Last Defense, page 4
If I made it that far.
Our captain stood up. Connor was not only a brilliant player, but he had this way about him that commanded respect. He didn’t take any shit and he wouldn't let us leave this room until we’d talked this through.
“That was bad luck,” he said, and everyone nodded. We all knew we’d played well, and apart from one lucky bounce we could have battled back up the ice to their goal and maybe it would have been us with the win. His glance landed on me, then on my defensive partner, Westy. “This is not on you two,” he said. Then he looked deliberately at Ten, Ads and Larson, in turn. “Nor you. Just because the goal went in on your shift, this is not your shit to carry.”
Ten nodded, and I was nodding as well.
“Now, let’s get back to the hotel, get some food and sleep, and we’re back here tomorrow for practice.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dieter raise his hand, as if he was in school. I heard a couple of people groan at the move.
“Lola is here with Trent.”
“You’re joking,” Ten said with an exaggerated groan to end. “Not Lola. Last time she sat with us, I couldn’t feel my cheek for a week where she pinched it. And I don’t mean the cheek on my face.”
Everyone else laughed. This was clearly some kind of long-running joke I hadn’t been part of— before I’d been traded in.
“I can't help it,” Dieter defended himself, and looked aggrieved. “She’s part of the package.”
“Who is?” I asked Westy.
“Trent’s grandmother. She came up with Trent for the game.”
“Why is that a problem?”
Westy side-eyed me. “You’ll see.”
We showered, changed, and were back on the coach in good time. Traveling to the hotel took maybe fifteen minutes, and it was one hell of a place. All polished marble and glass, it was a million miles away from some of the holes I’d stayed in on the road. Guess that was what you got when you were Stanley Cup wannabes.
Management hustled us to a private dining room and shut the door, and we sat down. I noticed how the D-men sat together, the forwards as well, and then the two goalies—Stan and his backup, who apparently was moving on at the end of this season if you believed the rumors—had a table all to themselves.
We ordered food, and the door opened and I expected something other than what arrived. A short woman, age undetermined, holding on to a skinny guy’s arm, came into the room. Dressed from head to toe in orange—Flyers orange—she was so damn bright in the sea of men in suits.
“We win!” she cackled and flung her arms wide. I saw the skinny man slink to one side, then realized who it was. The figure skater Trent Hanson, the one who’d done the reality show with the Railers the summer before. He sidled off to sit at the table where Dieter was holding a seat for him.
Right, so Dieter’s boyfriend’s nana was a Flyers fan.
Unfortunate.
“You all garbage,” she added, and looked around for a seat. I saw everyone, to a man, slink down in their seats, but they were lucky—they didn’t have space. Our table did, and I heard Westy curse to my side.
Bright Orange Woman came to our table and sat down opposite me. I’d done my season as a Flyer, I’d worn the orange, and she leveled her best stare at me.
“Lola,” she announced. I guessed that was her name. “You should never have left the Flyers.”
It wasn’t as if I’d had a lot of choice; I was a journeyman, sent to whatever team needed a grinder like me.
“I like it here,” I said defensively.
She huffed and narrowed her eyes. “You’re dangerous to my Flyers.”
I wasn’t going to disagree with that. I knew my worth.
Then she held court. She was outrageously opinionated, rude, vocal in her dislike of the Railers, and I loved her. She was so damn funny, and by the end of the night we had our heads together talking about the glory days of hockey, of which she had seen way more than me. I loved hockey. I could quote stats, team logos, recall that time when Mario did something to Wayne or Clarke deked Favell. I was a walking encyclopedia of crap about hockey.
Halfway through a tirade from Lola about Ten being too fast and how it just wasn’t fair to all the other teams, it hit me with the force of a ton of bricks.
What would I do without hockey? Who was I without the knowledge of the game?
What will happen to me?
Grief curled in my chest and stayed there for the remainder of dinner, and if anyone noticed how quiet I had got, they didn’t say.
Lola hugged me and patted my cheek—the one on my face—then she pressed a kiss to my hand. She didn’t actually say anything, but I was unaccountably moved by it all. All of a sudden, I wanted her to hold me while I cried.
Where the hell had that come from?
Then the fear hit. Was I sad because I was leaving hockey? Or was it because the thing in my brain was changing the way I saw things? I was the hard guy, not the one who cried. Was something wrong?
I headed for my room, damn pleased I didn’t have to share—thank God, they’d stopped that shit—and stripped off my suit, taking care to hang it up. I made the call, sitting there in my underwear in the warm room, hoping to hell the doc would pick up. I paid him enough to be on call for me, surely.
I got an answering service, but they connected me quickly, and within five minutes of getting the thought of dying right front and center in my head I was talking to the only man who could calm me down.
“What’s wrong?”
Doctor Nolan Warner was a field expert in endovascular neurosurgery. He’d spent some time rooting around in my brain nearly seven years ago, and I had him on speed dial. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d spoken to him. I ignored headaches and dizziness of any kind; I’d decided I’d rather not know a long time ago.
But this was different. This was my last year, and I didn’t want to die before I finished. I had a job to do, a Cup to lift.
“Max, hello,” he said, all conversational and happy.
“I have a headache,” I blurted out.
There was silence. He’d explained the things to look out for—extreme headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, sickness, memory loss. I didn’t have any of those.
“On a scale of one to ten—”
“It’s a one,” I admitted.
Of course to a normal guy that might have been a five, but to a hockey player, pain at the level of one was nothing. Skaters our there played with broken legs—a level one headache was nothing.
He didn’t sigh or call me an idiot for contacting him. The line was quiet for a moment and then I heard him move and close a door.
Had I woken him up? What time was it in Vancouver anyway?
“Talk to me,” he said in that soft, insistent, doctor-like tone.
“When you blocked it, you told me there was a chance it could come back.”
“No, I told you the work I had done on your particular arteriovenous malformation led me to believe there was a ninety percent chance you wouldn’t experience any further issues.”
“With that site,” I insisted.
Doc had explained that even though the tangle of blood vessels in my brain had been capped and blocked like a new oil well, there was a slim chance the issue would always be there. Ten percent that it would worsen if I persisted in carrying on with any kind of contact sport.
Ten percent I could handle. Hell, I was more likely to get hit by a bus than have any of his intricate work in my brain fail. I didn’t drive anymore—I wasn’t ready to be a loaded weapon on the freeway—and my will was up-to-date, with everything I had going to my sisters.
But.
Seven years, headaches, and I was so close to the end of my career.
“Tell me again about the possibility of secondary sites,” I said. When they fixed one site, that could mean the pressure backed up elsewhere. The percentage chance was small, but there, nevertheless. Hence me not driving.
He didn’t. Instead, this time he sighed. “When will you be in Vancouver?”
“I’m not,” I began. After all, we didn’t know how far we would go in the final, let alone if the Canucks would, or even if they would meet us at any point.
“Max, I meant book a time to see me in Vancouver. I’ll run some tests.”
I held on to the words. He wanted to run some tests. He thinks something is wrong. My stomach churned, my chest tightened, and I felt hot and vulnerable and shaky all at once.
“You said I had to be careful,” I blurted. The poor guy had a miserable son of a bitch whining down the phone at him. What the hell was wrong with me?
“Max, calm down.”
I did. Immediately. Like Pavlov’s dogs and the bell, I reacted to the stern, unforgiving command and the tension uncoiled inside me.
“Book an appointment with my service. Or don’t. Maybe just fly up and pay me a visit when you can. Or don’t. Either way, come to see me. But worrying about a level one headache isn’t practical, and I’m concerned there’s an underlying psychological issue here.”
That was so not what I wanted to hear. My brain was perfectly fine, thank you very much.
Well, except for the AVM, the risk of death, and the fact I was losing my shit.
I said goodbye, told the doc I would visit, and hung up.
The room was utterly quiet apart from my breathing, not even the sound of the street twenty stories below. And I felt aimless. I should sleep, but the loss of the game and the morose thoughts that balled in my chest kept me tossing and turning in bed. In the end I got up, retrieved my iPad, and sat on the sofa in the corner of the room with a hot chocolate. I checked the news, took one look at the shitty headlines and shut that down. I opened Candy Crush, but the colors were too bright and I wasn’t concentrating.
Something about the game I was playing reminded me of Ben.
Who was I kidding? As soon as I stopped doing anything concerning hockey, it was Ben that filled the void.
Just as I’ve played with a lot of teams, I’ve been with a lot of men, all kinds of men. But Ben was different.
I just couldn’t figure out what it was that made him different.
Maybe it was because I was sitting there in the dark staring at a game with candy and thinking about a fuck in a car with a sexy, sleek, dark-skinned Adonis. Maybe it was because he was a tall drink and I was thirsty. Maybe he was shiny-new, and I’d eventually fuck him out of my system.
I recalled the noises he made—the sighs, the gasps—the fact he took me inside him and screwed back onto me and wanted more. And the kisses.
I was getting hard, and I savored that delicious expectation of getting myself off to the sounds he made and to the sensation of fucking up into him.
But first I wanted to see his photo, find out more, and I recalled he ran a no-kill shelter. Last Roads? Dog Roads? Or something Roads. I googled no-kill shelters in Harrisburg, and there it was, first on the list: Crossroads No-Kill.
His picture wasn’t on the front page; that honor belonged to Diana Pierce, who held the title of Kennel Manager. She was a short, plump woman with curly dark hair, and the picture was of her and an armful of puppies. I did my bit for charity. Maybe I could do something for them, I liked dogs enough to do that. Maybe I could set up something in my will that would send some cash to the shelter. Hell, being a grinder didn’t pay like the superstars, but at one time I’d been pulling in two mill a season, not to be sniffed at.
I clicked through the pages, adoption histories, testimonials, things about the visiting vet Dr. Vince Owens, and I read up on the adoption counselor, Abby, who had written a post about how dogs impact lives. The website was professional, informative, but I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.
And then there it was. A stunning photo of Ben and his dog who looked like a husky, although the description called it a malamute, and a short paragraph about why he’d taken over the shelter. I hardened even more and palmed my cock; what I wouldn't give to have him under me right here and now. Or bent over the desk in the corner, or on his knees.
I don’t know what I clicked, but suddenly there was a new picture on my screen, of Ben and another man. They weren’t hugging or holding hands, but Ben was looking at him, and the depth of love in his eyes was plain to see.
I read the article, and my erection went away faster than Ten on a breakaway.
That was Liam, Ben’s husband, who’d died young, quickly, tragically, but who inspired Ben on a daily basis to continue the battle for rehousing dogs. He was blond, with bright blue eyes, and the pup in his arm was a tiny version of the one in the photo of Ben alone. The label underneath said, “Liam, Ben, and Bucky”. I wondered what he’d died of, and then I saw the charity link for multiple myeloma, which upon further reading I learned was aggressive and fast.
I’d played the what-if game so many times. When they told me what was wrong with me, I’d asked them would it be quick, or slow. They’d had no answer. Would I prefer to go quickly, or to linger for a long time? If it was slow, then I’d have time to say goodbye to everyone. My mom, my sisters, the friends I’d made during my time in hockey. I had people who would miss me.
Just not the one person, a man who loved me as much as Ben had obviously loved his husband, Liam.
I went to bed after that. The idea of getting off had gone, the need for it dwindled to nothing.
We’d lost a game. Ben had lost a husband. I was close to losing everything.
Who the hell could sleep after all that?
We won the next game. I don’t know how it happened, but if we could bottle the energy we had in that game, we’d be rich. Ten was the first to bury the puck in the net on a power play. The other team’s defense was sloppy, tired…who knows? All I knew for sure was they were letting us through.
Maybe Ten was faster?
Maybe Connor was trickier?
Maybe the Railers’ D-men were just that good?
Or maybe it was Stan, who did some inhuman tending, at one point literally doing a cartwheel to grab a puck out of the air when it rebounded off the post.
A shutout.
A three to nothing win for us, and the series was tied at one all, ready for the home games back in Harrisburg.
The mood in the locker room was lighter, and I wondered what Coach would do this time. His tone was happier but his message was the same.
“You played well. I saw really good things on the ice. Well done.”
This time, though, Mads came around and high-fived his D-men, and I couldn’t help smiling. Even if my thigh did hurt like a bitch from taking a puck in front of the net. Even with padding, a hundred-mile-an-hour projectile leaves a mark.
“Get it seen to,” Mads insisted, and pointed at my thigh. “Back to the plane in two hours, but I want to see that iced and fixed.”
There was nothing that could truly fix the bruise I’d have, but we could at least attempt to lessen it. Ten was in the room with me—he’d taken a pretty shit hit into the board on a power play when I’d been on the bench gassed after my shift. They’d kept him on, and he’d been a fucking target. Poor kid.
“This is just the start,” I said to him when he grimaced at the ice and poked at his arm.
“Fucker slashed me,” Ten muttered, and tested his hand, opening and closing the fist. He’d bounce back. I remembered being his age, ready to conquer the world and find my place.
“Look after yourself,” I replied. Then wished I hadn’t said a word at all, because Ten got that look in his eye.
“You sound off,” he observed. "We won."
“A win doesn't always mean you get to smile all the way home.” I realized I sounded like an idiot, like some kind of fake Mr. Miyagi, and Ten called me on it in the best way. He snorted a laugh, and then the laugh became something more, and then he couldn’t stop laughing, and pretty soon I was joining in.
“Wise words say you,” he managed between laughs. “Do, there is no try.” That last one had him near wetting himself, I swear, and I couldn’t help but feel lighter around him.
By the time we left the therapy room, we were chuckling and exchanging stupid one-liners from films. Turned out for a young guy he knew a lot of old films.
I told him so, and he looked at me as if I was an idiot.
“Max van Hellren, six two, two-thirty pounds, defense, shoots right, selected sixty-first overall in the oh five draft, aged thirty. Right?”
“You memorized all that shit?”
“Yep,” Ten said cheerfully. “Mads kept going on and on about wanting you, and he wouldn't let it rest. My point here is you are not that much older than me. What is with you guys and your obsession with age?” He laughed again as I swatted at him and he ducked. “Too slow, old man,” he said, then jogged away. I could have jogged after him, but I was tired, and I rolled my neck and followed at a more sedate pace.
The flight back was quiet. We had two days until our next game with Philly, at home, and aside from practice and sleep, there was one other thing I wanted to do.
See Ben.
How I waited that long I didn’t know. After practice I caught a cab the short distance from my big empty apartment to the shelter, the words of the coach playing in my head.
He wanted us to watch out for Ten. Protect Ten. And not just Ten, but the others who held our best chances against this strong team. That was what I was concentrating on when the cab delivered me to the gates of Crossroads No-Kill Shelter. There was a buzzer, and I pressed it.
“Hello, can I help?” a female voice asked me.
“I’m here to see Ben,” I said. Because that was fact.
“Could I have your name, sir?”
“Max.”
There was a moment when I thought she’d ask more, but this was a shelter open to visitors, right? So, they’d let people in. Including a horny hockey player.
I patiently waited, and Diana, the smiling brunette from the website, bounded up to me.
“I’m sorry, sir, the shelter isn’t open until three for viewings today, and Ben is out back with some new arrivals. Can I help? Are you looking to adopt?”
