Page 12 of The Trade Deadline

Chapter 8

Ryan

The last preseason game was out of town, though luckily only a bus drive up to Philly. Ryan knew better than to care about the team’s record or even the score of individual preseason games, focusing instead on his own play. He’d shaken off the summer rust and was doing pretty well with his face-off percentages. Granted, he wouldn’t know for sure how he was doing until he was playing against regular rosters.

This last one though…it was rough. Philly was a very big, physical team and they took every opportunity they could to lay into the Crabs. Ryan got boarded twice and narrowly dodged a high stick in the face-off. It didn’t help that he scored in the third, earning him a slash to the back of the leg from the goalie.

“I already scored,” he muttered under his breath as the ref argued with the other team’s captain about who was serving the penalty. “What’s the point?”

Except to be a dick. As usual, he kept that part to himself. He might not like Philly or their goalie, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility of playing there. He liked to stay on friendly terms with everyone he could, just in case.

The goalie heard him and came out of the crease to sneer. “To make sure you think twice next time.”

“Next time’s about to be in about ten seconds,” Lars said as he skated over, fresh from the bench. This was only his second game in a Blue Crabs jersey, and he admittedly looked good with the powder blue shoulders of their away jerseys bringing out his eyes. It also didn’t hurt that he was brimming with confidence. He hadn’t scored yet this game (or at all as a Crab), but he was leading the team in shots and shot attempts. And he’d pulled off a between-the-legs move that had made even the Philly fans oooh and aaah before booing.

Undaunted, the goalie rounded on him. “Go back to the west, Nilsson.”

“Why would I want to do that? The goalies here, so much easier to score on. I’ll get the Rocket this year for sure. No wonder I only got it twice before.”

“You— you little— you haven’t even scored?—”

Lars pointed at the scoreboard. “Ten seconds after puck drop. Count it.” Then he winked.

The goalie went red and drifted forward until one of his teammates put himself between the two and started whispering in French to him. Freed from having to deal with a pissed-off goaltender, Ryan started to head off the ice; Lars tapped him with the blade of his stick.

“You okay? Looked like that hurt.”

“Huh?” Oh right, the slash. “It’s fine,” he said dismissively. It wasn’t. The goalie had gotten him right where he didn’t have any pads. He’d have a hell of a bruise tomorrow if he didn’t already, but what was the point of telling Lars that?

Lars looked at him skeptically. Normally Ryan would be gone by now, teammate reassured and job temporarily done, but he lingered, unsure why. They stood there, saying nothing until finally a pair of teenagers with shovels skated by and the ref whistled for everyone to line up. Embarrassed, Ryan rushed back to the bench and accepted congrats for drawing a penalty. No one else asked if he was okay, he noted.

On the resulting Power Play, Lars was both wrong and right. Ryan tried not to count down ten seconds, because no one was that good, but he couldn’t help it.

1 second.

Lars won the puck straight back to Pavel and they set up.

2 seconds.

Back down to Lars who’d moved to the boards.

3 seconds. 4 seconds.

He stickhandled it away from an attacking player and read his options.

5 seconds.

He faked a shot then passed to Jordy Foster at the point.

6 seconds.

Jordy passed it back to him.

7 seconds.

He took the shot.

8 seconds.

The goalie stopped it but couldn’t control the rebound.

9 seconds.

Jake was up front scrambling for the loose puck in the crease. Lars rushed in to help?—

It hit the back of the net at exactly ten seconds after the drop, though it was Jake who officially got the goal. Still, Ryan buzzed with excitement as Lars waved a scolding finger at the goalie and skated over to join the others for a line of high fives.

“Got you a goal,” he said a few minutes later when he sat down next to Ryan.

“You didn’t even score that. That was Soups. You can’t count that.” He blushed despite himself. He might be over Lars forgetting him and getting his name wrong, but he sure as hell didn’t want to be drawn in by his charm again. Fool him once and all that.

“Yes, I can.” And darn it, Lars’s smile really was charming. “It went exactly as planned, and as the mastermind behind that plan, I deserve some credit. Don’t you think they learned a lesson about slashing you?”

“Probably,” Ryan admitted. He bit his lip to try and stop himself from saying anything else. It’d been so easy before when he actually had been annoyed with Lars; now he couldn’t seem to shut himself up. As if on cue: “Thanks for defending my honor, then. But if you’re looking to make up for messing up my name for several weeks” —Lars visibly deflated— “then that’s not gonna cut it.”

“We got five minutes left, people!” Coach Thompkins shouted so loudly Ryan jumped. He turned his attention to their coach to see him glaring at the other team’s bench. “Let’s close out this win and go home. Don’t get sloppy. The only thing I hate more than overtime is fucking preseason overtime.”

When Ryan turned back, he expected their conversation to be over. After all, it was joking around with a teammate on the bench to pass the time between shifts. Instead, he found Lars with a look of grim determination.

“I’m working on it,” Lars said. “I’ll figure something out.”

Suddenly uncomfortable with the weight of Lars’s gaze, Ryan squirmed. “Well, if you can get the Crabs to the playoffs, that’d be a good start.”

It was a joke. Obviously he was joking. Bruised ego aside, Lars didn’t owe him anything. Ryan was 100% over the name thing (and would never bring up the Juniors thing because yikes). It was just words he said to be funny and make Lars relax again.

“Deal.” Lars took off his glove and held out his hand expectantly.

Ryan stared at his hand like it was dripping toxic waste. “Huh?”

“The Crabs make the playoffs this year and you forgive me.” He wiggled his fingers. “Deal?”

“You can’t be serious?—”

“I have to go on the ice in about three seconds, so please shake my hand.”

Ryan hesitated but then figured what the hell. He shook off his glove and shook Lars’s hand, warm and clammy and strong. “Deal. If the Crabs make the playoffs, I’ll forgive you for everything,”

If Lars picked up on the weight behind that “for everything,” he didn’t comment. He didn’t have time to: they barely had time to shake hands before Cameron “Funksy” Funk jumped onto the bench and it was Lars’s turn to head to the ice one last time. Ryan watched him skate off, stuffing his hand back into his glove so he could forget what Lars’s hand in his had felt like. He’d forgotten it once before, after all. He could do it again.

* * *

“You scored a goal, bro!” Tanner wrapped Ryan in a big hug, making Ryan wince; he’d managed to hit every single bruise Ryan had gained in Philly. Maybe even created a few more. He pulled away and gave a feather light punch to Ryan’s shoulder. “Nice job.”

Ryan allowed himself a little swell of pride. It was nice to get the tally, even if it had earned him a slash and wouldn’t even count in his overall point total. Scoring just…felt good, plain and simple. Always had. It was enough to push him through all the other crap that came with playing at this level (or any level, really).

“Thanks,” he said. “Did you watch the highlights?”

Tanner didn’t watch games, but he’d set up alerts on his phone to tell him whenever Ryan scored. Sometimes he watched the highlights or game summaries, or listened to podcast excerpts that talked about it; more often, though, he asked Ryan to tell him about it instead. Ryan knew perfectly well that his renditions were basically meaningless to Tanner, but he liked that Tanner listened attentively and with enough enthusiasm that it didn’t matter that he had no idea what it meant to deke or backhand or to do a wraparound.

“I did!” he said with a pleased grin as he pulled Ryan into the apartment and kicked the door shut. “Beer? I know, I know, you’ve got hockey, but I picked up some non-alcoholic stuff that I thought maybe you’d like.”

“Oh,” he said, touched. “Sure.”

Tanner put an ice-cold, fake beer into his hands as they settled onto the sectional. Ryan didn’t think anything of it when Tanner pulled up the game vs Philly instead of a video game and started scrolling to Ryan’s goal in the third. They’d done this a few times when the descriptions of what Ryan did were confusing or when Tanner didn’t understand what had gotten the announcers so worked up. Ryan easily fell into explaining what he’d done once Tanner hit play, and he only realized the trap he’d fallen into after the video kept going.

Ryan watched with growing embarrassment as Lars trash talked the goalie, watched Lars check on him, watched Lars point to the bench after Jake scored, and, worst of all, he watched as the camera showed them talking and shaking hands on the bench. Okay, no, the worst part was listening to Blue Crabs commentators Zach Martin and Mickey “McHockey” Hoack speculate about him and Lars.

“He promised him a goal after that slash,” McHockey was saying with his thick Canadian accent. “No doubt about it.”

“Not often you see centers buddy up like that,” Martin said. “Right? Usually you do that for your winger or your D, not —”

“You do it for any teammate, any time,” McHockey said with a harrumph. He’d played for the Crabs in the ‘80s shortly after the team was founded. He’d been drafted by them, played ten seasons, and then never felt the need to leave Baltimore. “It’s a good sign, seeing Big Nilly bonding with the new team.”

No one on the team called Lars “Big Nilly,” but McHockey was creative with nicknames. Not all of them stuck among the players, but fans liked them.

“RJ is pretty outgoing,” Martin said. Since he often did intermission interviews with the players, he knew what they were actually called. “No surprise that he’d be one of the first to make friends. Some of the younger players I’m sure are a little starstruck.”

Again, McHockey scoffed. “Of course they respect Nilly. He’s a great player and a great addition to the team. It’d be great if he took Junior” —McHockey’s awful name for Ryan— “under his wing. He could really help him live up to his potential.”

“RJ is a consistent producer,” Martin said diplomatically; Ryan winced at the polite way he avoided saying he disagreed and that Ryan had already maxed out his potential.

“See, look at that camaraderie on the bench. Nilly could really help Junior up his game, use all his experience to?—”

“I believe RJ is actually older. And has played for more teams.”

“Well,” McHockey said dismissively, “Big Nilly will help ‘im bring his game to the next level. This is the duo this team needs.”

Lars and Ryan shook hands, Ryan with a stupidly dreamy expression as Lars skated off. Mercifully the cameras followed Lars, the actual star, and Ryan disappeared from frame.

Tanner paused the game and turned a terribly hidden grin to Ryan. “So how’s it going with your old flame?”

Ryan took a swig of his beer and wished it did have alcohol. There was a reason he’d avoided talking to Tanner about Lars, and he didn’t like that the scene they’d watched made it seem like they were more buddy-buddy than they were.

“It’s not like that,” he said.

Tanner raised his hands defensively. “Like what? I didn’t say it was like anything.”

“Old flame…it’s not…we didn’t…I mean, we did, but…” Ryan buried his face in his hands and groaned. He liked it better when he was the only one who knew about this. Why had he ever opened his stupid mouth and told Tanner he’d slept with Lars? “He doesn’t remember,” he said into his palms, the words trapped there with him.

“Doesn’t remember? Remember what?” When Ryan dropped his arms and raised his eyebrows, Tanner gasped. “He doesn’t remember you ?”

Ryan shook his head. “Like he’d never seen me before. He actually called me Brian for like three weeks before I got around to correcting him.”

“Bro,” Tanner scolded. “I know you’re not good at sticking up for yourself?—”

“I am!”

“You’re not.”

“I guess I don’t?—”

“See! You just gave in! I mean, I am right, but c’mon. Anyway, a teammate getting your name wrong for even a minute is 100% a time you can correct them. You let that shit go on for three weeks?”

Ryan shrugged. He didn’t have an excuse for that one. It was honestly a small grievance in the grand scheme of things, and he knew it wasn’t because Lars didn’t care . Lars had gone out of his way to show that he didn’t think Ryan was unworthy of knowing or anything. It’d been a genuine mistake.

“Wait, I’m confused.” Tanner looked back to the TV screen. “If you two aren’t rekindling an old fling, then what the fuck was all that?”

“Uhhh…nothing?” Admittedly, there was something going on. He didn’t understand it, but Lars had latched onto him in a way he hadn’t with anyone else on the team. Despite the unfortunate Juniors incident (non-incident?), Ryan did like talking to Lars. But he was fairly certain there was nothing romantic or sexual going on. He’d seen Lars in action, and knew he was forward when he was into someone. Even if he’d learned to be discreet, the energy was wrong.

“Nothing?” Tanner asked skeptically.

“I think he needs a friend,” Ryan said. “He’s new to the team and that hasn’t happened to him in seven years. We’re the same age, we play the same position, and I happened to be there the first time he met anyone on the team.”

“So he imprinted on you and you’re the one stuck with the awkward sorta-ex wanting to be your bestie?”

“It’s not that awkward.” Saying it out loud, he realized it was true. It had been weird and uncomfortable, but Ryan hadn’t felt that around Lars in a while. “It’s kinda nice, actually. Like…” He struggled to pin it down, knowing Tanner would wait while he figured it out. “No one else on any team I’ve played with has ever taken an interest in me . Like, as a person. It’s not like they exclude me or are rude or anything, but they are specifically interested in hanging out because we’re teammates. Once I leave, we’ll talk when we play against each other, but the connection is hockey.”

“But Lars sees you,” Tanner said knowingly. “And he likes you.”

For now. Maybe once they got into the regular season, Lars would see him framed by hockey like everyone else.

Ryan grabbed his beer from the coffee table and drank it aggressively so he wouldn’t have to answer.

“It’ll be good for you to have someone you don’t have to perform for,” Tanner said. He switched the TV back to his Xbox. “Wanna play Fortnite? I ordered from that burger place you like.”

He hated when Tanner did that. Said something insightful that shook up Ryan’s bullshit, then let it go just as easily as Ryan could choose whether or not he cared to deal with it. Normally he opted not to, but the information would sit in the back of his head for months, begging for acknowledgement.

“Sure. I don’t have practice tomorrow. I can play for a bit.”

Tanner was already loading the game. “No practice? You should text Lars and hang out.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Okay, but you should. You could invite him over here and we could play. Do you think he smokes weed?”

“I have no idea. And no way. I can’t bring him around you when you’re high.”

“I could be not-high.”

“Could you, though?”

Tanner made a face. “Yeah, good call. Turn on the controller, Player Two.”