Page 89 of Bar Down Baby!
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, drawing my attention. I peeled my eyes from the TV to look down at it.
Barry.
I snatched it from the table and swiped to view the message.
Barry
He’s okay.
This is Tivo btw
Tivo—Niko Tivoli—was one of the rookies, barely nineteen, who Barry talked about sometimes. He looked up to Barry and had been out for the last few games with a leg injury.
Barry
Needs stitches though. Says he’ll call after.
Hannah
Thank you
I locked the phone, looked up at the TV, then unlocked it to read the messages again.
“He’s getting stitches,” I reported. “But he’s okay.”
Jeremy and Kate looked at me with a mix of pity and knowing. I didn’t ask what they were thinking. I knew what they were thinking. They thought I was a fucking mess, more gone for Barry than they already thought he was for me.
I knew they were right.
Barry finished the game with a swollen, stitched up cheek, and had two assists before the end of game. Thirteen stitches in an L shape on his cheek on the left side of his face. They were uncovered during the game, though he had to wear a fishbowl helmet to keep the injury protected. In the locker room interviews after, one of the reporters said he still looked handsome, maybe even more so with the stitches and Barry laughed, this sight of his wide smile calming me some.
It was another hour before he called me, and I was in bed—his bed—holding my pregnancy pillow for any shred of comfort when I still felt shaken from the game. It was a FaceTime call, and I wiped my cheeks before answering. This had become somewhat of a routine while he was on the road: bedtime calls, both of us looking at our phones like we were together for real.
“Sweetheart,” he said, all sympathy as soon as the call connected and he saw me.
“I wasn’t crying,” I said, but my face never let me hide my tears. My cheeks would be puffy and eyes red until midmorning.
“Okay. It does kinda look like you were, though,” he whispered.
My chest tightened, wishing he was here to wipe his calloused thumbs across my cheeks. Half of his face was swollen and the skin beneath his left eye was an angry mix of colorspeeking out from beneath the white bandage that covered the stitches.
“You looked really rough,” I told him. My lip wobbled without meaning to; I tried to control it but, again, my hormones were out to get me.
“I thought you said hockey injuries made me look handsome.”
Byhockey injuries, I’d meant the little horizontal cuts so many of them seemed to get on their noses from their helmet visors at some point in the season. Barry had come home with that specific injury a month ago, and assured me it was a common one; his nose wasn’t even broken. He hadn’t needed stitches that time, though.
He looked much, much worse now.
“Rugged was the word I used, I think.” My voice trembled, and I cursed and closed my eyes.
“Were you worried about me?”
I’d never wanted to have him here so bad—never wanted to haveanyonehere with me so badly. I wanted to grip the front of his hoodie and smell his neck and let him wrap his arms around me and kiss my head as many times as he wanted. I wouldn’t even tell him to stop or that he was being too romantic, I’d just let him do whatever he wanted.
“Obviously, yes,” I muttered, incapable of lying. “Jeremy told me that every season players get hurt, like hospitals and broken bones, and a few years ago a guy died from a skate?”
More tears fell from my eyes, and Barry gave gentle shushing sounds through the phone.
