Ryan was washing out his shampoo as Logan came wandering in.
"Good practice, man."
"You need to work on your shot a little more," Logan replied as he threw his towel on a hook on the wall.
"Um, thanks?"
Logan turned on the water in the stall next to him and immediately reached for the soap. "Sorry, I didn't mean that in a negative way," he said. "It's just that your shots have regressed a little since the end of last season."
"Still shaking off the rust, I guess."
Ryan turned off the water and grabbed his towel from the wall. He knew Logan was right. His shooting ability had gone down a little since the end of last season, and it was his own fault. After the way the season ended, after that ping off the crossbar, he didn't want to even think about shooting a puck at a net this summer. There was a lot of other work instead. Lots of drills and weights and training, but very little trying to shoot a puck.
"You headed to see Andy?" Logan called out to him from the shower.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "Meet you there?"
Logan nodded and went back to his hot shower as Ryan slipped on his flip flops and headed to the trainers' room.
Andy was in there getting things organized for the season. There were boxes of medical supplies that needed to be unpacked and stored with Andy holding on to a clipboard to make sure everything was accounted for.
"Hey," the trainer said.
"What's up, Andy?" he asked. "You have a minute to go over my training for my abs?"
"Jump up on the table, and I'll find my paperwork for you."
Andy started rummaging through a huge pile of folders, one for each of the players. He kept track of what they were focusing on for the season, what they were eating (when they were actually sticking to the diet and not shoving their faces with pizza), and any lingering injuries that needed to be addressed. He finally found Ryan's folder and started shuffling some of the papers.
"You know, I don't think we need to start the season with anything special for you," he said. "Your scar has healed great and you don't seem to have any residual issues."
"So you're saying I'm nothing special?" Ryan sarcastically replied.
"That's not surprising," Logan said as he walked in the door. "Hey, Andy. What you got for me this season?"
Andy started sifting through the folders again before grabbing another one out of the pile. "Once again, just the usual for the season unless you want to focus on something in particular."
"See, rookie. Nice and normal," Logan said. "That's what a mature hockey player does."
Ryan laughed. "First of all, this is my third season so I'm hardly a rookie anymore. And I'll have you know I'm very mature for my age."
"That's true," Andy said. "He's even dating a lawyer."
Logan's folder snapped shut in his hands as the defenseman turned to stare at Ryan. It went from some casual chirping from his teammate to a very intense stare from him.
"You're actually dating a woman?"
Is that how he would describe it? They had a lot of sex and he did take her out to eat. And then they had more sex. Could that even be considered dating? He didn't need to get into semantics with Logan though.
Instead, Ryan just gave a curt, "Yes, I'm dating a lawyer."
"Are you even old enough to date a lawyer?"
Ryan rolled his eyes. "I'm turning twenty-two next week. I'm pretty sure I'm old enough to date a lawyer."
"Just checking," Logan said with a smirk before opening his folder back up.
See? This is why Ryan didn't want to get into his personal life or talk about this with the guys, at least not yet. Sure, he was one of the younger guys on the team but hardly the youngest. There were two prospects that weren't even twenty yet who would likely make their debut with the team on opening night.
