Page 15 of Drop the Gloves

Evan had learned how to compartmentalize a long time ago.

It was an important skill when you had a high-pressure life, and he’d had to add it to his coping skills as a kid.

Between school and money issues and hockey and travel, there’d always been something stressing him out.

He’d gotten good at ignoring the things he couldn’t control right now.

Couldn’t pay for new skates? That was a weekend problem.

Grade dropping in French class? He’d worry about it after practice.

Accidentally got a boner while roughhousing with a teammate? He’d put a pin in that and circle back, hopefully never.

He hadn’t had to do much compartmentalization since he’d graduated from high school, and even less since he’d made the Riveters’ official roster and moved up from the AHL.

Mini-golf and the occasional cheat day were enough to mellow him out, but that was before Riley Barczyk, so Evan carefully packed away the incident after practice and decided he would ignore it until absolutely necessary.

He figured it would be easy enough. At home, he could shift his focus to TV.

At the gym, he could use his heart rate and breathing to ground himself.

He figured at practices and games, there’d be plenty of distractions built in.

That would give him time to figure out what the fuck had happened, and if it was a fluke or an actual problem.

Ideally, he’d ignore the issue indefinitely.

The one wrinkle in his plan: they had a road trip to Vermont and New York.

Normally, Evan sat with Dalton on the team bus and plane rides.

Maybe he’d taken that for granted, because he grabbed himself a window seat and started fiddling with his phone while the rest of the team filed onto the plane.

He’d just pulled up his travel playlist when someone sat next to him.

He’d looked up, expecting to say hi to Dalton, and found it wasn’t Dalton at all.

It was Barczyk.

“There’s nothing more boring than plane rides,” Barczyk whined. “Amirite?”

Evan blinked at him. “I think you picked the wrong career if you don’t like flying.”

Barczyk pouted. Pouted! “Sucks, right? At least I just think it’s boring. Can you imagine traveling as much as we do and being scared to fly? Had a teammate like that back in Jersey. Basically had to hide in the bathroom or sleep the whole flight.”

“Who was it?” Evan asked.

“Nah, bro, I’m not telling. He was embarrassed about it.”

“Oh.” That was rather decent of Barczyk. “You’ve played on a bunch of teams, right?”

Barczyk shrugged. “I’ve played on my fair share, yeah.” It amazed Evan that he seemed unfazed by it. Unexpected or frequent trades caused a lot of anxiety and bitterness among players. If the Riveters ever traded Evan, he might cry.

“It doesn’t bother you?” he asked. “To get traded so much?”

“It’s not always trades. Sometimes it’s just time to move on. But no, not really.” He took in Evan’s skeptical look and laughed, nudging Evan with his elbow. “For real, I don’t mind. Sometimes, a change of scenery is a good thing. And it’s cool to get to live in different cities.”

“But aren’t you worried you might get stuck somewhere you don’t want to be?”

“What, like Manitoba?” he joked. “There’s good and bad in every city and team, and even being ambitious, I don’t think I’ll make it to every NHL team before I retire. Having a team is all I need, and I’m not worried about finding new ones.”

Evan weighed his words carefully. “With the way you play,” he said slowly, “you’re not worried about burning any bridges?”

Barczyk didn’t even hesitate. “Not really. I put up good numbers. I’ll always find a team.

And if a team has their panties in a bunch about something I did on the ice, then they’re not a good fit for me, anyway.

I mean, if I can go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and have management not think it’s an issue, I’m good. ”

“I guess.” Then, because apparently joking around with Barczyk was a thing he did now, he added, “Good numbers? Like what, PIMs?” He hadn’t checked recently, but he was pretty sure Barczyk was always top ten in penalty minutes.

“Abs, you givin’ me shit right now?” He put a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt that you think my career is based solely on my penalties.” He paused, then said, “It’s also on how many fans love to hate me.”

“That’s not something to brag about!” Evan said, though Barczyk’s amusement was infectious.

“Isn’t it? Y’all hated me while I was in Philly. Don’t even try to deny it. But how many Barczyk jerseys have you seen since I joined the team? I’ve been in Pittsburgh a couple of months, and I can’t go anywhere around town without seeing someone wearing my number.”

It was true. The same Pittsburghers who’d complained about him last season had fully embraced him and loved nothing more than to cheer him on after big hits.

So instead of arguing, Evan said, “You can’t keep it up forever. You can’t be getting into fights all the time when you’re thirty.”

“First of all, I ain’t thirty yet. Second of all, why the fuck not?”

“Because you won’t want to?”

It was Barczyk’s turn to look at him skeptically. “Maybe,” he conceded, though Evan could tell he was just humoring him. “So anyway, there aren’t a lot of fighters on the Nor’easters right now, but I still recommend you hold off on dropping the gloves until we get in another practice sesh or two.”

Evan swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. He hadn’t thought about their last practice until just now, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else for the rest of the flight. “Okay,” he said, his voice hoarser than he’d like. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“We’re gonna be too busy on the road,” Barczyk went on. Thankfully, he seemed unaware of Evan’s squirming; if he noticed, maybe he’d attribute it to takeoff. “There’s a gym at my apartment with a padded area. I don’t know if they have boxing gloves or anything, but we could figure something out.”

Practice. At Barczyk’s apartment building. Would he expect Evan to go to his place too? The only thing that had saved Evan the last time was they’d been at the rink, so escape had been easy. How was he supposed to run away if he got hard while hanging out in Barczyk’s living room?

Ugh. That was the worst sentence I’ve ever thought in my life.

“Yeah, maybe.” Any hope he’d had of Barczyk giving up on this was long gone. As soon as Evan had taken him up on the offer, he should’ve known he was stuck.

That’s not true. Barczyk might nag me about it, but if I said I wasn’t interested anymore, he’d let me stop.

So the real question was, did he want to stop?

While he had no idea how effective Barczyk’s lessons were, they felt effective.

It’d bolstered his confidence (though not his interest in getting into a fight; more like his confidence that he’d make it out without looking like an idiot), and Coach Jack had encouraged it.

Even if he never fought again, it might help how the coaches saw him.

And somehow Barczyk was not the worst person to hang out with.

Y’know. Except for Evan’s dick going rogue.

Once, he reasoned. Just once. It won’t happen again.

...right?

It won’t. It’s not like you find Barczyk attractive.

...well, you know he’s conventionally good-looking, but you’re not attracted to him. There’s a difference. One-hundred percent.

“We’ll figure something out when we’re back in town,” Evan added, because they should. Maybe not at Barczyk’s apartment building. There had to be neutral ground somewhere.

“Cool.” Barczyk offered Evan his fist (which he reluctantly bumped) then dug through his backpack. Pulling out ginormous headphones, he put them on his head, keeping one ear open. “I’m gonna take a nap. Lemme know if we’re gonna crash or if someone does something stupid, ‘kay?”

“You’d want to know if we’re going to crash?”

“Hmm, good point. Only wake me up if someone does something stupid that I should make fun of.” Then he slipped the headphone over his right ear.

Within seconds, Evan could feel the slight vibration of a bass line, followed shortly by Barczyk’s light snoring.

Evan stared at him for a moment before shaking his head and turning back to his own phone.

He did not get Barczyk at all...but he was turning out to be not nearly as bad as Evan had thought. That was something, at least.