Page 30 of Delay of Game

Was this what Nate felt like all the time? Zach couldn’t imagine it. It was exhausting.

“You okay, Reedsy?” Netty asked, as they crossed the tarmac to the stairs that would take them up to the plane.

“Huh?” Zach asked, head whipping around. “I’m great, bro. Why wouldn’t I be okay? What’s up?”

Netty grinned, except it was more of a baring of his tooth gap. “You jumpy.”

“Nah,” Zach said, waving his hand dismissively.

“All right,” Netty said, although he didn’t sound convinced.

“Just wanna win these next few, you know?”

“All right,” Netty said again, although he still didn’t sound convinced.

In the end, Zach took his usual seat next to Nate, because he was a fool. They were flying to Tampa for the first stop on the trip, and the flight was only three hours, but he was still a fool. He’d either have to pass out in self-defense or keep up the kind of idiotic conversation that usually came so easily to him, but that with this newfoundthinking about thingswas reallyhard.

“Buddy,” he said, as he slid into the seat. There were a million things he wanted to say, and he couldn’t say any of them.

Nate looked up and half smiled and Zach was definitely an idiot. “Ready for the road?”

“I just wanna win one, you know? Three in a row feels...bad.”

“You weren’t here for the worst of our seasons,” Nate said, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. “There was one time we lost thirteen in a row.”

Zach had never experienced quite that level of failure in his life, but he knew better than to say it. “Don’t worry. I won’t let it get that bad again, okay?”

“Got your personal guarantee for that one, huh?” Nate asked. His eyes were still closed, but the smile still tipped the corner of his mouth up.

“Hell yeah, Cap. And listen, if we lose, you get the forfeit.”

“Deal.”

They bumped fists on it. The forfeits were usually practical—Zach had made Nate do all of his laundry for a week once—or silly, like the time Nate had made Zach sing an embarrassing song at karaoke with the team, except the joke was on him because Zach never got embarrassed. But now his brain was taking it all kinds of other places. Things Nate could do for him with his mouth, places he could let Zach touch that he’d never touched before... He had to stop thinking about that. He couldn’t think about that on the plane, with all of their teammates playing cards or dozing around them.

Eventually, he did drift off, and only woke up when the plane was starting to descend. Nate was still asleep, his head pillowed on Zach’s shoulder. Zach wisely resisted the urge to push the hair away from his face, or do anything along those lines, because he wasoverthinking thingsthese days. Instead, he said, “Hey, buddy. Time to get up.”

Nate recoiled like Zach had slapped him, like as soon as he realized where he was, he regretted it. “Sorry, I—sorry.”

Zach stifled a sigh. “It’s cool. You weren’t drooling on me or anything.”

“That’s not what I—” Nate’s face was hard to read sometimes. Not that it wasn’t full of emotion—it was just that sometimes he had so many of them it was impossible to figure outwhatwas going on back there. “Okay.”

Ugh. Like having yourskinpeeled off.

Zach actually couldn’t wait for the game to start, just so he’d have an excuse to maybe...hit someone. That would be good. Even if they didn’t win.

Nate took a minute out of warmups and before the game to speak to Sally and Zach, his only alternate captains following Bouchard’s abrupt retirement last year. He didn’t really know what he wanted to say. He usually preferred to lead by example, if possible, but sometimes you had to use your words. The problem was that Nate was very bad at using his words.

Usually it helped to have Zach watching him when he spoke. Instead of worrying about how he looked or sounded, he focused on Zach’s familiar face and familiar smile, and everything was easier. But today it just made him feel weird and shivery, like his skin was too tight. And Zach wasn’t even smiling; his face looked tense and nervous, the same way Nate felt.

“We gotta win this one, boys,” he said, finally. The rest of the team was already on the ice, skating, stretching, taking practice shots on Mack. “I know you guys always do what you can, but we really—we need to step it up. If you see something sloppy, let the guy know on the bench after. We can’t afford any stupid mistakes tonight.”

Tampa was a perennial contender for the Cup, although they hadn’t won it within the last decade. A streak of bad luck in the playoffs had kept it out of their grasp. Nate knew that feeling all too well recently. Still, the Mariners were a tight, aggressive team, and it would take some effort to avoid a fourth loss. The crowd here wasn’t as loud as in some barns, but they were intense, and the arena had kind of a weird vibe, particularly because they usually stopped before puck drop to honor veterans or police officers or something. It was uncomfortable.

“Aye aye, Captain,” Zach said, flipping him a joking salute.

“Take this seriously, Zachary,” Sally said, before Nate had to.