Page 42 of Delay of Game

“Coach just had to give you the A,” Nate said, poking him in the stomach. There wasn’t much to poke; even this early in the season Zach didn’t have one damned extra ounce of fat to cushion the muscle. “That lit a fire under your ass.”

Zach snorted, swatted his hand away. “Yeah, it was all the A, buddy.”

“Well, you wear it well, anyway. And weareplaying some damn good hockey.”

“Thanks to your fearless leadership, Cap.”

“Asshole,” Nate muttered, but it was as affectionate as Zach’s teasing.

The truth was, it was a factor.

Nate always had a running checklist of captain shit he had to take care of scrolling through the back of his head. When he’d first gotten the C, it had been mostly a feeling of dread that had consumed him, and the dread of course remained with him each time they didn’t win the Cup, but it had been tempered with the knowledge and weight of responsibility. He still felt sick about it sometimes, but mostly, he was too busy to be anxious. There were rookies to corral, coaches to finesse, and egos to soothe, and players having personal crises to nudge in the right direction.

Some of the worst offenders from last season seemed to have gotten their shit together. For example, Mike, who’d been on the third pair or a healthy scratch for good portions of his first season and a bruised, scrappy mess for half of his second, had suddenly turned his game around. It wasn’t just the game, though. He’d moved to Princeton—it was almost in between Philly and Newark, even though Garcia’s commute was probably worse—and seemed suspiciously even-keeled these days.

And in more unlikely ways.

Jonathan Bouchard’s player assistance stint and his residential stay in a substance abuse program hadn’t really worked out while he was playing. He’d come home, and then gone right back in. He’d eventually just retired, which ultimately seemed like the best thing for him. Nate still heard from him fairly regularly—he’d been one of the guys who had eased Nate’s transition from the minors to the big show, even if he’d made some poor decisions with Hill in Bee’s rookie year. But he’d apologized to her, and she’d forgiven him, which was all that mattered to Nate. Bouchard spent a lot of time fishing in Kenora with his dog in tow.

Nate wouldn’t have exactly classed himself as anoffenderper se, because as always, he was managing his goddamn anxiety and he was doing it with the kind of determined focus eighteen-year-old Nate would literally have killed to possess. Really, he was doing fantastically. There was absolutely no reason to feel off-kilter all the time, like he’d inadvertently done or said the wrong thing, or that he just wanted to crawl out of his skin.

So this wasn’t exactly a banner season for him, personally.

It wasn’t really a surprise that he turned to the things that were most able to pull him out of a funk, and also not really a surprise that because most of those things involved hanging out with Zach, it both worked and made him feel approximately fifty times stranger.

Normally, food was one of the things that made him feel more like himself. When he was on the road and had time, he liked to check out what each city had to offer, within certain nutritional limits, obviously. Nate was still careful about his weight and what he put in his body, but there was an entire world of food out there that fit the bill. He’d had some terrible meals—things he was convinced he could have done better himself—and some fantastic experiences. Usually he’d drag along whoever happened to be around. This time it happened to be Zach, who he found on his way out of the plane.

“Come try this sushi place with me once we land in Dallas,” Nate said, the morning before they left for the road trip. It wasn’t really a question; he didn’t expect Zach to say no, but he also didn’t want to ask.

“Sure,” Zach agreed, easily, like he always did, and something inside Nate relaxed.

“Cool,” he said. “It’s all hand rolls, some sashimi, but the fish looks really good.”

“I trust you, bud.”

It was a good choice. Inside, it looked about how he’d expected it to look, all dark wood and dim lighting. Trendy. It was a pretty casual place and there was only counter seating, so everyone was kind of crushed together. Zach sat next to him and let Nate do the ordering, but since the menu was so selective, he basically just got a little bit of everything, and they split it. Zach wasn’t a particularly adventurous eater, but he tried everything, accompanied by some of the several varieties of sake on tap.

Their conversation was low, heads together, because it was such a small space. Zach’s thigh pressed against his and Nate tried not to think about exactly how the muscle felt under his hands. He knew his face was kind of red, and he wasn’t sure if it was the thought of it, the sake, or both.

Zach looked away when his phone buzzed, and then he grinned. “Dude, look. The dog sitter just sent me this picture of Hank and Dolly.”

Nate looked at the picture. He’d been with Zach when he’d adopted Hank that first season in Philadelphia—at the time, Hank had been a bony, ravenous mutt, a former stray with an excess of energy and a tendency to destroy pieces of furniture. Now he had a little belly, mellowed out a lot in his old age, and was quite content to be bossed around by Dolly, a Great Dane who was undoubtedly the ruler of the Reed household. In the picture, the gigantic Dolly lay on top of the long-suffering Hank, licking his ear.

“You miss them when we’re on the road?”

“Of course,” Zach said, looking down at the picture. “They’re like my kids, you know?”

Nate didn’t, but he nodded anyway. “I, uh, feel that way about the rookies sometimes. Except we’re on the road with them all the time, I know, I just meant—like my kids, so...”

Laughter exploded from Zach’s mouth, a little too loud for even the buzz of the restaurant, the sort of uncontrollable glee that always made Nate smile, helplessly, in response. “Don’t let them hear that comparison. Don’t know if they’d find it as flattering as you meant it.”

“I just meant—they’re like my kids, not that they’re like your dogs—”

“Remember how upset you got that they called you Dad?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah...a lot of shit’s happened since then, huh.” Zach kept looking at him sideways, like he was trying to figure something out, which was weird because Nate was an open book.