Rites of Passage

by Catherine Gayle

  “Bullshit. You know what you deserve. You’re just scared of getting it.”

  I shook my head. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means you think if you reach out and ask for what you want and what you deserve out of life that someone’s going to come along and rip the rug out from under you. But that’s not going to happen now.” He sounded so sure of himself it made me want to scoff.

  But I didn’t. Instead, I asked, “Why not?”

  “Because you’re strong enough to hold on now.” He lifted my sketchbook from my hands and started flipping through the pages, easily evading me when I tried to grab it back from him.

  “How the hell do you get that, when you can take something as simple as my pad away from me?”

  “Good stuff in here,” he said after a minute, avoiding my question. “Really good. But it’s not you.”

  “Maybe it’s the new me.”

  “Nah, it’s not you. But you’re starting to act like yourself again. Does me good to see it. So is it because of this Muscle Man—sorry, Drew—you’ve been hanging out with?”

  “Don’t go reading anything into it that isn’t there just because you want it to be there.”

  “Okay. But don’t you try to pretend something doesn’t exist when it does.”

  That bought him another eye roll.

  “Does he deserve you?” he asked, turning serious on me again.

  “According to whom?”

  “You know what I mean. Is he good to you?”

  Better than I knew how to handle. Rick seemed more focused on me than on keeping my pad away from me, so I snatched my sketchbook back and flipped to the page I’d been working on, giving him a look that said to keep his hands to himself.

  “Maybe he is, then,” Rick murmured, sitting up again and resting his elbows on his knees. “If you can’t answer me, maybe it’s because you’ve finally found a man and not a boy. Someone who’s going to do right by you.”

  “You feel free to think whatever you want. I’m going to keep working on this.”

  “Mm hmm. So does he know?”

  For whatever reason, I was so unprepared for that question that the shock of hearing it caused me to drop my pencil.

  Rick reached over and tipped my chin up so I had to meet his eyes. He gave me a sad smile and nodded. “He knows. And he’s still coming to pick you up after work almost every day. I might decide to like Muscle Man, after all.” Then he gave me a quick peck on my cheek and got out of my chair. “Got to go yell at Billy again.”

  “What’d Billy do this time?”

  “Nothing. I just haven’t yelled at him in a few days. He’ll think I’m sick if I don’t figure out something to give him hell over.” Then he winked and walked through my door, leaving it ajar.

  He hadn’t been gone two minutes before Dagger knocked on the open doorframe.

  “Walk-in asking for you,” he said, spinning around and heading back up front again before I could ask him to expound.

  Another walk-in. If this was Drew again… But no, it couldn’t be. He’d had practice with the team this morning, followed by all sorts of sessions. He’d told me that since it was a game day, he’d have to go home and take a nap in the afternoon and then head up to the arena a couple of hours before game time. There wasn’t a chance he’d end up here.

  I quickly put away my sketch pad and pencils, tidying up the small mess I’d created, and then made my way out front to see whomever was waiting for me.

  When I reached the desk, a young woman with red hair and curvy hips turned around. She gave me a tentative smile. “You’re Ravyn?”

  “I am.”

  She blinked a couple of times, then reached into her purse and brought out her cell phone. After swiping the screen and scrolling through a couple of menus, she passed her phone over to me. There was a photograph of one of my favorite tattoos I’d ever done—a watercolor mermaid in the ocean, going down a woman’s rib cage, with the tail curling around the back of her waist and butt.

  “You did this?” she asked me.

  I nodded, trying to keep my smile in check and act like a professional, but I still felt a little giddy every time I saw that piece. It’d been a hell of a lot of work, but it was so worth it in the end. “About a year and a half ago if memory serves.”

  She took a few moments looking me over, like she was sizing me up, but then she gave me a curt nod. “Good deal. Then you’re the tattoo artist I want. I’ve been looking all over the place for more than a year, trying to find just the right person.”

  And I was it, based on a bold, colorful tattoo of the sort that I hadn’t been able to do lately. A wave of trepidation threatened to knock me over.

  Rick caught my eye from the other side of the lobby. He winked, which was all it took to bolster me up enough to get my feet under me again. I didn’t know what this woman wanted. It was entirely possible I could give her what she was looking for. It was equally possible that I’d tell her I couldn’t do it and send her on her way with a recommendation for someone else. No matter what, I wouldn’t know unless I sat down with her and had a conversation.

  So I steeled my spine and took a breath. Talking was something I could do. Maybe not anything else, but at least that. “What’s your name?”

  “Whitney Bayer,” she said, holding out a hand.

  I shook with her. “Why don’t you come on back to my room and tell me what you’re looking for, Whitney?” Once we were alone in my space, I closed the door and offered her a seat. “So, tell me a bit more about what you’re thinking.”

  She glanced over at the open blinds covering the windows that looked out into the rest of the shop. “Mind if we close those, and I can show you?”

  “Not at all.” I got up and twisted the plastic wand thingy to close them.

  When I turned around, Whitney was stripping off her shirt. I did my best not to react in any way and keep a professional demeanor. Really, in this business, I’d seen it all.

  Or I thought I had.

  Once her shirt was off, she reached behind her and unhooked the clasps of her bra, then let it fall forward. Without her saying another word, I understood. She’d had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. Scars. No nipples.

  “I know maybe you’re more comfortable with me because I’m a woman,” I said, “but Rick, the shop’s owner? He might be the better tattoo artist for the job. He’s actually got a technique down for tattooing realistic looking nipples and areolas—”

  “Let me stop you right there,” Whitney cut in. “I didn’t pick you because you’re a woman, and I don’t want nipples and areolas. They’re gone, and they’re never coming back, so why bother pretending?” She had a very matter-of-fact demeanor about her. Direct. Straightforward. I liked her.

  “Okay, no nips. What are you looking for, then?”

  “I want something bold, colorful, and pretty. Something no one else has.” She took a seat again and crossed one leg over the other. “Something that represents beauty, strength, and peace, something about looking forward and not back. I want something only you can do.”

  Something I used to be able to do. But I kept that thought to myself.

  “You have any ideas right now for what it should be?” Even as I asked the question, I took out a notepad and started jotting things down as they came to mind, images that were symbolic of what she was looking for. Butterflies, roses, dragonflies, Japanese cherry blossoms… Dragons were a possibility, depending on her preferences. And I wasn’t sure how I’d fit a dragon across her chest in a way that was flattering. I glanced up and studied her body, trying to imagine it.

  “So you’re wanting something to celebrate being cancer free, I suppose?” I asked.

  The more I could understand where she was coming from, the better I could design a tattoo that was exactly what she had in mind—even if she wasn’t sure what she had in mind. This was how the collaborative nature of tattooing worked sometimes.

  But I was still worri
ed that I wouldn’t be able to do something she’d like. The way I’d been so stuck in my head lately, doing a bright, bold, colorful watercolor design wouldn’t be easy. I just didn’t know if I could do it.

  But she went and shocked me again. “Well, not exactly. I didn’t have breast cancer.”

  I set down my pen and pad, looking up at her in surprise.

  “My mother did. She died when I was only twelve. And her mother died from it in her thirties, too. I got tested. I have the gene.”

  “So you had a mastectomy as a preemptive measure? Like Angelina Jolie?”

  She nodded. “I’m twenty-eight today. I fully intend to see forty, even though neither my mother nor grandmother did.” Then she smiled at me. “I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror when I get there and smile at what I see. So I need your help.”

  And I’d be damned if I couldn’t find a way to give her exactly what she needed.

  DOUG SPURRIER CALLED me into his office while most of the guys were kicking a soccer ball around in the bowels of the BOK Center to get warmed up. I couldn’t help but feel like a naughty schoolboy heading into the principal’s office, even though that couldn’t be any further from what this was likely meant to be.

  He was the team’s head coach; I was one of his players. It was as simple as that.

  “What’s up, Spurs?” I asked, trying to keep it light. At his nod, I took a seat across from him.

  A couple of the other coaches were in there, too, but their heads were huddled together over a laptop in the corner, leaving the two of us alone, for all intents and purposes.

  The good news was that Spurs didn’t mess around with me. He got straight to the point. “I’m putting you out there tonight. You’re starting the game on a line with Hutch and Frisky. Don’t want to make you wait any longer than necessary to shake off the butterflies. You know…rip off the Band-Aid, that sort of thing.”

  “All right,” I said, trying to keep my shit together.

  To be honest, I hadn’t had the first clue what Spurs wanted when he’d sent for me, but never in a million years would I have guessed it to be this. I’d thought I’d be eased back into things. The doctors had cleared me on a physical level, but on an emotional level? I wasn’t positive I was as ready for this as I needed to be.

  Preston Hutchinson and Viktor Frisk weren’t my usual line mates—typically, I played on a line with Zee and Gustav Gunnarsson—but in the preseason, all the forward lines and defensive pairings got jumbled up.

  Lots of the guys who came to training camp were young kids just getting their first taste of pro hockey. In these games, they got to see ice time with seasoned pros, so the coaching staff and the GM’s staff could discover how prepared they were to handle the big leagues. It helped the front office staff in making developmental decisions, I supposed, and gave them some guidance toward making those final cuts before the regular season got underway.

  Frisky was new to the team this season. He was definitely one of those aforementioned young kids. Spurs was sending him out with me and Hutch, a couple of veteran players, probably so we could keep him calm and help him find his way out there.

  Most of the lines for these first few games would look like that—a vet or two alongside fresh-faced, hyped-up, overgrown boys who would probably be sent back to their junior teams or the AHL before too much time passed. But when they went back, they’d have a much better idea of what they needed to work on in order to make the jump to the NHL level later on, because of whatever wisdom we managed to pass down to them.

  Spurs didn’t usually make any sort of announcement about who would be playing in a game, and definitely not about who would be starting, until well after the official warm-ups on the ice. Often not until moments before we hit the tunnel to head out there.

  But for me, he’d made an exception. Maybe he realized I needed the extra time to get my head together.

  Tonight wasn’t normal, because it was only an exhibition game and wouldn’t count toward the standings. In my mind, I knew that, but my body didn’t seem to be getting the message. I’d been trying to hide my nerves, but it wasn’t overly surprising to learn I’d done a poor job of it. Adrenaline had been coursing through me all day long, so much of it that I’d halfway hoped I’d be one of the regular roster players who ended up watching from the press box tonight so I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

  But Spurs was right, and deep down, I knew it.

  I had to get this first game out of my system, and it’d be a hell of a lot better to do it when the results of the game didn’t matter. If I lost my shit tonight, so what? Whatever happened, I wouldn’t be hurting the team, so I nodded my agreement.

  “You figure out which Kevlar pieces you like best yet?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “None of them feel comfortable, but they’re all a hell of a lot better than taking a skate blade to the jugular.”

  He let out a roar of laughter. “Fucking right. I wish more players would wake up to the fact that taking care of their bodies out there is more important than proving how macho they are. But these things take time, and we’ve got to change the whole culture surrounding the game before these guys will wake up sometimes, you know?” He gave me a meaningful look.

  I knew that all too well. There was a lot of truth to what he’d said about the hockey culture. In general, we were a bunch of macho buffoons more concerned with appearing manly to our teammates and competitors than with taking care of ourselves the way we should.

  My mother was constantly forwarding memes via email and tagging me in posts on Facebook about how hockey players started wearing protective cups decades before anyone ever thought to wear a helmet.

  But maybe I could help spark another safety measure in the sport through wearing the Kevlar sleeves and whatnot. Even if I didn’t, I could protect myself—and in the process, hopefully do something to protect everyone else out there with me, so they wouldn’t needlessly be exposed to my blood.

  We chatted for a few more minutes before he sent me on my way so he could discuss our penalty kill units with the other coaches.

  I joined the guys who were kicking the soccer ball around, doing my best to warm up my body without letting my anxiety run away with me.

  An hour later, we headed down the tunnel for the ice. Hunter Fielding, our starting goalie tonight, led the boys out first, with me bumping fists with each of the guys as they went past us.

  Usually, as the team captain, Zee would be the last guy out. He was up in the press box tonight, though, so for this one game, I was wearing the C and taking his place.

  Finally, they were all out ahead of me. I made my way through the tunnel and stepped onto the ice to a roaring chorus of boos, louder than anything heard in this arena since the very first game of our inaugural season.

  Or I thought they were boos, but all the guys skating circles around me had grins so wide their faces might crack at any moment, and they kept slapping me on the back or the helmet and saying things like “Told ya so, you big fucker” and “You were seriously thinking about not coming back?” and “Soak it up, bro, soak it up.”

  I blinked a couple of times and focused in on the fans pressed up against the glass at our end of the ice, holding up signs and screaming at the top of their lungs.

  They weren’t booing. They were shouting my name. Drew. More like Dreeeeeeeeewwwwwww, actually.

  I’d never expected anything like it. And I didn’t have the first clue what to do with it. A couple of times in my career, the fans would chant my name like that—usually after I’d scored a big goal or some other thing that would get them behind me. Never just because I stepped foot on the ice.

  Once the reality of the situation started to sink in, the only thing I could think was how badly I wanted to talk about it with Ravyn. If anyone would understand the whirlwind of emotions racing through me, it was her.

  But she wasn’t even here. She was at work, and I wouldn’t be able to see her for hours.

  The a
rena was full to the brim. The puck wouldn’t drop for more than half an hour yet, but there were hardly any empty seats in the building—and most of the ones that were empty would likely be filled later by the fans currently crowding the glass to watch the warm-ups.

  We might have a sell-out tonight.

  In the preseason.

  For a game that didn’t matter.

  There wasn’t any good reason for so many people to be here. At least half the regular players weren’t in the lineup tonight, including a lot of the bigger stars on the team like Zee, and Lord knew the T-Birds hadn’t played well enough in our first couple of seasons to generate this kind of fan loyalty.

  The only explanation for it was that they were here to see me. To support me as I attempted to come back from the accident I thought should have ended my career.

  I hadn’t felt more overwhelmed in a long time.

  But we had a game to play, so I had to pull it together. Settling my helmet in place and attaching the chin strap, I stretched out a gloved hand and waved to acknowledge the crowd.

  They somehow got even louder, and one of the camera guys zoomed in on me. I made a mental note to find out who he was later and beat the shit out of him, because with my mug up on the Jumbotron, you could tell I was about to cry, and every guy on the ice—for both teams—had stopped to stare.

  That had to wait, though. I picked up some speed, gathered up one of the dozens of pucks with the blade of my stick, and headed for the net. Top-shelf, glove side. It went in, like Hunter hadn’t even bothered.

  I tapped him on the shins with my stick as I breezed past him. “Better get your head on straight before the game starts,” I shouted.

  “At least I’m not about to fucking cry,” he called after me, grinning.

  Yeah, I’d be hearing about that one for a long time to come. But I didn’t care. My smile was so wide it made my face hurt.

  FOR THE FIRST half of the game, Hunter played lights-out hockey. The Avs forwards peppered him with shots like they’d been waiting all summer just for that opportunity, and defensively, we weren’t doing much in the way of slowing them down. That was definitely something the coaches would be on us about in the next film session, especially because the Avs weren’t one of the better possession teams in the league. If we played like this against Dallas in a couple of days, you could bet they wouldn’t have a goose egg on the scoreboard.