Body Check: Blades Hockey

by Luis, Maria

  Thirty-one minutes and one second.

  Something about that makes me grin. I’ve missed a decent chunk of Getting Pucked’s first episode, and as I wait for the sting of regret to settle in, I pull open the Safe Space group chat that Jackson added me to. My grin only widens.

  Harrison: Holly? Are you there? Did we scare you off?

  Beaumont: Pretty sure that Jackson can take the blame for that one. Him and his clogged throat on TV.

  Hunt: Look at that massive forehead. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Andre—you park cars on that thing???

  Unknown Number: Park or pahk the cah?

  Hunt: The rookie thinks he’s got Boston jokes.

  Unknown Number: I DO have jokes.

  Hunt: How’s this for a joke, Kammer? Me, you, at dawn, pisto

  Unknown Number: Pisto? Is that a new pasta sauce?

  Hunt: No, it’s called my wife asking me to let the dog out and I couldn’t threaten you and be a good dog-dad all at once.

  Unknown Number: #whipped

  Beaumont: #dontbejealousrookie

  Unknown Number: I don’t know about Kammer, but I’m jealous about the dog. I need a new apartment that allows animals.

  Harrison: Anyone notice that Jackson has disappeared and Holly has yet to comment?

  Unknown Number: Maybe she muted us.

  Hunt: I noticed.

  Bordeaux: I notice.

  Beaumont: Bets, right now, that they’re on the phone.

  Harrison: Ten bucks.

  Beaumont: Cheap bastard.

  Hunt: Fifty.

  God, they’re ridiculous.

  And after so many years of knowing them, they’re family, too. But like with all family, sometimes what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

  Me: Hello boys. Unfortunately for all of you, I’ve been watching the episode with my team. Not sure about Jackson, but if you want to transfer that money over to me . . . I wouldn’t be opposed to the extra cash ;-)

  I pocket my phone, then head back to where I left Carmen and the rest of my staff.

  My talk with Jackson tonight . . . the way my heart felt lighter than it has in years? I’m not willing to share any of that, not just yet.

  14

  Jackson

  My eyes are locked on the puck when I’m hit by a goddamn tank.

  Fitzgerald, one of Philly’s D-men, cedes no mercy as stars dance and black webs crawl across my vision. The force of his body check slams me into the boards, my helmet glancing off the Plexiglas, the crowd beyond it roaring with applause as I blink rapidly.

  In a sea of tangerine orange, I spot a lone blue-and-silver jersey.

  Blades fans representing in enemy territory—gotta love them.

  “Might want to sit down, old man. Wouldn’t want you embarrassing yourself on reality TV,” Fitzgerald grunts by my ear as he tries to hook the biscuit and steal it away.

  Not happening.

  Vision still swirling, head still pounding, I hunch my shoulders and bulldoze my way out of the hole with enough force that Fitzgerald falls back. I skim my gaze over the ice, the players flying toward me from all angles as nausea rips up my throat and everything goes topsy-turvy.

  Not right now, not right now.

  By sheer force of will, I keep my protein shake down and feed the puck to Bordeaux where he’s waiting outside the crease. Fitzgerald curses behind me, knocking into my shoulder as he flies toward the net. I follow a heartbeat later, fully prepared to tackle the asshole if he so much as—

  Bordeaux lines up the shot and snaps the puck forward.

  —fuck.

  Fitzgerald’s partner-in-crime clears the puck, stopping what would have been a filthy clapper, and proceeds to hustle down the rink.

  Unlike when we played Nashville, the Philadelphia Flyers aren’t jerking around.

  The fierce competitor in me demands that we switch lines and get Beaumont and Cain on the ice to do their job. Losing isn’t an option, not even in preseason, but neither is keeping the rookies off the ice until game day hits, when we all realize that they’re timid and nervous and un-fucking-capable of protecting Harrison in the net.

  Today doesn’t count. I tell that to myself when Kammer misses an opportunity to gain possession of the puck. I repeat the same mantra when, in the next period, our rookie center loses the face-off. I curse under my breath, repeating it once more, when the Flyers’ forward successfully drops a pass and our second-line defenseman, Quinton Dennis, falls for the ploy. A second later, the Flyers swoop up the temporarily discarded puck and head straight for Harrison.

  Stick back.

  Head down.

  They score.

  Even though the scoreboard doesn’t lie about our 2-2 tie, as the last few seconds of the game tick away, I’m on the verge of sitting every one of my players down and having a come-to-Jesus moment about how much they fucking sucked tonight.

  A tie is not a win—it’s a glorified participation ribbon for those over the age of fifteen.

  As we shake hands with the Flyers after the buzzer sounds off, I can’t ignore that the pressure from helmet-meets-Plexiglas has yet to disperse. It only worsens when we head to the locker room, the crew of Getting Pucked already there and waiting to go all psychoanalyst on us and decipher what exactly it was that had us falling apart on the ice.

  My vision softens, turning the crispness of life into a blurry mosaic of different colors when I reach my stall. Focus, focus, focus. With shaky fingers, I drop my stick on the bench and then tear into my duffel.

  Side-panel. Zipper closed.

  It’s gaping open a second later, my bare hand diving in to find the bottle of painkillers that I’ve tucked away for cases like these.

  Cases like when I just don’t feel right, when my head feels like it’s been submerged in an unrelenting fog, when my knees quiver and the thought of holding myself up on my skates for any length of time seems like a dauntless, unachievable task.

  Planting a stabilizing hand on the stall, I toss back the pills and swallow them dry.

  Three pills, as prescribed by my primary-care doctor when I told him about my migraines months ago. The dosage was only meant to tide me over until my appointment with Dr. Mebowitz, he said. I went to that lucrative appointment . . . I just never went back after that.

  So, the three pills it is. I never take more, always too aware that many a great hockey player has come before me—and many will follow—who have succumbed to addiction. That’s not me: the rehab, the addiction.

  But, holy hell, Fitzgerald hit me like a damn giant chasing down a tiny, porcelain figurine.

  In this scenario, I’m the porcelain figurine.

  Lucky me.

  The guys filter into the locker room, stripping off their jerseys and their pads, and I do, too, at a much slower pace. Slower, a little less coordinated. Gloves in the duffel; jersey over my head; compression shorts and hockey pants in the bag. Briefs and sweats are yanked up my legs.

  “Captain? A minute before you get on the bus and head back to the hotel?”

  Pain cleaves my head in two, but I signed a contract. I agreed to this. So I turn to face Fillmore with what I hope is a friendly grin. “Yeah, sure. Here?”

  When I indicate the bench, he nods. “It’ll do. Yeah, sit just like that with your back to the stalls. We want to get a few quick moments with you for this week’s episode, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Relief eases into my system when my ass meets the bench. Grounded. That’s how I feel, like if I wait only another beat, maybe two, the pulsing in my head will flick off and the shortness of my breath will soothe out. Get back to normal. For years, my “normal” seems to be constantly shifting into something new and, sometimes, something unrecognizable.

  “You took a major hit out there, Carter,” Fillmore starts, dropping to his haunches behind the camera guy so that he’s at eye level with me. “How’s the head?”

  Feels like a freight train collided with my skull and then backed up right over
me for shits and giggles. “Normal,” I lie, looking straight at the camera, “it’d take a lot more than a bump like that to bring me down.”

  Fillmore laughs, his palm dropping on his thigh. “I think that was a little more than a bump.”

  It wasn’t how hard Fitzgerald hit me but rather the angle that my helmet hit the boards. After two-decades-plus of being on the receiving end of body checks like the one tonight, I know all about those bad angles. “Have you ever played hockey before, Fillmore?”

  He trades a glance with one of his crew members. “Nothing more than a recreational pickup game back in grade school. Nothing like how you all play on the ice.”

  “We grow up getting slammed into the boards,” I say, wishing that I had an energy drink or something else to replenish my electrolytes. It’s been a long day, more than a few hours since I last ate, and I played hard out there—even if we didn’t pull out a win. “It’s what we do. Wake up, get slammed or do the slamming. Then you get up and do it all over again.”

  “Any concussions?”

  “Two.” Officially. Two concussions that officially went on the records. As for the rest . . . who knows, really? Could be five, ten, thirty. For most of my career, the NHL has never required a checkup with a neurologist after having your bell rung. Ignoring the insistent, but low, ringing in my ears, I add, “The first one was back in my third season with the Bruins. Funnily enough, it came from Andre Beaumont when he still played for the Red Wings.”

  Fillmore cracks a smile at that, clearly sensing a story there. “And how’d you feel when he was traded to the Blades years later?”

  “Like I wanted to pummel his ugly mug in.” I set my palms on my thighs. “I was out for twelve or thirteen games after that hit.”

  Fillmore glances over his shoulder. “Hey, Beaumont! Come over here a sec!”

  Half-dressed in street clothes, Andre ambles over and plunks down next to me. “What’s up?”

  “We were discussing that time you gave Carter a concussion,” the director says with the same glimmer in his eyes that he had when he raved about Celine Dion. Honestly, it’s a little disturbing. “How’d it happen?”

  There are videos aplenty online, but Beaumont has never been shy about his role on the ice. He’s huge, bigger than me, with arms the size of tree trunks and fists the size of boulders. And that’s saying a lot since I’m easily over six-foot-four and close in at almost two-fifty.

  Beaumont nudges me in the side. “I want it on the record that we’re best buds now.”

  A chuckle reverberates in my chest. “That’s because I don’t have to worry about you busting my cheek anymore.”

  “Breaking,” he corrects, meeting the camera’s lens with a wicked grin. “I clocked him so hard his cheekbone literally cracked and shifted out of place. Not that I meant to—wrong place, wrong time. Our Jackson isn’t a fighter, not like me.”

  My stomach heaves as I let out a hard laugh. “That’s not saying much. No one fights like you do.” As a right-winger on the front line, it’s not my job to fight or start shit and intimidate the other team just by existing. I score goals, not turn into the Hulk on Ice. “There was a brawl—both teams got in on it—and one minute I had Bear Rawley in a headlock and the next I was being carried off the ice on a stretcher.”

  “Holly threatened me at the hospital,” Beaumont drawls, reaching up to tug on his ear, “told me that if you weren’t the same after that hit she’d personally cut off my dick and feed it to the wolves.”

  I don’t remember that at all, but then again, I’d been put under as soon as we rolled up to Mass General. Still, the visual of petite Holly throwing down against the big, bad Andre Beaumont has me running a hand over my heart without even realizing that I’m doing it.

  “What wolves was she planning on finding in the middle of Boston?” I ask.

  “Hell if I know.” Beaumont thumps me on the shoulder, then turns back to Fillmore. “Anyway, Carter and I had to sort out our . . . differences once I showed up, but now we’re all good. It’s part of the game. You injure something and get right back up again. Like Cap, here”—he jerks a thumb at me—“no doubt he had his brains rattled out there on the ice tonight, but you’re fine, eh?”

  I make sure to look in the camera directly when I lie, “Yeah, I’m all good.”

  “See?” Beaumont, my best friend, slings an arm around my shoulders. “Nothing keeps Carter down—not for long, anyway. He’s center gravity for this team. We’d be fucked without him. Can I say fucked? Is that not kosher for TV?”

  “We’ll bleep it out.”

  “Fucking perfect, then,” he goes on, giving my head a pat, like I’m a good dog, before climbing to his feet. “Another thing about hockey? There are always shit nights, but it’s the way you approach the next game that truly makes the difference. No celebrating tonight. We don’t deserve all that.”

  “And you think you’ll win against the Blackhawks?” Fillmore asks, his voice curious.

  I ignore the persistent ringing in my ears and vow, “We’ll decimate them.”

  15

  Holly

  “One weird thing that Marshall does at home that no one knows about . . .” Gwen, Marshall Hunt’s wife, stares back at me from the laptop screen where we’ve set up a video chat for the sake of a family-esque interview. My tripod and camera are angled to catch both Hunt and the laptop in the frame. “That’s a tough one,” Gwen muses.

  Despite the fact that she’s hundreds of miles away, Marshall shoots his wife a flirty look. “Is it really that tough? You know me better than anyone else.”

  “I’m trying not to embarrass you on national television. Trust me, you give me enough ammunition that I could answer this question for the next seven days.” She tucks her red hair behind her ears, then combs her fingers through their fur baby’s black fur, where the pup is all curled up on her lap.

  “I don’t embarrass easily,” Hunt says with a casual shrug. “Do your worst, honey.”

  “You asked for it.” She winks, and I’m sure it was aimed at me and not her husband, before continuing, “He talks in his sleep. A lot.”

  I can’t help but grin. Marshall Hunt is a pretty boy through and through—the one magazines want for his face and his abs, before finishing the article with a quick reference of his stellar stats on the ice. “What’s he talking about?” I ask. “Hockey? Game play?”

  “Oh, no.” Gwen’s grin widens. “In his sleep, Marshall is all about the scandal. Except that he’s always an observer looking in. It’s the strangest thing, honestly. The first time I heard him sleep-talking, he sounded horrified by what had to be some Jerry-Springer-level stuff in his dreams. He was all, ‘oh no, she didn’t!’” She presses a hand to her chest, all offended-like. “And some very concerned, ‘That is so not okay. Dump his ass.’”

  I look to Marshall with a raised brow, but he only grins. “I think it’s all the Bravo TV I watch when I’m at home. Vanderpump Rules is my jam. I’ve even got some of the guys hooked on it—we watch it while we work out in the mornings.”

  “You landed a weird one,” I tell Gwen, “you know that, right?”

  Her entire expression softens. “I’m just as weird, trust me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.”

  Considering that I knew both Gwen and Hunt when they were on the outs and finding their way back together again, I’m so happy to see them happy. This interview will be the perfect clip to round out next week’s episode, especially as the Blades got their asses handed to them by the Flyers last night. When I spoke with Mark Fillmore about what we needed for this episode, we unanimously agreed that showing the players with their families during an away game stretch would go miles toward demonstrating to the world that while the Blades may have a single-track mindset on the ice, off it, they’re family men—husbands, brothers, fathers, sons.

  Carmen, Adam, and I split up today, each of us tackling as many interviews with the players and their families as we could since the game with t
he Blackhawks isn’t for another day.

  After seven interviews on my own, and hours’ worth of time lugging around equipment from hotel room to hotel room, I’m beat and ready for bed.

  Glancing down at my wristwatch, I push to my feet and say my good-nights. Gwen and I agree to get together for lunch when I’m back in town. We’re overdue for a catch-up anyway—she’s our publicist and is crazy good at what she does.

  With my backpack slung over my shoulder, I step into the hotel’s hallway and try to get my bearings straight. Second floor. Fifth floor. Third floor. I’ve been everywhere, and if I were the sort of person to chart my number of steps for the day, I have no doubt it’d be in the thousands.

  The Chicago airport hotel is beyond massive.

  “Fourth floor,” I mutter to myself, “that’s yours.”

  I hike my backpack up some, readjusting the weight, and turn for the elevator that’s down the hall and somewhere off to the right. I think. Or maybe it’s the other way? Screw it. I’ll find it when I find it.

  Nothing like a little hotel adventure when all you want to do is get frisky with your sheets and block out the outside world for five hours of uninterrupted—

  “Jackson?”

  My ex-husband snaps up straight from where he’s feeding change into a vending machine. His dark hair is a mess like he’s combed his fingers through the strands countless times today, and . . . well, he’s barefoot.

  Not that I’m a foot-lover or anything like that, but Jackson’s feet have always stunned me. Mainly because they’re huge, and you know what they say about the size of a guy’s . . .

  My stomach nose-dives as the rest of Jackson comes into focus.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I jerk my gaze from the drawstring pants slung low around his waist to his shirtless torso. His tanned skin gleams under the florescent lighting, all bulging muscles and surly confidence.

  “Do you ever wear a shirt anymore?”