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“So this is it?” I ask. “You’re with me?”
“Even when I’m not here, physically, I’m with you.” Ryder touches his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. “I am always going to love you. That is never going to change.”
“We’re behind you all the way,” Ash assures me.
“No matter what,” Soren agrees.
“And I love you. All of you.” There’s a smile on my face as my eyes drift shut and sleep pulls me under again. This time, there’s no whispering to wake me up. It’s like we’re all finally at peace.
33
SOREN
Well. If anybody wondered what Ryder brought to the team, there’s no need to wonder anymore.
“Dammit!” I growl when another goal leaves us down by two with only five minutes left in the third period. Considering we haven’t managed to put a point on the board yet, I don’t exactly have high hopes. I’m too damn tired and sore to have high hopes, anyway. I feel like I’m doing the work of two players out here, and it’s still getting us nowhere.
Our energy sucks, to put it mildly. We simply didn’t have enough time to prepare for his absence. Sure, Harlow worked out a bunch of scenarios to compensate for one of us taking a two-way contract – good thing, or we’d be in worse shape than we are now.
It’s just not enough. And I don’t think we can chalk it up entirely to the lack of a single player. There’s a different energy now. I’m trying like hell not to let it affect me, but there’s only so much I can do. Turns out Ryder added more to our performance than just his abilities. He brought a sense of excitement to the game. Icould always trust him to be where I needed him to be, but there were other times when he would simply explode. Like he had so much pent-up excitement, he couldn’t help but let it leak onto the ice.
That’s what we’re missing. That excitement. That joy. It always inspired me. As many times as we’ve butted heads – which is a lot – there was no ignoring his unfettered joy. When playing the sport he loved so much on a professional level, he found a way to lift all of us up. Now that he’s gone, I realize he kept me on my toes and made me dig deeper and push harder because dammit, he was right. We are lucky to do what we love and get paid for it.
Right now, I’m not loving it quite so much. But then it’s easy to love things when you’re winning. It’s when you are losing that your commitment has to be stronger than ever.
It’s a relief when we’re called off the ice for a breather. “What the hell,” Ash grits out through his clenched teeth. “This is not our night.”
“No kidding. We’ll shake it off.” Do I sound like I mean it? I hope so. Even if I don’t quite feel it.
No surprise Ash understands what’s really going on behind my halfhearted attempt at being a team player and picking up everyone’s spirits. “Next thing I know,” he mutters out of the corner of his mouth after dropping to the bench, “you’ll be telling me about a bridge for sale.”
“No one ever got anywhere with a shitty attitude.”
“But let’s be honest. We don’t have it tonight.” He leans forward, breathing hard. “We lost more than we counted on.”
He’s not wrong. “There’s still six months left in the season. We need to adjust, but there’s plenty of time to do that.”
Slowly, he turns to face me, ignoring the action going on in front of us. “Don’t give me that shit.”
“Come on…” I groan. “He just left this morning. Of course, it’ll take time to get over that. But we will.”
Ash snickers and shakes his head, but he’s smart enough not to argue with me anymore. It would be a waste of time. Especially here, in front of everyone else.
When I look toward the coach, his gaze darts away. He was watching us instead of the game. I have no doubt he’s keenly aware of us right now. Wondering if we are going to break the conditions of our agreement and strut around like a bunch of roosters in the henhouse. One of my mother’s old expressions which she used whenever she was good and angry with my father. He was always a ladies’ man. And while he never exactly demanded attention, he didn’t shy away from it, either.
There’s a very perverse impulse that threatens to overtake me all at once, before my good sense stops me. The idea of standing up and announcing to the coach and everyone else in earshot that Harlow is pregnant — and we don’t know which of us is the father.
I have to settle for chuckling to myself at what I know would be shock and dismay. He’s going to find out eventually. She’s not showing yet, but she will be, and the man is not stupid. He’ll put two and two together in no time, and then what?
It’s safer for me to sit here and think about that than it is to think about how very little I know about babies. There’s time to learn, sure, but something tells me raising kids is the kindof thing you need to do, not something you can read about. Like driving a car. No doubt the entire process could be easily described step-by-step. That’s still no substitute for getting behind the wheel and doing it yourself.
So while I understand the basics of changing a diaper or giving a bath, when it comes time to deal with a squirmy little human, it’ll be like starting from square one no matter how many books I read or videos I watch. And I plan to. I want to be as present and helpful as I can.
After all, I’ll be here. There’s no chance of going anywhere else now.
This is not the time for me to start brooding. That time will never come. I’m a grown man and I have responsibilities. Choices have consequences and all that.
It’s my choice to stay. Sure, I was hoping to return to Seattle at some point this season. Unlike Ash, I had nothing but positive experiences up there—aside from our fight. Everything to do with the team and with my playing went well. Better than well. I kept my hopes to myself but have been waiting anxiously for word of whether the team would need me to come back.
