Cauler laughs a little. “I can tell you for a fact it was hard for some of the boys, too. Figured you’d be used to it by now.”
I shrug. “He only retired a few years ago. Not like he had time to come to my games. Raleigh’s a long way from Michigan. It’s just—” I cut myself off. He doesn’t want to hear my sob story. I should be grateful I got into the NTDP. It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Dad pushing me and leaving me in Buffalo.
“It’s just?” Cauler presses.
I heave out a breath and tug on the strings of my hoodie to keep my hands occupied. “He expects a lot. Like … a lot. Or at least I assume he does? I don’t know. I kind of panicked at the end of that game. I hadn’t done shit and he was watching and … I don’t know.”
“You realize if you’d’ve passed to me, you’d’ve got an assist, right?”
“Yeah. But then you’d have two goals.”
“And you would’ve set me up for a game winner on a beauty of a play with seconds on the clock, and everyone would’ve been obsessed over our on-ice chemistry instead of pitting us against each other like always.”
I press my forehead against my knees. “I know.”
“You’ll look a lot better to scouts if you focus on the team and winning instead of racking up goals.”
“I know.” There’s this desperate kind of pitch in my voice that makes me squeeze my eyes shut. I am not about to cry in front of him.
He totally hears it, too. He’s close enough I can feel him pull his other leg up, his elbow pressing into my arm as he adjusts himself. “If you want a parental figure who’ll be disgustingly proud of everything you do, I’ll give Ma your number. Go a shift without scoring on your own net or falling on your ass and she’ll be blowing up your phone about how great you’re doing.”
I huff a laugh through my nose and turn my head, resting the side of my face on my knees so I can look at him. He tilts his head back, looking up at the colors of the sunset peeking through gray clouds. My eyes follow the long stretch of his throat, down to the silver necklace resting at the base of his neck.
“She didn’t know a thing about hockey when I started,” he goes on. “She cried when she saw me standing on skates without falling. Basically called Mr. Cicero a miracle worker, she was that impressed. Never really got over it, either. She’s amazed by everything.”
“How’d you start playing if she didn’t know anything about it?” I ask.
“Kyle Kane’s from the same neighborhood as me. We were on our way to my first football practice, actually. Black kid says he wants to play sports, teachers send home football and basketball pamphlets, y’know. But Ma and I ran into Kyle Kane playing street hockey with some kids a couple blocks from home. Black man playing a sport that’s not football or basketball with a bunch of little Black kids?” He smiles. Shakes his head a little. “I was instantly obsessed. Dad started working a ton of overtime, and Ma started babysitting a bunch of kids before work at night so they could pay for me to play.” He turns his head to look at me. “Don’t know if you knew this, but hockey’s expensive.”
“I know,” I say softly.
He leans back, holding himself up with his hands on the cold cement of the dock. “Know what else is expensive? Hospital bills.” I can’t see his face with him sitting like that, but I hear the bitter change in his tone.
I can still see that hit he took in my head. Hear the sound of his helmet ringing off the stanchion. Picture him facedown on the ice for five motionless minutes before being taken off on a gurney, the announcers so terrified they wouldn’t even speculate on how bad the injury might be.
I can’t imagine experiencing it firsthand.
“I’m surprised your parents let you keep playing,” I say.
“Same, honestly.” He’s not surprised I knew what he was talking about. It was all the hockey media talked about for months. “It was the worst. Couldn’t think straight, threw up all the time, could hardly walk. Felt like I was getting an MRI every other day. But all I cared about was getting back on the ice. Ever since that day, playing street hockey with Kyle Kane, I built my whole life around this sport. I didn’t have anything else. Sound familiar?”
“I didn’t build this life.” I cringe at my own words as soon as they’re out.
“Dramatic,” Cauler says, but he doesn’t sound annoyed about it for once.
We’re both quiet. The sun is setting fast, and it’s getting colder by the second. I don’t feel like moving. When Cauler lies flat on his back with his knees drawn up and hands folded on his stomach, it seems like a good idea. Till I lie back with him and our arms are pressed right up against each other.
He doesn’t move away. Doesn’t even flinch. The warmth of him is enough to chase off some of the November chill.
“You should go pro next year,” I say. It’s almost a whisper.
“I should,” he agrees.
“So why won’t you?”
“Because. I don’t ever want to feel like hockey is all I have ever again. My parents are doing okay with money for now, but with my medical debt, they wouldn’t’ve been able to send me to college without this full ride. I’m taking advantage of it.”
“What’s your backup, then?”
“My brother’s in law school. Lots of scholarships and grants. He’s gonna start his own firm taking on civil rights violations. I wanna help.”
“You’re actually gonna go to law school?” I pick my head up off the dock to give him a look. “You tell people that, there’s no way you’re getting picked first.”
He screws his face up at me. “I’m not going to law school, you little shit. You don’t need a law degree to be a paralegal. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You figure out a backup plan?”
“No.”
“What happened to marine science?”
My cheeks warm and my heart skips. He remembered that all the way from our first algebra class? Dude. “I panicked when everyone was saying their majors.”
“If that was your go-to, you must like it at least. You do spend a lot of time down here.”
I shrug. We go quiet again. Like we’ve reached our working things out limit for the day. I close my eyes, feeling more relaxed now than I have in days. Outside of being drunk at least.
“Terzo,” Cauler says, and I startle awake. I didn’t even realize I’d been falling asleep. “If I go first, will your dad disown you?”
I blink the sleep out of my eyes. If he’d asked me this same question yesterday I probably would’ve said yes. Maybe even believed it, too. But today, I say, “Huh? No. He’s a fanatic but he’s not a total asshole.”
“Eh, not so sure about that. But good to know. Now I won’t feel so guilty about it.”
I laugh. A real, full-throated laugh. “You’re delusional, Cauler.”
“Hold on to that sense of security, Your Grace. It’ll make draft day all the more satisfying.”
The sun is almost fully set and I am freezing, but I want to stay in this moment, with me and Cauler getting along and lying next to each other in a silence that’s not tense and awkward for once.
Cauler taps his fingers on his chest, and I shiver through my whole body as stars start peeking through wisps of dark clouds. He blows air through his teeth that freezes above his face.
I could kiss him right now. Here, at the dock. My favorite place on campus. It’d be downright poetic, ending a fight with a kiss.
But we’re the NHL’s top prospects and there’s so much attention on us that out in semi-public like this, there’s no way it’d stay a secret for long. And when I come out to the world, I want it to be on my terms.
So instead, I say, “Zero gave us till the end of study hall. What time is it?”
“I’m gonna go ahead and say study hall is over by now.”
“Think we’ve worked it out enough for them?”
“You obviously haven’t been paying attention. To them, working it out means putting our mouths on each other.”