The Machine

by Stephanie Julian

  It had sucked. But since he needed to stick to his routine, he’d forced himself to sleep. Because he needed to be on his game tonight.

  He slid out of bed by eight a.m., shared breakfast with a mostly silent Brody at eight-thirty, then headed to the arena with Derek, CJ, and Robbie at nine-thirty to get ready for the morning skate and the team meeting.

  Skate passed without excitement. The guys were focused and ready to play. Even Derek was unusually serious. They were on track to clinch a playoff spot by the end of beginning of March and no one wanted to fuck that up.

  “Jake, couple of the sports guys wanna talk to you before the meeting.” Cary caught him before he left the ice after practice. “In the media room.”

  So he talked to the local reporters—one print, one TV—about his rehab and how he felt before he joined the team for the game-day meeting.

  The coaches went through video of Stockton’s power plays and penalty kills, talked strategy, then sent them out for lunch, which most of the team ate together on game days at the same restaurant they ate at before every game.

  After lunch, he headed back to the apartment for a nap then more food before throwing on his suit and going back to the arena around four.

  He and a few of the guys were kicking a soccer ball around by quarter of five. Derek had already started shit-talking the other team, making everyone laugh.

  Jake had to admit it helped him put his focus on his team, where it belonged. And not on the few words Brody had muttered in his ear a few second ago.

  “Heads-up. He’ll be here.”

  Since Brody didn’t offer anything else, Jake didn’t feel the need to respond. He nodded and kicked the ball back to Robbie.

  “You look like you’re ready to kick some ass tonight.” Will stopped beside him. “Have anything to do with the fact that Mann’ll be here?”

  Jake huffed out a laugh. “Should have known you’d find out. Jess?”

  “I don’t reveal my sources.” The smile on his face gave him away. “How’s your leg?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Want a little advice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just play your game.” Will fielded the soccer ball and kicked it across to CJ. “Nothing fancy. Play hard. You don’t need to exaggerate your skills. Just breathe.”

  Jake hadn’t realized until that second that he was tense as hell. It made him step away from the circle the guys were playing in and take a deep breath.

  Will followed.

  “You okay?” Will stared at him hard. “Don’t flake out now.”

  “I am not flaking out. I need a few minutes to clear my head.”

  Will slapped him on the shoulder. “No problem.”

  Jake headed back to the quiet locker room, sat down on the bench, and took a few deep breaths. He hadn’t been to yoga for more than a week but he didn’t need a studio or new age music to meditate.

  He just needed a little breathing room.

  The smell of the quiet, cool space immediately centered him. Every locker room he’d ever been in had an underlying scent, whether it was the chemicals they used in the ice or it was simply a figment of his imagination, but whatever it was, it helped bring his heart rate back down to normal.

  It didn’t hurt that he knew Faith would be there tonight, cheering him on. He homed in on that fact and let it crowd out everything else.

  Except, when he thought about Faith, he thought about the fact that they’d be separated for days on end if he got called up. Or possibly for good if she took that job in Charlotte.

  Which is why you were not supposed to fall for a girl until you had gotten to NHL.

  And sometimes you had to take what the universe handed you and trust that everything would work out.

  Faith was his and he wasn’t giving her up. Not now.

  And when he impressed Mann tonight and rejoined Ladd on the Colonials defense, everything would fall into place.

  *****

  Jake managed to hold it together through the coach’s talk after the end of the game.

  Luckily, no one in the media wanted to talk to him because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to answer a single damn question without biting someone’s head off.

  He had sucked tonight. There were no other words to describe what had happened.

  Everything that could go wrong, had. He’d turned over pucks, one of which led to a goal for Stockton. He’d hit the goddamn post twice and, in the last three minutes of the game, he’d gotten a penalty for tripping. Luckily that one hadn’t led to a goal for the other team but only through sheer luck. Brody had been able to draw a penalty from Stockton and the Redtails had managed to squeeze out a win at the end, with no help from him.

  Then, late in the game, he’d taken a check into the boards and felt his leg twinge.

  And fear had nearly swallowed him whole.

  “Tough game tonight, guys, but you played until the end and we came out with two points,” Coach said, wrapping up his talk. “Take a shower. Get a good night’s sleep. We’re on the road tomorrow. See you back here at ten a.m.”

  As the team began to strip off their gear and head to the showers, Jake took his time, shoving down the anger that wanted him to act out, to throw his gear and break his stick.

  All that would prove was that he couldn’t control himself.

  None of the guys spoke, at least not to him. They were pretty banged up. Jake hadn’t been the only one to take a hard check or a bad fall tonight.

  Half the team would be black and blue by tomorrow morning.

  If Lad had been here, he would have been able to talk Jake off the ledge, but even as he thought about that, he knew it wasn’t on Lad to save Jake from himself.

  And even though he hadn’t planned see Faith tonight, he wondered if she’d be willing to let him come over for an hour or so.

  Just to use her for sex. Nice, asshole.

  “Jake, snap out of it. Come on, man. We all had a bad night. It happens.” Will knocked him on the shoulder on the way to the shower room. “Get a move on. We can all use a drink. Team meeting at Derek’s.”

  “I am in no mood—”

  “Fuck that shit.” Will slapped him on the back of the head. “You will be there or I will drag your ass down the hall and tie you to a chair. We managed to win despite having a shitty game. Cheer the fuck up.”

  With a muttered curse, Jake followed Will into the showers and a half hour later, found himself sitting on the floor of Derek’s apartment, having his second beer and feeling his muscles finally unkink.

  He really needed to take his phone out of his pocket and text Faith, who had messaged him twice after the game.

  “Dude, you look like your dog died. Get the fuck off the floor and stop torturing yourself, asshole.”

  Jake looked up to see Derek standing over him, hands on his hips, shaggy hair standing practically on end because it had dried that way.

  Jake gave him the finger while he took another sip of his beer then rolled his eyes when Derek huffed and sat on the floor next to him, so close he was practically on his lap.

  “You weren’t the only one who had a shitty game. Hell, we all did. We barely deserved to win that game.”

  “But we did, with no help from me.”

  Derek rammed his shoulder into Jake’s then put his arm around him and hugged him tight. Jake just shook his head, knowing Derek would only hug him longer if he complained.

  “Fuck that. Come on, man, I know you’re pissed because Mann was there tonight and you think you looked like shit. But seriously, you didn’t completely suck. Hell, you made me look like the damn village idiot.”

  “That’s not saying much, D.” Will sat on the other side of Jake, crowding him even more, until he felt like the filling in a sandwich. “You are the damn village idiot. But you’re right. And I don’t say that often so enjoy it while you can.”

  Reluctantly, Jake’s foul mood started to lift, and when Robbie and Justin sat down in
front of them, he actually felt his lips curving in a grin.

  Justin knocked his foot with his beer bottle. “Why are we sitting on the floor when there’s a perfectly good couch and chairs?”

  Derek snorted. “Jake’s punishing his ass for not performing well tonight.”

  There was a moment of silence before Will reached behind Justin to smack Derek on the back of head at the same time Robbie fell onto his back and started to howl with laughter and Justin shook his head with a grin.

  Jake just looked at Derek with a smirk as they knocked their bottles together.

  “My ass is not offensive tonight. Just my judgment in friends, apparently.”

  “Nah, you’re pretty good at choosing your friends.” Derek finished off his beer. “Because this friend is going to get you another drink and then he’s going to tuck you into bed with your teddy bear.”

  “Are you the t-teddy bear, D?”

  Derek knocked Robbie onto his side as he walked by on his way to the kitchen. “That’s right, kid. I’m a fucking ginger Care Bear.”

  Apparently that was all it took to make his anger at himself dissipate completely.

  Pushing up off the floor, he nodded at Will, who held out his fist. Jake bumped it before saying good night to the rest of the guys.

  “Got a phone call to make,” he said to Derek on the way out.

  “Tell your mom I said hi.” Derek’s shit-eating grin made Jake roll his eyes. “You know she loves me.”

  Down the hall and into his own apartment, Jake took a breath, letting the silence smooth out the rest of the rough edges.

  Then he pulled out his phone.

  Hey. Tough game. Give me a call later if you want to talk.

  She’d sent that seconds after the final buzzer, almost three hours ago. It was twenty minutes after midnight.

  Shit. He was an asshole. He should’ve called her before he’d gone to Derek’s. Now it was too late.

  He needed to go to bed. He didn’t want to wake her.

  But…

  Rough night. Will call before I leave in morning. Sleep well.

  He hoped like hell he would.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Are you sure everything’s okay, hon? You sound a little…stressed.”

  Faith resisted the urge to sigh because that would set off a whole other line of questioning from her mom. And that was exactly what Faith was trying to stave off.

  With Food Network muted on the television, Faith had decided to rip this bandage off early Saturday morning. She knew her parents would be up by nine and she wanted this talk to be on her terms, which meant she needed to make the first move. Before her mom did.

  And she would.

  Because they hadn’t talked yesterday, it was almost awkward. It threw off their normal rhythm. Which, of course, just hammered home the point to Faith that this conversation had been delayed way too long.

  And that, for her mom, this conversation was coming out of nowhere.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. In fact, I’m actually doing really well.”

  Maybe that was stretching it a little. She still needed to find a job before she didn’t have one and she’d started a relationship with a guy that had gone from zero to sixty in nothing flat. And she was still coming to terms with the reality of being disabled in ways she appreciated but were taking some getting used to.

  But yeah, she was doing okay.

  “So there’s nothing going on that you want to talk about?” A slight pause. “Have you seen the hockey player again?”

  Since she and her mom still had some limits, she didn’t even consider telling her about the amazing sex she and Jake had had. That was a conversation she was keeping for Bliss, who was supposed to come over tonight to watch the Redtails game.

  “Yeah, I have. I like him. A lot.”

  Silence from the other end as Faith braced for the barrage of questions that were sure to follow.

  “Oh. Really?”

  Not exactly the response she’d expected. She’d expected her mom to grill her.

  “Yeah. He’s a really nice guy, Mom. He’s amazing with the kids at school and he’s just…a really decent guy.”

  Which just make Jake sound like a saint. Which he wasn’t. He was bossy and pushy and she actually liked that about him. But she couldn’t say that to her mom because her mom would freak out.

  Faith swore she could hear her mom gritting her teeth as she said, “Oh, well, that’s nice, honey. How long have you been dating now?”

  And there it was. Her mom’s passive-aggressive way of showing Faith how she couldn’t feel so strongly about a guy in such a short time.

  “A couple weeks. But we’d been taking therapy together for months. He was recovering from an injury.”

  “But he’s back to playing now?”

  “Yeah.”

  More silence.

  Then finally, “So is this serious or…. I mean, you haven’t really been dating all that long so I guess that’s kind of a stupid question.”

  But it wasn’t. Not to Faith. Because she’d been worried about the same thing. She just hadn’t wanted to verbalize it. And now that her mom had, all the doubts she’d been having bombarded her again.

  “We just started dating. And he probably won’t be around forever. Eventually he’ll get called up to the Colonials.”

  Her mother breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Oh, well. I’m sure you’ll get over him soon enough when that happens.”

  Faith’s mouth dropped open and words tumbled around her brain, but she had no idea what to say to that. Because as soon as she heard her mom say what she herself had been thinking, it just hurt all that much more.

  “Speaking of therapy,” her mom continued, “are you keeping up with your exercises? You haven’t mentioned them for a while.”

  “Yeah, I am. I—”

  “Good, because you know what the doctor said. You can’t slack off on those.”

  She continued with a rundown of her last doctor’s appointment, which her mom had attended with Faith. At the time, that hadn’t seemed like a problem.

  But now, Faith realized how much of her life she’d ceded to her mom. She was almost twenty-six. Yes, she was living on her own but she wasn’t truly independent. She had relied on her mom way too much.

  And was she now just transferring that reliance to Jake?

  Where does that leave you when he goes?

  Her phone vibrated and she pulled it away from her ear to check the number of the incoming call.

  Jake.

  A weight settled on her chest, reminding her of the feeling she’d had when she’d realized Jimmy wasn’t going to be waiting at the end of the church aisle.

  Mom’s right. It’s never going to be anything more than a fling.

  “Hey, Mom. I got another call coming in. I have to get it.”

  “Okay. Love you. Talk to you tomorrow. Or, I guess, you could give me a call Monday.”

  “Absolutely. Love you, too.”

  Jake’s call cut off as soon as she disconnected with her mom. For a second, she debated not calling him back but that would make her a coward. Besides, she wanted to talk to him.

  Before she talked herself out of it, she hit redial.

  “I was worried I would not get to talk to you before I left.”

  The sound of his voice lit her up like a teenage girl getting a call from the coolest guy in school. It made her feel ridiculous and giddy at the same time.

  And proved her own point.

  You need to take a step back.

  “Hey. Are you on the road already?”

  “No. We leave at eleven. I am sorry I didn’t call last night after the game. I was not in a good frame of mind.”

  “I understand. Really. It’s not a big deal.”

  A pause.

  “It is to me.”

  Her turn to pause because all the shit in her head was screwing with her ability to think.

  “I know. I didn’t mean—”


  “Is everything okay? You sound…not yourself.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just… It’s nothing. Honestly. My mom and I talked and it made me think about some things but…it’s nothing for you to worry about. Did you talk to the coach after the game?”

  “No. He did not talk to anyone. He spent time with our coach then left.”

  “Oh.” Damn it, was he okay? “Is that bad? What does that mean for you?”

  “It means nothing. At least for now. Nothing has changed.”

  “So you’re not moving up right away?”

  “No.”

  That one word held a bite she recognized. He was upset. And she couldn’t fix it for him. Hell, she wouldn’t even see him for three days. That weight on her chest came down a little harder.

  “We will be back late Sunday,” he continued. “Can I see you Monday?”

  Yes, yes, yes.

  “Can we play that by ear? It’s just…I had to push back my therapy appointment for a late meeting at school and I’m not sure how long that will go so I’m not sure when I’ll be done.”

  A pause. “Of course.”

  And The Machine was back. She hadn’t heard him sound like that since they’d been in therapy together. It put her back up and she didn’t know how to respond.

  “Jake—”

  “We will talk when I get back. You can text me if you want. And I will text you.”

  A sigh of relief. “Okay. Yes, I will.”

  “Faith…”

  “Yes?”

  “I will see you when I return.”

  Relief and anxiety warred for attention. Relief that he intended to see her. Anxiety that maybe he would change his mind before Monday.

  You’re a mess.

  “Play good hockey.”

  She heard his slight huff of a laugh through the phone and her totally baffled heart didn’t know whether to flutter or pound so she swore it did both.

  “Faith…miss me a little.”

  The phone call clicked off in her ear.

  *****

  When Jake’s phone rang Sunday night on the way home from the game, he figured it was his mom but he checked first anyway.