Page 3 of Home for the Hockey-Days (Cedar Rapids Raccoons)

CHAPTER 3

August

I hate having nothing to do.

Too much time with my own thoughts is never a good thing. Especially when I’m thinking about the beautiful, shell-shocked woman who rear-ended my car yesterday. I want to be furious, she took away my freedom, my vehicle, and I have no idea who she is.

She didn’t write down a name in my notebook, only her address and cell number, and I didn’t notice until I got back to the hockey house. I was too busy trying to keep her upright. She shook so hard I have no idea how her legs didn’t buckle underneath her.

So, when the Eastern Iowa Airport broadcasts yet another round of delays due to the snow storm which seems to be taking a dump over Cedar Rapids right now, I can’t help but groan.

Waste of fucking time.

At the announcement over the intercom, those on the team who aren’t catching flies with their Zs groan with me. We’ve been here for hours, as evidenced by the two teams of snoring hockey players stinking up the departures area. Our team, the Cedar Rapids Raccoons and the Wisconsin Wolves. They were in town for a game last night, and now we’re all fucking stuck.

Our collective optimism has long since been buried under the inches of snow falling outside. We’re grumpy, we’re tired, and we’re fucking grounded. Not only that, but the Christmas playlist that’s been on repeat since we got here is making me want to stab myself in the ears.

I wish someone would just call it, make the executive decision and say, “Hey, just fucking go home. We aren’t sending planes up in this white, fluffy shit today.” But that would be too close to common sense, so instead, we wait. And we wait.

And we fucking wait.

Raffi and Tate both dig out their guitars from their cases. I guess excess baggage isn’t an issue for people with deep pockets. They start strumming some tune I’ve never heard before, but even my tone deaf self can admit they sound pretty good together.

I close my eyes and try to let myself sink into the music, let it weave its restorative powers into my soul. My muscles are tense, wound so tight I’m afraid something simple like a sneeze will break me into pieces. I haven’t slept for four days, not since I got pulled into Coach’s office and told I need to pull my socks up, or I’m off the team.

My chest knots tighter.

It’s my final year in college, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was play hockey in the NHL like my uncle Bob. I’ve never been book smart, in fact, most days I feel dumb as a bag of rocks. I never planned to go to college, but the scholarship brought with it a crack in the door to fulfill my dream, so I crammed my toes in there and urged it open, one hard-earned test paper at a time.

The thought that I could lose it all, that the NHL is within my grasp, and I could fuck it all up just because I can’t math... Well, that makes my stomach churn. I found a tutor. Or rather, my hockey team found me a tutor, Rowan Armistead.

Her name sounds kinda stuffy. And she hasn’t even bothered to write me back yet. Kinda rude.

I hope she has a magic, wicked smart wand she can wave at me, because Coach said the team can’t afford to lose its captain.

And we both know I can’t afford to lose the team.

My older brother is in prison for stealing cars. I have three cousins in foster care because their parents are addicts or crooks, and I’m the first in my family to go to college. To go... anywhere, really.

The pressure is immense. Not even from my family, but from myself.

I don’t want to fail. I can’t fail, I won’t accept it. So if I need some nerdy know-it-all to teach me how to count, I don’t have the luxury of being affronted. I need to suck it up and find a way to scrape a pass.

I grunt, unable to still my mind enough to drift into the abyss of sleep. And I swear to all that’s holy if I hear Jingle Bells one more fucking time...

Why don’t all airports have gyms? Somewhere for us to pump some iron while we wait for them to announce the inevitable cancellation of our flight across the country. I’m half tempted to drop to the floor and do some push-ups in a bid to distract myself from the self-loathing spiral my brain is caught in.

So I can’t math, so what?

I can shoot a puck at ninety three miles per hour and score a goal from damn near anywhere on the ice. I know plenty of people who can math who can’t hockey. I don’t see them getting dragged into the dean’s office .

What gives?

The urge to expel energy burns under my skin, heating my blood and making me twitch. Maybe a mindless scroll of social media will keep my attention for a while. The first story on my feed is a post from the team we are traveling to play against. They have already announced that our game is canceled and will take place at another time.

If they know we aren’t boarding a fucking plane, and I know we aren’t boarding a fucking plane, why the fucking fuck hasn’t the airport announced it?

Caged like animals lingering around the departure gate, everything pisses me off. From the de la Pe?a twins grinning and singing with Raffi, the cheap-ass Christmas decorations hung poorly on the walls around us, to Justin Ashe’s snoring providing an off-tempo baseline to the music.

I need to hit something. I’m sure the freshman, Artemis, could go toe to toe with me in a ring. I’ve seen him workout. Dude’s a machine. If anyone on the roster could dance with me, I think it’d be him. I really fucking hate charity, at least when it’s directed at me.

I know they’re on my team, and we all skate for the same logo on the front of our shirts. We all want the same wins, and to succeed on the ice, but we aren’t the same, them and me. We’re far fucking from it.

Their offer to pay for my tutor still sits uncomfortably on my chest, and I’m sorely tempted to give the Bitches Brew gift card from Artemis to Mom as part of her Christmas present.

I hate taking loans, or help from people. I hate owing anything to anyone. And I sure as shit hate being bailed out of a situation I created myself. If only I’d done a little more studying, or read the questions through a second time on my test papers.

Fuck.

Justin Ashe is awake and the first to drop to the floor for a push up challenge, but he’s not alone. One of the Wolves, a sophomore, Xavier Martinez, is next to him.

“First to one hundred?” Xavier grins at Justin who nods. Joke’s on Justin if he thinks he can out-do a Martinez. Xavier is hockey royalty, his older brother Roman, who plays for the New Orleans Phantoms, is the best goaltender in the national league.

“Works for me.” Justin looks up, not one to back down from a challenge. “Someone set a timer?”

One of the twins pulls out their phone. “On it.”

It’s not long before both men are grunting, and Xavier’s grin has been replaced by a tight-lipped grimace.

A few more Raccoons and Wolves join in and soon there are close to a dozen hockey players face down on the airport floor trying to do one hundred push-ups.

Xavier beats Justin to the finish line and face plants on the floor. “What’s next?” His chest heaves, and sweat trickles down his face.

Lachlan Fergusson, one of my oldest friends in the game—even though he now lives and plays in Wisconsin—collects a few empty water bottles from around the feet of the players. “What about bowling?” He holds up a massage ball.

Lachlan lines up ten bottles in a triangle shape and takes some long strides away from them. He throws a shot, knocking over one pin from the back corner of the group of bottles.

“Fuck.” Lachlan stamps his foot, but two other Wolves stand behind him like they’re keen to take a turn.

One of my teammates collects another round of empty plastic bottles and lines them up a few feet away from Lachlan’s ‘bowling lane’ making two lanes for us to play. A half hour later we have four plastic bottle bowling lanes with two massage balls, a tennis ball, and a golf ball from a traveler who didn’t put all his balls in his checked baggage. Players on both teams are taking turns, and we’re keeping score on a notepad.

Turns out our competitive natures lend themselves to wanting to win. Who’d have thought?

It comes down to the last two throws, me on one side, and Lachlan on the other. Both teams and some random travelers surround us in a horseshoe shaped crowd. Lachlan offers me his hand to shake before we both throw.

“May the best team win.”

That one sentence feels like the weight of the world is suddenly dropped onto my shoulders. Fuck. No pressure. It’s just a friendly game between rival teams, right? A massage ball against empty bottles.

No. Big. Deal.

Then why is sweat prickling across my brow? Why is my stomach tight and muscles tense like I’m stepping up to an Olympic race? Why is there so much anticipation in the air that it’s heavy and crackling?

Shit.

Apollo rubs my shoulders like I’m about to step into a boxing ring. “You’ve got this, amigo.”

Nice, nothing like a little extra, external pressure from your team to raise the stakes even higher.

I gesture at Lachlan to go first, he does, knocking over eight bottles.

I need a strike to win. Fuck. Couldn’t he have gotten only one or two down?

I line up the ball, resisting the urge to kiss the damn thing before I throw. Everyone collectively holds their breath when I release the ball at the collection of empty bottles.

The crowd goes wild when the ball knocks over all ten bottles, and we win the battle of the —not at all important but feels like a Stanley Cup victory—airport empty-bottle bowling .

After a quick handshake line, the crowd disperses, and both teams go back to lounging around at the departure gates.

“What’s next?” Raffi Shaw asks. “Two truths and a lie? Rock, paper, scissors tournament? Trivia showdown?”

“What about a paper airplane making contest?” One of the Wolves offers.

“I have Uno cards.”

“Charades.”

“Twenty questions?”

“What about airport bingo?” It’s one of the Wolves rookies who suggests it, and we all stare at him like he’s grown a second head.

“How do you play bingo in the airport?” Artemis might be the one to ask it, but it’s the same question that’s on everyone’s mind.

“We’d each create bingo cards with typical airport shit, like a crying baby, a person running to catch a flight, a flight attendant, someone sleeping on the floor... And the first team to get a bingo wins.”

Kinda sounds like fun, and if we find a person running to catch a flight we’ll be gearing up to board a plane ourselves. No take offs, no running.

It’s not much longer before I’m put out of my misery of being stuck in the airport.

An announcement comes over the intercom, the flight is canceled, game canceled, go enjoy Christmas vacation, and we’ll try again in the New Year, Coach says. I wait in my seat for a couple of minutes now the announcement is official, my thumb hovering over Rowan Armistead’s contact when something about the number tickles my gray matter.

What is it about this number that’s pinged something in the depths of my brain?

I need to set up a date for us to get started. With only a few days left of term before Christmas break it’ll probably be January before we get together. And if I play my cards right, I could push it back even further.

Traveling with the team, busy with the holidays, I could give her every excuse I can come up with so I don’t have to see her Judgy McJudgerson face staring at me with pity when she realizes I’m a dumb jock. The dumbest of dumb jocks.

Clicking on her name, I suck in a breath. I could tell her I’m sticking around, get a jump on playing catch up. The longer I leave it, the worse it’ll be. Or so Coach says. Would she even want to get together this close to Christmas? Is she traveling somewhere for the holiday?

Guess I won’t know if I don’t ask.

Something about the number still prickles in my mind. I dig out the crumpled up piece of paper with the details of my fender bender from the day before, and compare it to the number on my screen.

The answer to my earlier question is staring right back at me.

Rowan Armistead is the one who crashed into my car yesterday. The woman who hasn’t replied to my message about tutoring, is the woman who destroyed my beloved Rusty.

What are the fucking odds?

August: Let me know when you’re free for tutoring. Turns out you owe me one. Or twenty.

The dots on the screen stop, start, and stop again, like she’s trying to figure out what to write.

Rowan: What does that mean? How do I owe you anything?

August: Check the piece of paper you got yesterday at the traffic lights on Edgewood.

It takes a few minutes but eventually, the dots move again.

Rowan: OMG! I’m so sorry!

Rowan: You’re right, though, I definitely owe you. I wasn’t going to take any new tutoring clients after the holidays, but now... Well, we both know I need the money. Tell me where you’d like to meet, and we can start right away.

August: Later today? Our flight just got canceled so we don’t have a game later.

I don’t want to meet at my place. She’s going to pity me enough without needing to witness the sad state of my tiny room in the hockey house. I don’t want to go to the library either, that place scares the shit out of me, and I’m not easily scared.

August: Bitches Brew at four?

I want to go early so I’m done before whoever is left on campus gets up and needs their caffeine fix from Taryn and the gang.

Rowan: Sounds like a plan. See you there.

Rowan: Sorry again. Really. I’ll make it right.

I’d rather eat dirt than have some know-it-all geek tell me everything I suck at in great detail. Never mind some know-it-all geek who destroyed my cherished vehicle.

Ugh. I already know how much I suck, fuck you very much. I know I’ve next to no chance of passing my final year, I should have undertaken an easier degree. Guess hindsight is twenty-twenty.

But I really have no choice. Coach says it’s this way or the highway, and having seen where the highway leads for people like me, it’s got to be this way.