Page 5

If word got out that I had a thing for the trainer?

They’d send her home with a pink slip faster than I could say “unrequited.” Even if by some miracle Sadie noticed me too, it would go nowhere, but I still can’t pass up a chance to see her.

She had a crossword today. One all about my home country.

I had to remind myself over and over not to read into the fact that she pulled it out and asked me for help.

She was probably bored. She probably didn’t go hunt down a themed puzzle just for my benefit or to get my attention.

She’s probably unaware that doing that damn crossword was—is—the highlight of every day we spent together. Well, the crossword and her smile.

I’m scroll through the search engine results, trying to remember how big Howl’s current bed is and what size he’d need next, when my phone rings in my hand.

My agent’s number stares up at me and I sigh. I drag my thumb across the screen, pressing the phone to my ear.

“ Halló .”

“ Ragnar, how are you?”

I don’t answer.

“I know you don’t like to talk on the phone, but I only had a moment. I’m stuck on the damn n throughway again. ‘Everything in L.A. is thirty minutes,’ my ass. More like three goddamn hours.”

I pull air in through my nose and purse my lips.

“I had a message from Carl over at Edge Line. Wanted to send it through ASAP.”

My chest aches and my stomach twists. Another deep breath. If it was good news, this wouldn’t be a phone call. It would be one of our standard video meetings. Where Angelo tells me the news and I type my responses and questions back to him.

“ It’s nothing personal. They just aren’t comfortable extending another year without knowing you’re back in the game. ”

But I am back in the game.

“ It’s hip injuries. They’re tough Rags, I don’t have to tell you that. They don’t want to tie up a sponsorship contract with someone who won’t see ice time. ”

I know he’s just repeating what they said, but his words hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. My lungs deflate like popped balloons.

“I went…went…went t-to p-p-p…” I take a deep breath, clenching and unclenching my fists to loosen the tightness in my jaw. “Prac—”

“ Hey, it’s okay.” I hate being interrupted. “ They’re wrong. We both know that. You’re gonna be back on top this year. I have no doubts, it was just shit timing that you got pancaked at the end of the season. They haven’t had a chance to see you in action yet.”

I suppose his faith in me is heartwarming.

It also feels like an elephant sitting in the middle of my chest. I’d be lying if my return to the ice wasn’t weighing on me.

Practice is one thing, even pre-season. The play is different, sure I’m taking shots, but preseason is a chance for each team to work out their kinks.

Figure out who skates best with whom. Make changes to their lines, their systems, the players.

It’s about winning, yes, coming out strong to set the tone for the entire season, but it isn’t the same level of play.

Like the all-star break. It’s more of a showcase of skills than the regular battle for division dominance.

I wish I had the same faith in myself as Angelo does. Or coach, or Vic, or… Sadie.

“ You focus on getting a good start to the season, keep that hip in line, and I’ll set up another sit-down with them around December. That should give them enough time to eat their words. I did try to get them to extend on a probationary basis, give you the benefit of the doubt…”

But they wouldn’t.Why should they? I’ve only been partnered with them for the last three years.

“ Look, they just don’t think you have enough reach on social media to carry the campaign if…” He trails off.

If I can’t play.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

“ I’ll put some feelers out, but I think our best option right now is to prove them wrong. I have to jump off, but I’ll send you an email rundown by the end of the day. Shoot back any questions you might have and we can set up another meeting.”

I grunt my goodbye as the line goes dead, then I carefully slide my phone into the pocket of my team-issued sweats. Once my hands are empty, I fist them. Hard. I take a deep breath at the welcome sting of my nails biting into the calloused skin of my palms.

“ Fokk .”

Reach on social media.

I’ve spent enough time with Tristan to know what that means. I’m not charismatic enough. I don’t post enough. Don’t engage. I just don’t like to.

When I first moved to the states, I remember feeling lost. I had a very basic grasp of English thanks to the Icelandic education system, but it still felt like there was a wall between me and everyone I met.

I didn’t understand their turns of phrase.

I didn’t understand the customs, or the way everyone seemed to know what to do and how to act.

Foreign. Alien. And I still know I had it easier than any kid who didn’t look like me.

Red hair and freckles come with some bullying, but I “looked” like I fit.

I’m sure some kids would have assimilated better.

Would have studied the way people interacted with each other, practiced their conversations in a mirror, but it was easier for me to focus on the sport I knew.

The place I excelled. If I was a powerhouse on the ice, adults didn’t seem to care that I added extra syllables and pauses to my words.

That they got stuck in my throat. My teammates didn’t care either, not once they realized I could help them win.

Not sure if any of that is a blessing or a curse.

Did I get teased for my lack of verbal fluency?

Not to my knowledge, or at least not without a hoard of supporters willing to burn the world to the ground.

Then again, maybe if I’d been more of an inconvenience someone would have noticed.

Maybe along with potential mocking would have come a helping hand.

Being quiet has never bothered me much before right now.

Probably because it never affected anyone but me.

My phone vibrates in my pocket.

Kitty Kat

Ragnar?

Will you visit next summer?

Please?

I miss you too much.

I swallow the lump in my throat as I read my sister’s message. Social media isn’t important. Being charismatic/magnetic/whatever the current buzzword might be isn’t important.

Katrín is important. Amma is important.

And fokk it all to hell, but my employment—my contracts—they affect my family.

Ragnar

I intend to

Miss you more.

Kitty Kat

Ragnar

I do not know what that means

Kitty Kat

Tú ert rassgat í bala

Ragnar

Djofulsins rassgat

I laugh. This ill-informed devil’s asshole is going to teach himself how to be charismatic.

How to be personable. Friendly. I pull up my phone’s browser app and navigate to the search engine.

If the issue is that Edge Line thinks I don’t have enough reach…

well, I’m going to prove them wrong. No big deal.

Thirty minutes later, I’m elbow deep in a question-and-answer forum, trying not to think about the fact that most of the site users are probably children.

I might not be an expert, but “bring a special snack to school” doesn’t feel like the most applicable advice.

Or maybe—I scroll down a few more answers—it could be.

Hockey players are notoriously snack-oriented, except I never really learned to prepare any of my country’s cultural dishes.

And my team isn’t the group I’m looking to impress.

I left home at eleven. I maybe have known how to sharpen my skate blades and strap on a goalie kit, but I wasn’t a master in the kitchen.

I scroll through several more answers, feeling my hope leak out of me like I’ve been punched full of holes.

The consensus is that making these kinds of changes isn’t worth it.

I can appreciate the advice that people will like us for who we are, whether introverted or extroverted or allergic to social interactions overall, but none of that is helpful in my current situation.

I close my browser, frustrated with the lack of any actual advice.

I turn on the television, flipping channels until I find the Sports network.

They’re talking about the start of preseason, and I watch highlights from last playoffs.

Fokk you, Edge Line. I think the words hard enough that I hope they get a shiver down at their headquarters in Miami.

I was on fire last year. My stats proved it.

I’ve been in the list of top five goaltenders for the last three years running.

On my television screen, I watch the puck slam into the palm of my glove, my hand closing around it.

I tune out the announcers dissecting my play.

My televised eyes flit up to the Jumbotron and I glower at the replay.

Focused. In the zone. On top of the world.

I still am.

I have to be.

On the screen, the camera pans down the bench to Vic. He’s grinning, dropping a chin to his chest in a nod. The image jumps to his wife, Tristan, mouth twisted into a small smile as she watches from the box. I could ask them.

As the social media coordinator, Tristan could whip me into shape in a matter of days, probably.

But it wouldn’t be enough. She catapulted Vic to stardom—or more stardom—with a few well-planned videos together.

I even had a small part in one, explaining the gyrfalcon Katrín designed for my helmet.

I know the clip gained me new followers.

I know it earned me extra mail sent to the organization.

And I hated every minute behind the camera. Every. Single. One.

I’m not naturally easy-going, or bubbly, like our captain.

I’m also not gruffly standoffish like Robbie, our second-in-command.

I’m just Ragnar. Words and I don’t get along.

I always feel like I’m stuck watching a slow-motion replay while everyone else experiences things first hand.

Tristan and Vic worked together because they’re both comfortable in front of crowds.

Comfortable talking to a camera. Comfortable together.

It takes one hand to count the number of people I feel like I can understand.

Amma

Katrín

Vic

Tristan

…

Sadie.

Restless energy has me heading back to my phone search engine, using one oversized finger to type in the words, “How to become more comfortable in social situations?” My thumb hits all the wrong buttons and I pause, flexing my hand to loosen my joints. Try again.

I’m back on the forum again, but this time something stands out.

This may not be a smart idea, and I’d never tell someone they have to do what I do,but it’s what works for me.

I think of my social persona as a character I put on.

If I have to be in social situations, I wear her like a mask.

It’s exhausting, pretending all the time, but I think that’s the reality.

I’m not sure anyone can change who they fundamentally are.

I’m someone who will always find my social battery drained by being in public or around others.

I also have a job that means I cannot just fade into the background.

I studied some of my more extroverted coworkers.

I imitated speech patterns and nonverbal cues.

If I mess something up, well, it wasn’t me.

It was work me, or Girls-Night-Out me. And then I build in time to disassociate in silence to recover.

Again, I’m not saying it’s healthy or smart or whatever, and sure, I run into burn out… but it works. ???♀?

On the television, I watch my past self drop to a butterfly before I go ass over elbow.

The dark purple of the Rocky Mountain player jersey goes tumbling over my back.

Even in the replay, the sound seems to cut out.

A collective gasp for air. I’m still on the ice.

I almost forgot the way the pain burned through my hip, lighting me up from the inside out.

Sizzling like acid in my veins. Then I see her.

Her dark braid swings as she hops the bench with the practiced ease of a lifelong player.

Spags taught her how to do that. I remember watching them from the crease, my throat burning as I let in shot after shot, unable to tear my gaze away from the two of them, laughing as she tried to get enough height to go over the top. I wish I’d thought to teach her.

She slides to her knees on the ice, her hand hovering over the center of my chest. I know she was telling me to stay still.

That Greg was coming. That it was all going to be okay.

I remember the way my ears roared before zeroing in on her voice, blocking out the sound of bruising punches being thrown behind the crease.

My team standing up for me. Fighting. For me.

On the screen I see the corner of my mouth tip up into an almost smile. I don’t remember doing that. I don’t remember much beyond the pain and the thudding of my pulse and her soothing voice. I’d smiled? Even then?

I watch them load me up and cart me off the ice.

The announcers are talking about my injury.

The shit luck that had me flattened in the second period of the seventh game of the playoffs.

How no one had seen me on the ice since, but I was still on the roster for the start of the season. They wonder if I’m healed. If I’m back.

I watch Sadie slip her way to the bench, her feet almost skidding out from under her. Like she can barely hold herself up. As she reaches the bench, the door is flung open by Robbie and the guys move to the side to let her through. I watch as they duck their heads to talk to her.

Even if I can’t read their lips from the distance and behind their half-shields, I know what they’re saying.

They gave her messages for me. Asked her to fix me up good as new.

I know a critical hit can shake a team. An injury can change the momentum of the game.

Over the next twenty minutes of play, my replacement Jacobs couldn’t seem to find the puck and the Rush dumped in three garbage goals.

The offense fell apart too, focusing more on putting a world of hurt on the Rocky Mountain offensive line.

I know my teammates were concerned with my well-being, worried enough to stop our assistant trainer and ask her to pass along well wishes and messages, but for the first time watching them bend down to meet her height, it looks like that isn’t all that they were doing.

It almost looks like they were trying to comfort… her.