Bohdan surveys me, a muscle in his neck lengthens before tightening, and he lifts his brows before jerking his head. “No, Sloan. It was a last resort.”
They’re right on the tip of my tongue, so many questions I’d die to ask him, weighing it down enough that I can’t really speak, and I wonder if they’re the same things that sit heavy on his shoulders.
Why was it a last resort? Can he still not skate? Does his head still hurt him that much? Is it the noise? The lights? The glare from the ice?
Maybe it’s my ghost chasing him the way his chases me.
He looks the way he did when he was still playing—all taut ridges of muscle. He’s not old yet, and pre-concussion, he’d been planning to play until he was at least thirty-five, if his body let him.
I don’t ask, and I wouldn’t even if I could, because I’m not sure I can stomach the answer. I think, even after all these years, even after what he did, the idea of Bohdan carrying around baggage in the shape of that scar might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Instead, I murmur, “This is violating the rules.”
“You’re right,” he says simply.
“Strike one.”
He smiles, soft and sad. “You want to implement a strike system?”
“It only seems fair. We each have something to gain, so ... whoever has the least amount of strikes at the end of the week wins.” My arms tighten across my chest, and I don’t tell him that I can’t pretend not to know him—I’ll fail and lose, and I need the Polaroid.
I need to know why.
“Amended rules then?” He steps forward, one hand coming out of his pocket, extending towards me in the low light.“Just ... whoever fucks up the least gets to win? Think I’ve already lost, but sure, I’ll play.”
I start to shake my head because I can hear it there—he didn’t lose, I was the loser. He left me and I can only think of one reason why.
But Talon shouts for us, hands cupped around his mouth like we aren’t in a contained cellar and the noise won’t reverberate anyway. “Wine tasting time!”
Bohdan tips his chin towards the end of the cellar, and I don’t need to look to know Tia smiles at me, vindicated, like she’s won something. But I think Bohdan and I both might be losers no matter what, and he grips his jaw before holding up a finger. “Strike one for me, then.”
Bohdan
Then - College
Talon and Jay love to party after a game—win or lose. Talon says it’s good for morale. Jay’s only serious about one thing—hockey—and he wants to spend the night either being lauded for his performance and celebrating his own superiority, or drinking his feelings away before he goes to the rink at six a.m. to start watching game tape and dissecting everything he did wrong.
I don’t particularly care either way. I play well because I’m better than almost anyone, and when I don’t, I usually take my frustration out on the ice. But I’m the captain, and Talon and Jay are the alternates, and our line is just generally the best in the entire country, so it’s sort of expected.
The size and severity of the parties typically depends on how we played. And tonight, we played really, really well.
You can barely move through the throngs of people gathering in our hallways, standing littered on all levels of the staircase, blocking access to our rooms and all the quieter parts of our house.
Some of our teammates dragged a keg into the kitchen, and I think our goalie is upside down on it doing a keg stand right now.
Talon and Jay hold court where they usually do—in the centre of our living room, at either end of a beer pong table, already covered with cracked red plastic cups, puddles of foam dripping over the edges onto the scratched hardwood flooring, surrounded by their many admirers.
I play sometimes. Usually with Sloan. She makes an excellent teammate, and even though she doesn’t have a competitive bone in her body, she likes winning games with me.
Tonight, though, she’s on my lap, legs slung lazily over the arm of the chair, a red cup between her teeth, eyes glued to a Sudoku puzzle on her phone.
Nights like this work for us, when we’re in our own little bubble. I don’t always feel like talking, and Sloan doesn’t always want to participate, but this way, she feels like she’s still a part of things.
Talon says he can always tell if it’s going to be a “bubble night” or a normal night if I sit down and play video games before the party starts.
“That’s a six.” I tip the bottom of my beer bottle towards her phone screen.
She frowns, taking the cup away from her mouth. Her lower lip sits in a pout and she cuts me a sideways look. “I wasn’t working on sixes right now.”
