Page 50 of Drop the Gloves

“I get to hit you this time, right?” Riley asked. “You got me both games in Pittsburgh.”

He swung his stick towards Evan’s torso; Evan caught it before it hit him. “Not the front,” he scolded. The only thing worse than having a pre-game superstition was doing it wrong.

“Is it reverse good luck if we do it backwards?” Riley grumbled but moved so he was behind Evan.

“Reverse good luck? You mean bad luck?”

Riley drew the blade of his stick down Evan’s body, starting at his head and following his spine down, then across his ass before a light tap. Why the hell was this so sensual? Illegal. Mostly because it was really uncomfortable to be half-hard while wearing a cup.

“No,” Riley said. “Reverse good luck. Big difference.” Riley deemed seven swings enough to avoid ‘reverse bad luck’ and skated away with a look over his shoulder that made Evan want to follow him.

He didn’t, though.

Instead, he did some stickhandling while studying the Albuquerque Turkeys.

The Turkeys had been a great team...over a decade ago.

They’d had some ups and downs recently, including two big ones in the same season: a few years ago they’d made it to the Stanley Cup Finals after years of not even making the playoffs, only to lose to the Ohio Otters.

Evan couldn’t imagine that kind of emotional atomic bomb going off in his life.

He was disappointed whenever the Riveters lost in the playoffs, but it was somehow easier when it was a first or second round exit.

A Conference Finals loss would be heartbreaking.

A Game Seven Cup Final? Fucking devastating.

The Turkeys had rebounded somewhat since then.

Last year they’d made a respectable playoff push, losing in the second round; this year they were on track to make the playoffs again.

They were scrappy, especially since they were in the midst of a losing streak at home.

On the road they did fine, but in Albuquerque they’d lost five of their last six.

That always made Evan wary; teams didn’t like to lose in front of their own fans.

Of course, teams never liked to lose. No one got this far in their career without having a competitive streak a mile wide.

Evan had always used his to push himself forward.

Strive to do better and contribute where he could.

The Turkeys seemed to have more of a collective mindset; they used it to fuel their team moving forward.

There’d be no easy shifts, no weak spots to exploit, just a determined team that was going to play hard from whistle to whistle.

When Evan glanced over at the Riveters, he worried Coach Jack had been wrong to give them so much freedom last night.

They were ready to play, sure, but they weren’t ready to fight for a win.

He saw it in the lazy, disorganized way they warmed up.

There was always a point in the season where the switch flipped, and you went from playing game by game, getting your feet under you, to digging in to earn as much ground as you could before playoffs.

The Turkeys had made the change already; the Riveters hadn’t.

* * *

Most of them hadn’t locked, Evan was forced to amend during the game. There were a few among them who had. Doyle was having a great game. Their backup goalie Reese was bailing them out of some sloppy defensive zone plays. Moreau had won most of his face-offs.

And then there was Riley, hitting everything that moved.

It wasn’t as out of control as it’d been in Quebec.

This was more his usual style, throwing his body and running his mouth in equal measure.

Tonight he seemed to remember they were trying to win a hockey game, and he was making great plays too.

Evan and Vassiliev weren’t having spectacular games (okay, Evan was sub par but Vassiliev was doing fine), but Riley seemed determined and able to carry their line.

He got three scoring chances just in the first period, and that was with only about three minutes of ice time.

“Much better,” Coach Jack praised him several times throughout the night. “That’s what I want to see, Barczyk! Play hard, but control it!”

“You’re having a good night,” Vassiliev said in the locker room. “You want to share some of that luck with the rest of us?”

“I already did,” he said, looking Evan right in the eye before turning to Vassiliev. “Not my fault you can’t hit an empty net.”

“I hit the post!” Vassiliev said. “I’ll get the next one!”

The game was going so well that Evan was still having fun despite his own mediocre performance.

He had Riley joking on the bench again, and the tension from Quebec was gone.

This was what Evan wanted: he wanted to get along with his linemates and enjoy hockey and win games.

They were up 3-2, so if they buckled down during the third period, they’d be good.

And that was when Riley took out Luc-Henre Baptiste, star center of the Turkeys.

In Riley’s defense—and crazy that Evan was the one making that defense in his head—it looked like an accident.

Just an unfortunate play where they collided awkwardly along the boards.

It looked eerily like when Riley had done that to Evan last season, or at least how Evan imagined it had gone (he’d never worked up the nerve to watch the replays).

They hit the boards. They both went down.

Riley got up and kept playing. Baptiste didn’t.

Once they realized he was hurt, the refs blew the whistle and trainers went onto the ice to check on Baptiste.

They all stood there watching, but Evan turned to watch Riley instead.

It was like they’d been transported back in time to that night in Philly almost a year ago, the one where Evan had been on the ice worrying about his shoulder and his career and his future, and Riley had been. ..doing what?

Standing there expressionless, apparently. Riley leaned on his stick, his eyes fixed on Baptiste but otherwise showing no emotion. He didn’t look happy about the injury, but he didn’t look upset about it, either. No worries for Baptiste and no remorse for having caused it.

This was the Riley Barczyk that Evan hated. He’d never gone anywhere. He’d just been hiding behind toothless smiles and grabbable curls and offers to help Evan. Help Evan what? Become a player like this? Just admiring his handiwork after potentially ending someone’s season?

Evan turned away and went to the bench. He wasn’t sure he could stand to look at any of it anymore.

When Baptiste finally got up and was guided off the ice, the arena broke into cheers. Evan joined the other players as they tapped their sticks against the ice or boards. That show of respect for an injured player, teammate or rival, had always gotten to Evan.

But he also knew it wouldn’t be of much comfort to Baptiste that Riley or anyone else was doing it.

He didn’t remember what it’d sounded like for him in Philly.

He’d been too worried and wanted to get to the medical staff as quickly as possible.

Baptiste was probably thinking the same, praying over and over please don’t be too bad, please let me be okay.

The refs huddled together by the penalty box and determined Riley deserved no penalty for the play, much to the aggravation of the Turkeys and their fans. The Turkeys weren’t a physical team, but Coach Jack deemed it wise to pull back on Riley’s minutes.

“Fucking garbage,” Riley grumbled as Evan and Vassiliev both went out on the ice without him. “What do they think I’m gonna do, hurt the same guy again?”

Hurting people is the problem, yes, Evan thought.

“Maybe they’re worried about retaliation,” Dalton said as he followed, once again Riley’s replacement on wing. Riley looked about to snarl something less than friendly, so Evan stepped between them to guide Dalton to the face-off.

The rest of the game passed in a blur. When they got back to the locker room, there was the usual post-game rundown by the coaches as they stripped off their gear.

And through it all, Riley said nothing. No one said anything about Baptiste, and it pissed Evan off. He was so angry he nearly threw his elbow pad across the room when he took it off.

This was why he hadn’t liked Riley in the first place.

Sure, he’d gotten to know him better, and he wasn’t an irredeemable jerk, but he wasn’t some angel.

He was callous and took no responsibility for his reckless behavior.

Baptiste, Evan, the dozens of others he’d injured—they weren’t a blip on his radar.

Riley Barczyk only cared about Riley Barczyk, and if you were on his team, he might pretend to care.

As pissy as he was, Evan knew he was being unfair.

He might be trying to spin this as Riley being a jerk, but it was more about Evan’s hurt feelings.

Riley wasn’t a complete asshole. He just played an aggressive style of hockey and was unapologetic about it.

If Evan didn’t like that about Riley, that was Evan’s problem.

A really big problem, because this was more than the injuries and their careers.

Evan realized he didn’t care about the hit in Philly anymore.

Yeah, it had sucked, and yeah, he thought it was kind of shitty that Riley didn’t remember or care, but it was hockey.

What had he been expecting? A handwritten apology?

It wasn’t Riley’s responsibility to care about someone’s hurt feelings on the ice.

Reckless as he was, Riley didn’t want to injure anyone.

It was an unfortunate side effect of the game, and instead of letting it paralyze him like it did Evan, he embraced that physicality.

No, Evan could let go of the resentment about his shoulder.

..what he was having trouble with was how much he liked Riley, and what that said about him.

Not that he was sexually attracted to him, because that obviously said Evan was some sort of queer, but that he liked Riley romantically.

This wasn’t about the sex anymore—that would’ve made it so much easier—and Evan worried if this reflected something about himself.

Because it was one thing to accept Riley for his faults, but Evan didn’t know if he could handle those things in himself.

Was he the type of person who might someday send someone into concussion protocol and not bat an eye? Would he someday be desensitized to Riley doing it?

Why could he now accept these things about Riley but not himself?

And that was it, wasn’t it? As angry as he was about the hit to Baptiste and all that other muck about Riley’s playing, Evan was upset at Riley for being so unapologetically Riley.

Then here was Evan, apologizing for anything and everything that he did that might make other people uncomfortable.

Evan, who couldn’t very well apologize to himself for the discomfort of the past few months.

There was an increasing amount Evan was discovering about himself through Riley, too much to process, and it was easy to think of Riley as the problem.

He was the one making Evan confront these uncomfortable truths about himself—his sexuality and kinks, his capacity to be more aggressive, the kind of person he was attracted to—and now that Evan knew this was what was happening, it had him on edge.

And it wasn’t fair to blame Riley for any of it when all he’d done was exist and encourage Evan, but Evan bristled when Riley did his locker room interview after the game.

He knew what was coming, and he didn’t want to hear it.

He was at max capacity of garbage floating around his brain; the last thing he needed was more. If only he could shut off his ears.

“Could you tell us a little more about the hit to Baptiste?” one reporter asked. Evan braced like he was about to get punched.

Riley ran a hand through his sweat-damp curls.

He’d taken off the top half of his gear, nothing on his chest but his gold chain, and left on everything below his waist. Pretty standard for hockey players, but a power move during interviews to show the reporters how invasive it was to come into the locker room.

Evan had never had the guts to talk to reporters without at least a shirt on.

“It’s too bad he got hurt on that,” Riley said. “I know I play rough, but I’m never trying to send a guy to the hospital or anything.”

“You have a long history of rough play, as you say,” another reporter said. “Do you ever apologize to opponents afterward?”

Evan looked up so fast his neck hurt. It was like someone had pulled the question out of his head. For a second, he worried he’d been the one to ask it.

Riley shrugged, flashing a hint of a smile.

“Not really? I walk a thin line, sure, but I play hockey. They play hockey. They step onto the ice knowing what’s coming.

I don’t apologize when I steal the puck from people or block a shot or do anything that’s part of hockey.

I’m not gonna pretend I’m sorry for playing the body.

It’s hockey. They literally pay me to do it. ”

But what about hurting them? Evan thought, though this time the reporters didn’t pick up on his question. They moved on to other topics, more generic ones that required no thought and never got real answers, while Evan sat there, miserable.