Page 39 of Delay of Game
By the time the rest of the team started trickling in, the two of them had made sure everything was set up to Mom’s liking: the table with its paper tablecloth that she’d insist on folding up and reusing next year, the mismatched hot plates holding all of the food, the cooler stuffed with ice and cans and bottles, extra chairs wherever they’d fit. They didn’t have a tree for obvious reasons, but there was a designated area of the steps upstairs for the gift exchanges.
As far as evenings went, it was a pretty chill one; whenever he made the rounds to make sure things were going okay and his mom wasn’t terrifying any rookies, everything was as he expected. Bee rolling her eyes a little while Mäkelä and Socks earnestly debated the relative merits of True pads versus Bauer; Netty in the kitchen eating a heroic amount of potato latkes and sour cream; Mike tagging along while Mom showed off her spice drawer to Danny Garcia; Sally in the corner discussing chess strategy with Nate’s dad, a murderously intent gleam in his eye. They’d had a “game” going for the last three years, updated mostly at the holiday parties and occasionally by text.
A few minutes later, Nate noticed that Mom had cornered Gags by the sink. He was in the process of washing his hands but seemed drunk enough that he had gotten distracted by her questions—was he eating enough, how was he sleeping at night, were the boys treating him okay—that the water streamed over his still hands.
“Mom,” Nate said, turning the tap off, “what’d I tell you about going easy on the kids?”
“I’m just making sure,” she said with a sniff. “I did the same for you when you were his age.”
Nate had remembered that one, all right: the intense humiliation of his mom asking Logan Beaulieu, the Cons’ longtime captain and probably a future Hall of Famer, whether her son had settled in okay.
“Mmm,” he said noncommittally, and took Gags by the shoulder. “Come on, Gags, you should maybe eat a little more dinner. Don’t want to drink too much on an empty stomach.”
“Oh, yeah,” Gags agreed. His eyes were a little glassy, his face flushed and his hairline damp. “Everything looks really good, I just didn’t—you know.”
Nate patted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know. They’re intense but they mean well. You just have to know how to escape.”
“Or have someone to rescue you,” Zach said, handing Gags a plate. “Don’t worry, bud. We gotcha.”
“Thanks,” Gags said fervently. “Like, for everything, you know, this year so far, the team has been—you’ve been—just, you know. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it?” Nate said, blinking.
“Go on,” Zach said. “Go hang with the guys. If you need someone to run interference, just grab Mike, he’s intimidating enough.”
“Thanks,” Gags mumbled again, melting back into the crowd with the plate piled high with brisket and chicken still in his hands.
“Going pretty well, I’d say,” Zach said, nudging Nate in the side. “You were worrying for nothing.”
“I always worry.”
“For nothing, though.”
Nate wanted to saynot for nothing. He wanted to ask Zach whether he remembered that first Chanukah party, whether he remembered waking up in Nate’s bed, whether he ever thought about the fact that he’d stolen one of Nate’s favorite T-shirts and Nate had just let it go, whether he realized he was still wearing it sometimes.
He didn’t say any of those things.
Chapter Seven
January
Every New Year’s before he’d come to Philadelphia, Zach had steadfastly avoided making resolutions. It felt corny and cheesy and unnecessary, and he wassobad at them anyway.
And even if he wasn’t bad at them, like, what was he going to resolve to do except be the best at what he did? And he did that anyway, just by existing. At least that’s how it had been before. Now it was different. He’d had the goal set from the beginning of the summer—win Nate a Cup—and he was actively working on getting there. Solely based on the team’s results so far, it was looking achievable. There wasn’t anything else he could think of that he wanted or needed.
They played at home on New Year’s Eve against the Anaheim Arsenal, a matinee game, which meant they’d have time to go out after. Anaheim was another team that had been perennially at the bottom of the standings for a long time, but they had never drafted a game changer like Bee and were still stuck in mediocrity. That didn’t mean the game didn’t have personal stakes: Zach had been working on a grudge against one of Anaheim’s forwards, Jones, a guy who’d high-sticked him last season and had gotten away with it.
Zach wasn’t a very physical player—he left that to Mike, or even Bee, to some extent—but for this asshole? He was willing to make an exception.
They started the game with the right momentum. Netty set up Gags for a ridiculous kind of goal, something that shouldn’t have even gone in in a beer league game. A trickler right through the Anaheim goalie’s fivehole. And then it was on, a rough ride until the end. It was like the Arsenal felt as though they had to make up for the initial weak start however they could, but they were never able to get back into it. It was one of those games where Zach skated circles around all of the opposing forwards and d-men, coasting easily on his edges.
And of course, the kind of game where your opponent felt like they had to start shit to get back into it. It started about halfway through the second, when the Cons were up 4-2. First it was just some cross-checks to the back when he was too close to the crease. That was something he could shrug off. But when the sticks started slipping higher and higher, he turned.
“Fuck off,” he said to Jones.
“You fuck off!”
Zach considered his options, but the play was moving again before he could say anything else, and he was chasing the puck back into the neutral zone. He remembered in the seasons before he’d gotten there how Philly had always played a dump-and-chase style but hadn’t been anywhere near fast enough to complete the chase part of the equation. It had been pretty fun to play against them, because it was always a massacre. But nowhewas Philly, and he was the one streaking after the puck.