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I’m taken aback but ready to listen. “Why do you think that is?”
The sound of his footsteps carries over the phone. He must be pacing in his room. “I’m wound up, and I get stressed, and I have anxiety. Like athlete anxiety or something. Is that a thing? I think it’s a thing. Amira thinks it’s a thing. I have it. I have to deal with it.” He’s talking at Mach speed, serving up pieces of his soul for me. “I haven’t told anybody. I feel stupid about it. Really fucking stupid. Like a failure. And I stress, and I’m sure my stress is why we lost tonight.”
“You’re not a failure,” I assure him. “You’re the opposite. I’m really, really proud of you.”
“Why would you be proud of me?”
“Because you called me. Because you told me. Because you realized you needed to talk to someone. Probably a lot more athletes need it. It’s a stressful job. Hell, life can be stressful these days for anyone. And it’s not your fault the team lost. But you do put a lot of pressure on yourself and your agent is right. It’s a good idea, Rhys.”
After a pause, he asks, in a less frantic tone, “You don’t think it’s like a weakness?”
“No, Rhys. I think it’s a strength.”
We look up names together of sports psychologists in San Francisco and I stay on the phone as he sends out a few inquiries. When he’s done, it sounds like he can breathe again as he says, “I wish you were here tonight.”
“I wish I were too.”
When the call ends, I head to the bathroom to wash my face and slather on night cream. After I switch into jammies, I slide under a T.J. Maxx blanket onto my twin-size air mattress.
My phone rings one more time, probably Rhys calling me back, but Gavin’s name flashes across the screen. “Well, here you are,” I say, and I can’t hide the delight in my voice. I guess good things come in threes.
“Here I am,” he says, and he sounds mostly happy too.
“How are you doing? I saw your game,” I tell him.
“Not our finest showing.”
“Not every game has to be.”
“That’s what I tried to tell the guys, but none of them felt like listening. But I don’t want to talk about me. Or hockey. What are you up to tonight?”
I tell him about my day, my plans to stop by the assisted living home tomorrow with my dog, and that I moved into my new place.
“What’s it like? Your new apartment?”
I almost offer to give him a tour, but it’s too pathetic. This tiny air mattress, my creaky table, my hard chair.
“It’s home enough for now,” I say as the scent of vanilla drifts past my nose, reminding me of my week in the cottage. “I have a candle that smells like Lucky Falls.”
“Mmm. Sounds really nice, Briar,” he says, then stops, maybe because he’s done or maybe because he’s gearing up to say something else. “The funny thing is I thought getting involved with you would mess up the team dynamics. But we’re not technically involved…and we still played like shit. Everyone was sort of lost today,” he says. “I guess I was wrong. Sometimes you just have bad games.”
I’m kind of amazed that Gavin sees so clearly what they don’t. “Sometimes you do.”
“But the thing is when the game ended all I wanted was to talk to you.”
“I’m here anytime,” I say, feeling a little glowy that they’ve all reached out to me. “I gave you an icon on my phone.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a starlit sky in the dark. Rhys has a twilight sky and Hollis, a sunburst.”
He seems to give that some thought, then says, “I think you got that right.”
When we’re done talking I say goodnight but I don’t set down the phone. I toggle over to the group chat. Maybe the team dynamic is off tonight, but I think I can fix it.
I send a message to all of them.
Briar: It was good chatting with all of you separately. Now, let’s talk together.
