Page 14 of Two for Roughing

Lindy leaned back, studying him. “You’re not the cleanest skater.”

Someone else might have winced or protested, but Kilian had been hearing as much from his dad since he was eight. By the time he turned twelve, they both accepted that no number of extra drills, conditioning, or special training programs would make him improve, so they focused on other ways for him to be effective on the ice.

“But your passing, your shooting, and your ability to piss off everyone in a three-foot radius enough to take a penalty are all world-class. Except, since I’ve been coaching this team, you haven’t put a single one of those skills to use. Is it me?”

“What?”

“Do you have a problem being coached by a woman?”

Kilian sat bolt upright. “No! I always wished my coach were a woman!”

Well, okay, as a kid, he’d wished the hockey obsession had come from his mom’s side of the family so she could be the coach. She always took the time to explain why she did the things she did and apologized when she yelled at him. But she’d been busy running the farm, and while Dad could take care of the animals all right, he didn’t have Mom’s head for math or her poker face when it came to negotiating prices. So, he’d bided his time with Kilian’s older sisters, taking Lacey to ballet and Jeannine to horseback riding and Josie to swim meets, encouraging all of them. When Kilian came along—a surprise baby eight years after Josie and the only boy—Dad had seen his chance. As soon as Kilian developed an interest in ice skating, Dad got certified as a coach, and Kilian’s fate was sealed.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lindy said. “But it doesn’t solve whatever the problem is with your hockey right now.”

Kilian tugged the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his hand and toyed with the ribbed material.

“Howie?”

When Kilian turned nine, the whole family went to Stars on Ice. During intermission, he told Josie he liked hockey okay, but watching figure skating was more fun, with the flashy, flowy outfits and the rhythmic music. She laughed and told him to never tell Dad.

Since Kilian had already established that his skating sucked, the interest never went anywhere. It wasn’t all bad. Growing up in a house full of older sisters who were going through the ups and downs of puberty and figuring out their futures, Kilian liked getting his dad’s undivided attention during hockey and on weekend trips to games with Grandpa. It felt good. Until it didn’t.

“Kilian.”

“Huh?”

“What happened? What’s eating you? How do I get my second-line center back?”

“I was never a second-line center,” Kilian scoffed.

He’d been shuffled between the third and fourth line all of last season. Sure, he’d had a few decent moments, but by and large, he was not a top-six player. His dad had spent years preparing him for his own eventual mediocrity; he could deal with it easily. Kilian wasn’t a shooting star or a diamond in the rough; he was the grit around the edges, sandpaper for the opposition to rub up against. Grandpa used to make it sound like a good thing, being a pest.

“You’re always the most interesting guy on the ice,” he told Kilian at fourteen.

Of course, Grandpa never played professionally. But he watched every game Vancouver played, and now he’d included the Sea Lions in his schedule. He even still played backup goalie for the beer league up in Muskoka when his gout let him. Grandpa knew his hockey.

Lindy folded her arms. She was scarier than most of the other coaches Kilian had known, excepting his dad. Sure, she seemed bubbly and friendly, and she made them do dumb team-bonding games. But Kilian knew not to trust anyone so pervasively cheerful. Even nice people had down days. People who just pretended they were nice never thought to pretend they were sad sometimes too.

With a pang, Kilian thought of the nicest person he knew. Breezy had been having some down days recently. He’d deflected whenever Kilian had asked about it before Halloween, and they hadn’t spoken since. Well, Kilian hadn’t spoken to him. Maybe he should apologize.

But for what? Breezy was the one who had lied to him, even if by omission. He’d been the one who let Kilian make a fool of himself, the one who took all of Kilian’s confessions and confidence and gave jack squat in return.

Of course, Breezy had cared, the rational part of Kilian’s brain reminded him. Breezy couldn’t have told anyone anything without betraying a confidence, and he’d never do that. How was he meant to know that just this once, Kilian would have wanted him to? Kilian should apologize, not because of anything he’d said and done, but because he hadn’t taken the time to see things from Breezy’s perspective. The thought of telling Breezy he knew he hadn’t been fair—that Kilian had ladled childish reactions on top of childish emotions—made him want to curl up in bed and never wake up.

“All right,” Lindy said. “You don’t want to tell me what’s going on—that’s okay. But you don’t believe you can improve things by yourself either, which is a bigger problem. Have you talked to Michelle?”

Kilian had talked to Michelle, the team sports therapist, last year. After spending most of his life not admitting to himself that he was not exactly straight and then doing a full one-eighty and asking Damir Denisov to fuck him into the mattress, Kilian went to her office. He proceeded to cry a lot on her couch while she told him over and over it was okay to be gay. After the summer break, Kilian hadn’t been able to face the thought of seeing Michelle again. Too embarrassing.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Recently?”

He shifted in his seat.

“Look, Howie, I like you. You’re a good kid. But you’ve gotta figure something out here, or I’m going to have to take more drastic measures.”

“Okay,” Kilian said. He would deal with whatever her punishment was. The chances of him suddenly becoming a top-six player because she wanted him to were slim to none, so he would have to accept being pathetic. It was a good thing he had so much practice.