proud of my flexibility compared to my teammates, but I’m nowhere near putting my leg behind my head like dancers and yoga junkies do. Do they do that? I don’t even know.
I tousle the front of my hair with my hand, the tangled strands falling back into place. “Is that my only option?”
“I’m afraid so, Gage.”
Okay. Not great, but if that’s what it’ll take for me to get back on the ice, then you bet your fucking ass I’m squeezing myself into a child-sized tutu.
Before Don sends me on my merry way, he hands me a bag of ice packs, anti-inflammatory medication, a brace, and some handy-dandy crutches that make me look forty years older than I actually am.
When I hobble my way out of Don’s office—navigating on my crutches like a newborn baby deer—Fulton’s waiting for me by his car, pretending to look around nonchalantly. Then he spots me, composes himself, and would look fairly calm if it wasn’t for the nervous twitch in his right eye.
Fulton and I are different in a lot of ways, but it’s what makes our friendship work. He’s the anxious wreck of a human being who faints at the sight of blood; I’m the unfazed one who probably wouldn’t give a shit if I was bleeding out from a major stab wound. When shit happens to me, I know there’s nothing I can really do to change it. So I just accept it and move on instead of worrying about what I can’t control.
I wasn’t always like that, though. One too many failures made me that way, and I’m not just talking about a missed goal.
Fulton, on the other hand, spends every waking second worrying about something. I’m pretty sure he has a perpetually high heart rate like one of those ancient chihuahuas that live for twenty years. I teach him how to chill out, and he teaches me to…be more empathetic, I guess. Fulton loves people. He never gets tired of them. I don’t love people. I hate most people. There are about eight people that I tolerate, and the rest of the world could go up in a blazing ball of fire for all I care.
I’m extroverted when I need to be, but that’s only reserved for party environments. If booze, babes, or bad decisions are involved, I’m pretty much there. But I guess I’ll have to table that side of me too for a while. The only B I’m going to be getting is back aches.
Fulton fidgets with his hands, and then a bunch of words catapult from his mouth and steamroll over me. “How bad is it? Will you be able to play again?”
“In three months, sure.”
His face is crestfallen. “Shit. I’m sorry, dude.”
I brush him off with what I’m hoping is a convincing enough shrug. “Nothing I can do now except hope it goes by quickly.”
He nods and opens the passenger door for me, helping me into his car before throwing my crutches in the back seat. Fulton, despite making millions of dollars a year, still drives his beat-up Toyota Tercel, claiming it has sentimental value and refusing to fix the window crank because it’ll “erase its character.” I swear the side door almost flew off its hinges when we were on the highway the other day.
He sticks the key in the ignition but doesn’t rev it, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in a rhythmless drum. “Is there anything you can do to speed up the healing process?”
“Dance classes” is all I reveal, huffing out of my nostrils.
“You’re going to take dance classes?” he exclaims.
“If I want to strengthen my flexibility, then I’ll have to.”
A smile sweeps over Fulton’s lips like the first break of dawn over a never-ending night. “But you can’t dance,” he teases.
I brace my hand over my heart offendedly. “Oh, yeah? What do you call me memorizing every move to the Rasputin dance when Beer Comes Trouble was having karaoke that one night?”
“I call that deeply troubling and a result of way too much alcohol.”
“First off, rude.” I make a show of counting on my fingers. “And second off, just because I’m crippled doesn’t mean I won’t beat you with my crutches.”
Fulton finally gets the car sputtering to life, and he looks over his shoulder as he begins backing out of his makeshift parking spot. “Still violent, I see.”
“Still annoying, I see.”
“At least I can walk.”
“At least I don’t throw up every time I talk to a girl.”
He side-eyes me, pursing his lower lip out. “Touché.”
We exit the parking lot and turn onto the main road, and I have to keep my knees from smacking into the glove compartment every time we go over a bump. Which is a lot more difficult when my hip has the mobility of a fossilized statue.
The outlines of vegetation and concrete buildings glide past the window, bathed in a post-afternoon haze, and shades of pomegranate pink hover on the horizon, waiting to be rolled out over shingled roofs and abandoned streets.
“Speaking of girls, whatever happened with that chick from the rink?” Fulton asks, waggling his eyebrows.
Suddenly, I get this surge of automatic hatred in my gut, and the thought of her is like a butane-covered match to a sky-high flame. I loathe that girl. More than humanly possible. Just thinking about the way she car-fucked poor old Natasha—my Jaguar I-Pace—drives me so fucking crazy that a court wouldn’t deem me mentally competent enough to stand trial. Hell, I don’t even know her name, but I’m determined to hold a lifelong grudge against her until the day I wither away in my casket.
I play dumb because the alternative is getting the rage sweats. “What girl?”
“The girl you were having a huge yelling match with?”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I mutter under my breath, picking at the hangnail on my thumb.
The car comes to a lurching halt at a red stoplight, and Fulton elbows me. “Am I sensing some sexual tension?”
Sexual? Ha. I wouldn’t touch her pussy with a ten-foot pole, or if she was the last woman on Earth and I’d taken one of those chocolates that increase your sex drive. Yeah, I’d be a blind idiot not to notice the lack of clothing she was wearing when she confronted me, but no matter how much her large tits jiggled in that pathetic excuse for a bra, I’d never waste my breath being in the same room as her, much less using said breath to kiss her.
“There’s tension, but none of it is sexual.”
“Uh-huh.” Fulton scratches at a tiny scuff on his windshield. “And are you going to press charges? You know, for her pretty much flattening the entire side of your car?”
I wanted to. I really did. That molten anger inside of me blisters with heat to make her pay (literally and figuratively), but the more reasonable, less kill-or-be-killed version of me still has a seat at the table, and he’s telling me to take a Xanax before I ruin someone financially. Insurance covered the damages. I have enough money to buy a completely new car if I wanted, and it wouldn’t make a dent in my bank account. There’s really no reason for me to sue her aside from being a petty bastard.
As charged as I am with Olympian levels of fury, I just can’t bring myself to put her in debt like that, even if I’m not her biggest fan. I saw the crap-show of a car she drove. Even if I did sue her, I probably wouldn’t get much money from her. And what I could get would be more than likely financially devastating on her end. Therefore, I’m retracting my claws and doing the selfless deed by letting her off the hook.
“I don’t want to sue,” I tell Fulton, and the admission douses the last dregs of the fire running rampant inside of me, leaving nothing but coughs of smoke and hissing firewood.
The light turns green, and Fulton resumes his path through the intersection, shock nudging his brows to his hairline. “That’s, uh, really responsible of you.”
My belly does this weird flip, and I don’t think it’s from motion sickness. “Just another thing for me to deal with, honestly. And I don’t have the time or patience for it.”
“That’s understandable. I mean, I’ve never been to court, but it feels like it would take a long time. And it would be super stressful.” Fulton shudders. “Ordering food at a drive-thru is already stressful enough for me.”
A chuckle catches on my lips, and the complementary squeeze in my chest makes me momentarily forget about the hip-related bad news I received today. Maybe this break will help me rethink my whole approach this season. Maybe I just need to step away for a moment and let my thoughts air out.
When we pull into the driveway of the house we share with four other guys, I’m in awe at how different it looks now from how it did in the summer. The gigantic, weathered mansion is now overrun with a medley of autumn leaves, covering the once-green yard in gilded golds and magnificent maroons. The gnarled trees that encircle the house are a testament to the changing seasons, with their barren branches and the few handfuls of foliage that have yet to freckle the ground. And the air is ripe with a crispness that only precedes rain, suffusing the sky like ink on wet paper.
As we get out of the car, Fulton grabs my crutches and helps me find my footing. “You know, I overheard Aeris saying that she’s been going to this dance class downtown. She says it’s great. Maybe you could try there?” he proposes.
“That carves some time off looking, so thanks, man. If it’s Aeris-approved, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a piece of cake.”
Aeris, one of my teammate’s girlfriends, has been a great addition to the group. She’s the only girl who’s been able to tie down our team’s biggest playboy, Hayes. Domesticated the poor guy. She’s super sweet and can cook a mean chicken parmesan, but with all due respect, she has the worst coordination in the world. Like, born-with-two-left-feet bad. So if Aeris can do it, I’ll be a pro at this whole dancing thing. Plus, how hard can it really be?
