Page 47 of Hard Check
Leo was halfway across the Icehouse parking lot before he realized he’d already pulled his phone out. He did that now. Every practice, every film session, every stretch of time where he’d been unreachable, his hand found his pocket before his brain caught up. It was like he needed to be in contact with Dawson every available minute. That’d die down as they settled into whatever it was they were doing, right?
How was practice?
Leo stood in the parking lot grinning at his phone like an idiot. He loved that Dawson always asked, giving him an opening if he needed to vent about Coach being in a shit mood or his teammates pissing him off. Oddly enough, now that he had that support, he was on a team that he truly enjoyed being a part of.
Practice had been good. Better than good. He’d made a cross-slot feed to Novo during line rushes that six weeks ago he would have shot himself, and Novo had buried it and pointed his stick at Leo on the way back to the line without even looking at him. In the film session after, Annie Tremblay, one of the assistant coaches, had frozen a clip from the Iron Bay loss and asked Leowhat the weak-side D was doing, and he’d seen it before she had to point it out.
They’d been texting like this all day, every day since Milwaukee. Leo had started learning the rhythm of their conversations. Fast replies meant a slow day or a moment alone at the shop. Gaps meant Wyatt was hovering or a customer was close.
Good. Really good, actually. I think the team’s starting to trust me.
Starting to?
Leo was still grinning when Jonesy appeared at his elbow, bouncing on his toes. “Haircut.”
“What?”
“You need a haircut. I need a haircut. Ski’s already there. Let’s go.”
“I have a guy in Milwaukee.”
Jonesy stared at him. “You drive to Milwaukee for a haircut?”
“He does a specific— It’s a fade… It takes—” Leo remembered who he was talking to and quit trying to explain himself. Jonesy was a simple guy. Honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised him to find out his teammate’s idea of a haircut was using the clippers in front of his bathroom mirror.
“Get in the truck, Vargas.”
The barbershop was on a side street two blocks off Main, sandwiched between a gift shop and a combination bait shop and liquor store, which Leo still hadn’t recovered from. It had a striped pole out front that spun, and inside it smelled likeantiseptic and coffee. There were only three chairs, and two of them were occupied by men old enough to have opinions about the Korean War.
Ski was in the first chair, getting his sides trimmed by a guy with forearms like bowling pins and a Stags cap turned backward. He waved without moving his head. “Hey, V. Pull up a seat.”
Leo sat in the waiting area next to a stack of Field & Stream magazines from 2019 and a jar of Dum-Dums. The two older men were deep in a conversation about someone named Earl who’d driven his truck into a ditch off County Road K and blamed a deer, though the consensus was that Earl had had a few too many old-fashioneds at the fish fry beforehand and the deer was probably imaginary.
“Earl’s been blaming deer since ninety-eight,” the barber said without looking up.
“That’s because deer keep jumping in front of his truck,” one of the old men said. “After seven beers.”
Leo tilted his phone in his lap.
Now I’m at a barbershop that apparently doubles as the town’s intelligence headquarters.
That’s Gary’s. Don’t tell him anything you don’t want repeated at the Tap.
The Tap was one of the bars in town Leo hadn’t frequented. It still surprised him how many taverns a town this size had in a small area, and all of them stayed in business. If The Penalty Box was a bit too grungy for Leo’s taste, the Tap was a true dive. The windows looked like they were still coated in nicotine from whensmoking was allowed indoors, and the bright orange awning over the door was lopsided. It didn’t surprise him that it was a known rumor mill.
“You’re up.” The barber, Gary, waved him over. Ski brushed clippings off his collar, grabbed a Dum-Dum from the jar, and dropped into one of the waiting chairs like he had nowhere else to be.
Leo sat in the chair. The cape went around his neck, and Gary studied his head in the mirror.
“What are we doing?”
“Just a trim. Keep the length on top, clean up the sides.”
“You one of the new Stags boys?”
“Leo Vargas. Forward.”
“Right, right. The Florida kid.” Gary pumped the chair higher. “How you liking it up here?”
