Page 1 of Puck the Coach's Son
1
THEO
Dad says don't be late, so we're fifteen minutes early. That's how it's always worked.
He parks in the second row of the players' lot because the first row is reserved for guys whose names are painted on the asphalt. My name isn't painted on anything here yet. His is, on the wall above the office he won't see until after the tour. He turns the engine off and sits for a second with his hands still on the wheel.
“Head down,” he says.
“I know.”
His knuckles tighten on the wheel and don't let go. I watch them, because I can watch them, because his eyes are out the windshield and not on me.
“No. Listen.” He turns. “They're going to test you. That's what a locker room does. Don't answer it. Skate your shifts. Play your system. Be useful. If you give them a reason, they'll eat you.”
“Yes, Coach.”
He doesn't correct me. He used to. I don't know when he stopped.
We get out. The October air off the lake is already the kind of cold that gets in under a jacket. Frosthaven. Even the city name sounds like a chirp waiting to happen. I pull my bag out of the back and Dad goes ahead across the lot without looking to see if I'm keeping up.
The facility is new on the outside and older on the inside. The smell hits me before the doors finish swinging shut behind us. Cold metal, rubber mats, sweat cut with disinfectant, that sweet scent that comes from the rot of tape and skate leather. Every rink I've ever walked into has smelled like this. It should feel like home. It feels like nothing.
Dad is already in conversation with someone in a Wolves polo at the front desk. I stand with my bag between my feet and make myself small. Someone has hung a Wolves banner behind the desk that's too new, the edges still creased from shipping. The team's colors are gray and blood orange. The logo is a wolf with its mouth open. I don't know why I'm cataloging any of this. I always do. When I don't know what to do with my hands, I use my eyes.
“Theo.”
“Yes, Coach.”
He checks the time again. His thumb finds the inside of his watchband and stays there, a tell I've watched him hide from the press and from me and mostly from himself.
“Eli's going to show you around. I have a staff meeting. Dressing room, ice, training room, weight room, video, then back to dressing. On the ice at nine-thirty. Don't be late.”
“Yes, Coach.”
He's already walking. Eli turns out to be the facility manager, a guy in his fifties with a clipboard and a kindness around the eyes that he hides fast when I say my last name. He covers it by checking his watch.
“Laurent,” he says, like he's testing the sound of it. “Right. This way.”
The tour takes ten minutes. He talks, I nod. The dressing room has my stall already labeled with my name and number, 41, on a piece of white tape pressed to the wood above the hook. The tape is new. Everything is new. The other stalls have real plates.
“First day jitters,” Eli says, seeing me look. It's not a question. He isn't wrong.
“A bit.”
“You'll be fine.” He doesn't sound like he believes himself. “Skates at nine-thirty. Go get changed. Your gear's in the bag there.”
Eli leaves me alone in the room. That's when I find out I'm not alone.
Someone's sitting in the far corner stall in just compression shorts and a Wolves t-shirt, an ankle up on his opposite knee, rolling sock tape between his fingers. He looks up when the door closes behind Eli. I make eye contact by accident and can't take it back.
He grins. It is not a friendly grin.
“Laurent,” he says.
I nod. My hand has closed around the strap of my bag too tight. I make it let go.
“Twenty,” he says. “Twenty and your dad's the new coach. That's rich.”
