Page 67 of Delay of Game

It was the first time in a long time that he’d been alone.

He didn’t want to bother Zach too much, because if Zach wanted space, then Nate would have to just respect that. It didn’t make him feel better, but he didn’t want to be a shitty friend, so. That was that.

So Nate did what he normally did when he felt like shit, which was throw himself back into work. He went to the gym and he did his usual workout twice, he called Coach Ford to discuss some issues they had been having with Belsky and Gags on neutral zone turnovers. He sharpened his skates himself on the machine at the rink, except that just made him think about Zach giving him the little skate sharpener, which made him feel off-kilter and out of sorts.

He cooked an entire week’s worth of meals to put in the freezer for when he got home from road trips.

He went to his parents’ house and cleaned the entirety of their small concrete backyard, sweeping and scrubbing the detritus that built up in heavy layers during the year. Trash that had blown in from the street, droppings from the crepe myrtle that was the bane of Nate’s existence. He power-washed the brick-walled front of their house.

By the time it was dark and he was preparing for the game tomorrow, he had almost kept himself busy enough that he hadn’t thought about it much at all. He lowered his aching body into his bed, which suddenly felt extremely large, and thought about how he hadn’t heard from Zach at all that day, and wondered if he was still at Mike’s or whether he’d gone home to the dogs or whether—

Stop it, his brain said.

Oh,nowyou have a fucking opinion?

You should’ve said something to him before this. Now it’s too late.

Shut up.

It’s too late, because you’re a coward.

There were only so many times you could tell your brain to shut up before it became an exercise in futility.

Nate didn’t sleep well that night.

The next day, he dressed for morning skate with that same feeling of dread. This was something he couldn’t avoid, but if he got there first, before anyone else, then maybe he could just get out onto the ice without having to say anything to Zach.

Unfortunately, although he did beat Zach to the rink, he didn’t beat Mike, who gave him a very long, very blank look and said, “Morning, Cap.”

“Morning, Mike.” His mouth felt very dry.

“Long night? You look tired.”

“I, uh, never really sleep that well after a loss like that.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, his arms folded over his chest. “Me neither.”

“Uh...is Zach okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“You should ask him yourself,” Mike said, with a withering tone that made the tips of Nate’s ears go red.

“I mean... I can’t,” Nate said, before he could stop himself.

“Jesus Christ, Cap.” Mike shook his head and skated away from the wall without another word.

The practice didn’t go much better than that. Coach wasn’t exactly bag skating them, but he was going through the drills at a punishing speed he hadn’t employed since the first year they were trying to adopt the system. Nate, who hadn’t slept much the night before, struggled trying not to look too long at Zach, who wasn’t in any better form than he’d been at the game.

“Reed!” Coach snapped. “Get your head together!”

“Sorry, Coach!”

“Do ’em again. Perfectly this time.”

While they were watching the second group run through the drills, he stood next to Bee and kept half an eye on Zach, who was a little farther down the rink, talking to Mike. Bee and Mike kept exchanging little glances that made him wonder how much they’d guessed, or whether they’d talked about it.