Page 36 of Honest Boys Don’t Play

“Dude,” Daire complains, sweat dripping off his face. “I’m tired. Let’s wrap this up.”

I shoot ice at him as I stop. “We’ve only been going at it for an hour.”

“It’s been two and a half,” he counters. “Not even coach lets us go past two hours on the ice.”

“Shit.” I plant my hands on my hips. “All right, let me see if I can make one more shot and then we’ll quit.”

I swear he whimpers in response.

I take off with the puck, and he manages to gather himself enough to charge after me and attempt to steal it.

He makes a swipe for it, but I evade him and make a slapshot straight for the net.

Daire leans over; hands braced on his knees. “My entire body hurts.”

“When did you become so whiny? Don’t tell me you’re going soft this soon.”

He gives me a playful shove. “Not all of us are about to be big time NHL players.”

“I don’t know about big time,” I scoff.

There’s still a large part of me that’s in shock that I’m going to be playing for the NHL. It was always my dream, but nothing in my life tends to work out in my favor, so I figured that’s all it would ever be. It’s why I made sure to go to college and wanted to graduate. There’s nothing wrong with ensuring you have a safety net.

Daire skates over to where we left our drinks and picks up a blue Gatorade, guzzling it down. “You are.” He wipes his mouth on his long-sleeve tee. “I wish you saw how talented you are.”

I hang my head, embarrassment clinging to me.

Daire gives me a nudge. “Be proud of yourself, dude. You’re going to be doing the thing so many guys dream about and never achieve.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, I am, but there are plenty of players that are more talented than me.”

He recaps the drink and sets it back. “Dude, just take the fucking compliment.” That manages to pull a laugh out of me. “What’s got you so worked up today, though? I’ve never seen you like that before. You were like a bullet.”

I take off my helmet and run my fingers through my sweat-dampened hair. It’s been a week since the almost kiss in my truck and I’m still thinking about it like the pathetic fucker I am. Bertie wanted to kiss me. I saw it on her face. But for some reason she’s too scared to cross some invisible line with me. I keep going through the whole thing over and over in my mind, trying to figure out if she wanted me to make the first move, if she’s not interested in me in a serious way and just let her guard down, or even if she’s just scared. But no matter how many times I relive that moment, I don’t come close to having answers.

I need to do my best to let it go but when you have OCD that’s easier said than done. Thoughts like to plant themselves in my brain and grow, living there for an indeterminable amount of time, as I replay them and imagine hundreds of different scenarios and possible outcomes in my own mind. That’s the thing about having OCD—people tend to think that it only manifests in physical things, like excessive cleaning or handwashing, but it also exists inside your own thoughts.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” Daire says, and I realize I’ve been standing here in silence for way too long. That’ll yet another thing I’ll inevitably obsess over later.

“It’s Bertie. She just … confuses me,” I say for lack of a better way to explain.

Daire laughs. “She’s a girl. Girls are fucking confusing.”

I shake my head and scoop up my own bottle of Gatorade. After I guzzle down a large portion, I say, “I think she likes me—as more than a friend—but then she does or says thing that I’m not so sure. It’s confusing and I feel like I’m always screwing up.”

“Listen, I don’t know anything about pregnancy, but it sounds like a nightmare between all the hormones and body changes not to mention, she wasn’t planning on getting pregnant and it’s not like you guys were officially together when it happened. She’s probably just confused and coping with things the best she can. Give her time, support her, and see where things go.”

The bottle freezes halfway to my mouth. “When did you become so wise?”

He throws his arms out wide. “I became a dad. It changes you. Just you wait and see, dude.”

“Bertie and I signed up for an infant CPR class this weekend if you want to join. Rosie too. They said they’d also go over how to handle choking.”

His eyes widen. “Fuck, I’m a shitty parent. I didn’t even think about something like that.”

“I’ve been paranoid about it,” I admit. Babies seem so fragile that I want to do everything I can to ensure our baby’s safety. Reading about SIDS had me hyperventilating the other night. I was glad Bertie was fast asleep and oblivious to my rising panic. What do you mean babies can just die for seemingly no explainable reason? That’s horrifying and scary.

“I’ll see if we can get someone to watch Sammy and I’ll let you know.”