Players in the circle dwindled down to four. There was only Leo, O’Doul, Bayer, and Silas. Leo felt loose and ready to play, whether it was hockey or this silly warm-up game. He’d take it.
O’Doul kicked to Silas who headed it toward the space between Leo and O’Doul.
“Got it,” O’Doul yelled, so Leo let him take the shot. The captain only got there in time to bump the ball with his shoulder toward Leo.
The heavy trajectory of the ball meant that Leo couldn’t get an ordinary kick in. But he got a knee under it, boosting that sucker into the air, sending it sailing across the circle, but too high for Bayer to get a head on it.
“Fuck.” Bayer chuckled. Instead of letting it go, though, he backed up three big paces and sort of slid his body onto the concrete floor for a bicycle kick.
It almost worked. Almost. But the ball sailed over the tip of his sneaker. And on his way down, Bayer’s foot collided with a forklift that was parked against the loading dock wall. “Arrrgh!” Bayer yelled, and Leo couldn’t tell if the sound came from frustration or pain. Either way, Bayer rolled away from the machinery and up onto his feet. “Thanks a fuck ton, rookie.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he said, knowing it wasn’t really his fault that Bayer’s toe collided with heavy machinery. But he was the new guy, and therefore honor bound to take crap from the veterans. He trotted off to collect the ball, which had rolled toward the door, unattended.
As Leo nabbed the ball off the floor, a pair of dress shoes stepped into his line of vision. He stood up to find Coach Worthington standing in the doorway, a clipboard in his hands. “Evening, Coach,” Leo said, spinning the ball on his finger.
Worthington stepped past him to greet the team. “Evening, hooligans,” he said with a smile. “Are you ready to have a big night?”
Leo’s teammates turned toward the coach’s voice like flowers toward the sun. Karl Worthington was well-liked in hockey. While he was known to be occasionally gruff, he could also be magnetic and inspiring.
Coach grinned at them for a moment, taking everyone in. “I know we don’t know each other so well yet. But I can already see you’re a team who’s going to do great things heading into the postseason. Let me tell you a little story about new coaches.
“You guys have all had the pleasure of working with my daughter, Georgia, for a while now. Maybe you don’t know this about Georgia but she’s a hell of a tennis player, and she started winning tournaments when she was seven years old. She was a fierce competitor, and my nickname for her was Killer.”
That got him a few quiet chuckles.
“. . . So when Killer was nine, her coach went out on maternity leave, and a new one came in. The first practice with the new guy, she really struggled on the court. She forgot how to use her backhand, and she didn’t return balls that she should have gotten. Poor kid was falling apart out there. I didn’t know that playing for a new coach would be a terrifying experience for her.”
Leo scanned his teammates’ faces. Some of them were smirking, wondering where Coach was headed with this.
“After practice I was real careful to ask her nicely about what went wrong. I said, ‘You were really stinking it up out there, sweetie. What happened?’” The players laughed. “. . . And she said, ‘Daddy, I already knew all the stuff he was telling us. But he only gets one practice with me before the tournament. So when I win that sucker next weekend, he can still feel good about helping me.’”
The other players roared, and Leo found himself smiling, even though he’d heard this story a dozen times before.
“So don’t do that,” Worthington said with a chuckle. “We don’t know each other all that well yet. But I’m just going to take things slow, and watch how you work together. No hasty decisions will be made, guys. I need you to relax out there tonight and do your thing. To that end, our starting lines tonight will be exactly how they were in your last game.”
He held up the clipboard and began reading names. And with each name that was read aloud, Leo’s heart sank a little further. He was not on the player card tonight.
The soccer game started up again, but Leo sneaked out to head back to the quiet locker room. He sat on the bench and pulled out his phone. The signal down here was a little sketchy, but he wanted to tell his family not to make the trip into the city for the game tonight. That there was no point. The last call he’d received was from his brother DJ, so Leo hit redial on that one.
“Hey!” His little brother’s voice filled his ear. “It’s Mr. Unreachable! Wait—is this really Leo on the line? Or is this, like, his personal assistant calling?”
“Very funny, asshole,” Leo grumbled. Though DJ had phoned him several times, Leo had been too busy to get back to him. Or he’d thought he was too busy. But look at all the free time he suddenly had tonight.
“The fam is on its way to see your game.”
“Tell ’em not to come,” he said quickly. “I’ve been scratched.”
“Shit,” DJ whispered, all the teasing gone from his voice. “That sucks.”
“It really fucking does.” If there was one person to whom he was willing to confess his disappointment, it was DJ. The two of them hadn’t always been close. As kids they’d sparred as often as they gotten along. But when shit got real, the two of them always dropped their enmity and pulled together. “Coach Worthington hates my sorry ass.”
His brother was silent for a moment. “I don’t really understand why. But forget about that for a second. If he ships your ass back to the AHL, what does that do to you?”
Leo groaned. “It makes me look like damaged goods. And it makes me too expensive to trade to another AHL team. Unless I let ’em out of my contract, which my agent will not want me to do.”
“Shit,” DJ repeated.
“Yeah.” There was another beat of fraternal silence, then Leo cleared his throat. “Looking on the bright side, I might be able to take you out for a beer or two while I’m still in the tristate area. I hope you guys didn’t buy tickets for tonight already.”
“Well.” DJ chuckled. “Dad bought tickets to every home game for the rest of the season.”
“Why? If this does work out, I could score him free seats.”
“I told him that. But he said he needed extra for his buddies at work. And anyway—I wasn’t ever making it there tonight. I’m out west, skiing with Lianne.”
“Really?”
“Winter break.”
“Oh.” Leo vaguely remembered what it was like to take vacations. “Lucky.”
“Yeah. But dude—we’ve been on the phone for five minutes, and you haven’t told me if you saw Georgia.”