Pride and Pucks and Prejudice - 9. Chapter 9

Noah

The first thing I noticed the following Monday was that Jackson wasn't in the gym.

Which was ridiculous.

There were thirty players in training camp. One of them being absent should not have registered, but it registered.

I looked at the clock. Six fifteen. Usually he was already there pretending not to race me through whatever pointless conditioning torture Coach Hayes had invented.

I stretched. Waited. Six twenty. Still no Jackson.

"Huh."

I told myself I didn't care. I definitely didn't care. I simply appreciated consistency. Professional standards. Routine.

That was all.

I started my warm-up, rower, mobility work, resistance bands. Halfway through my second set of pull-ups the gym door opened.

Jackson walked in carrying a coffee. He looked faintly surprised to find me glaring at him.

"...Morning."

"You're late."

He checked the clock. "By seven minutes."

"You've been getting here before me all week."

"I had to stop for coffee."

"You always stop for coffee."

"I had to stop twice."

I frowned. "...Why?"

"They gave me the wrong order."

"Oh." A pause. "...What did they give you?"

"Oat milk."

"...Monsters."

"I thought so."

He nodded gravely. "They corrected the situation."

I considered this. "...Fair enough."

He wandered towards the bikes. Five minutes later I realised we'd just had a completely normal conversation.

That was unsettling.

---

Training wasn't any better. Coach split us into stations. Naturally Jackson ended up in mine.

We'd stopped questioning it. At this point I suspected Coach Hayes was doing it deliberately.

"Cycle through every four minutes," Daniels called. "Keep the pace high."

Passing. Corner battles. Conditioning. Target shooting.

We finished first in three stations and tied the fourth.

I argued the result of the last drill when he beat me by one.

"You hit the post. The post isn't the target."

"It should count."

"It doesn't."

"It nearly does."

Coach Hayes walked past. "It doesn't."

---

The problem was that we'd started reading each other.

I hated it.

I'd spent six years learning Jackson's habits because I needed to beat him. Now those same habits kept making hockey easier. He drifted left whenever the defense overcommitted.

I knew that.

He knew I liked attacking the weak-side lane. He knew that I knew he knew. It was becoming exhausting.

During one drill I found myself passing into open ice before I'd consciously decided to. Jackson was already skating onto it. Tape to tape, he scored.

I pointed at him. "You got lucky."

He looked honestly puzzled. "...Again?"

"Don't get used to it."

"I wasn't planning to."

---

The coaches noticed, obviously. They noticed everything. After practice Coach Daniels wandered over while I was untying my skates.

"You boys ever played together before?"

"No."

"Hm."

He scratched something onto his clipboard. "Could've fooled me."

"I assure you."

"I wasn't talking about your passing."

He walked away before I could ask what he meant.

---

Later that afternoon we had an optional shooting session. The coaches called it 'Optional', but meant compulsory if your name was Noah Lindholm.

I walked onto the ice. Jackson was already there.

He looked up. "...Couldn't stay away?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

He shrugged. "I wanted another hundred shots."

"I wanted a hundred and fifty."

"Of course you did."

He said it so matter-of-factly that I wasn't sure whether I'd been insulted.

---

We shot in silence for almost twenty minutes, not awkward silence, but working silence.

The only sounds were pucks striking glass and the whine of skate blades carving the ice. Eventually one puck rebounded awkwardly off the end boards. Without thinking I knocked it back towards him.

He caught it. Returned another one. Soon we weren't even collecting our own rebounds anymore.

One of us shot. The other fed another puck. Back and forth.

Neither of us mentioned it. It simply happened.

Coach Hayes wandered through the tunnel carrying a coffee.

He slowed, watched us for a few seconds, then continued walking.

I could have sworn I heard him mutter, "Huh."

---

As we headed off the ice Jackson balanced three pucks in one glove. "You know..."

"What?"

"I think we're making each other better."

I snorted. "I was already good."

"I know." He smiled. "So was I."

I wanted to argue. Instead I found myself nodding. "...Yeah."

We reached the dressing-room door.

Ben looked up from his phone. "There you are."

"What?"

"You disappeared together."

"We were shooting."

"For forty-five minutes."

"Yes."

Ben looked at Jackson. "You?"

"We were working."

Ben looked at me again. "And neither of you noticed everyone else left half an hour ago?"

I blinked. "...No."

Aleksander sighed dramatically. "They've entered the tunnel-vision phase."

"What phase?" I asked.

"The hockey phase," Ben said far too quickly.

"Very common."

I narrowed my eyes. "You two are being weird."

Aleksander smiled. "Noah."

"What?"

"We're not the weird ones."

I looked at Jackson.

He looked back at me. "...I don't get it."

"Neither do I."

Ben slowly covered his face with both hands. "Oh, this season is going to be incredible."

-----------

I stood in front of my wardrobe for nearly five minutes, which was ridiculous.

We were flying to Miami for the first preseason road trip, not attending the Academy Awards. Professional hockey players travelled in team attire. Nobody cared what any of us wore beyond whether we'd remembered trousers.

So naturally I changed my shirt three times.

"This is stupid," I muttered.

I pulled on black jeans instead of the blue pair I'd started with. Then a fitted black crew-neck that sat close enough to show the hours I'd spent under barbells all summer. Comfortable. Smart. Nothing unusual. I reached automatically for the elastic band I always used on travel days.

My fingers stopped. Instead I ran a hand through my hair and left it loose over my shoulders.

I frowned at my reflection because it looked as though someone else had dressed me.

"...Miami's humid."

That was the reason.

Obviously.

I picked up my bag before I could think about it any further.

---

The buses were already waiting outside the practice facility when I arrived.

Players drifted across the parking lot carrying garment bags and backpacks, the usual mixture of headphones, coffees and yawns that accompanied early flights.

I spotted Jackson almost immediately. He was talking to Stellan near the first bus.

A perfectly ordinary sight.

Less ordinary were Ben, Eddie and Aleksander, who had positioned themselves a few yards behind them with all the subtlety of three vultures waiting beside road kill.

They weren't talking. They were watching people arrive.

Specifically... Me.

Weird.

I ignored them and headed towards the bus. Jackson happened to glance up. Our eyes met. He looked at me.

Then he really looked.

His gaze traveled from my boots to my shoulders, lingered for the briefest moment on my hair, then shifted back to my face.

He stopped speaking halfway through whatever sentence he'd been saying to Stellan.

Just... Stopped.

His expression went strangely blank, as though he'd opened a familiar book and discovered the pages were suddenly in a different language.

He blinked once. Twice.

I slowed. "...You all right?"

He continued looking at me. "...Yeah." Long pause. "...Yeah." Another pause. "...You look..." He appeared to lose the rest of the sentence somewhere. "...Different."

I looked down at myself. "I'm wearing clothes."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Good," I responded. "I'd be concerned if it was."

That finally seemed to restart his brain. A small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "...Maybe."

I shook my head. "Weirdo."

Then I walked past him towards the bus.

Behind Jackson came a low groan.

I turned.

Eddie was digging into his wallet with theatrical misery while Ben and Aleksander stood beside him wearing expressions of profound satisfaction.

Each accepted a twenty-dollar bill.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Bar tab," Ben said.

Aleksander nodded.

"Important scientific research."

"You three are unbelievably strange."

"We've been told."

I climbed aboard before they could elaborate.

As I settled into my seat, I glanced out of the window.

Jackson was still standing where I'd left him.

Watching the bus.

Definitely weird.

---

Road trips had their own rhythm. Adjacent lockers in the visitors' dressing room. Adjacent hotel rooms assigned alphabetically. Shared meals. Shared buses.

No escape from one another.

Apparently fate had decided that Jackson and I required maximum exposure therapy. Our hotel rooms ended up side by side.

He nodded politely when we collected our key cards.

"What are the chances?"

I looked at the numbers. "They're alphabetical."

"Oh."

"...So."

"So."

Neither of us moved. Eventually I unlocked my door.

"See you tomorrow."

"Sleep well."

"You too."

The doors closed almost simultaneously.

I stared at mine for a second.

Why had that felt awkward?

---

Game day arrived bright and humid.

By the time I reached the hotel lobby most of the team had gathered around the coffee station.

Ben was telling Eddie a story involving a fishing trip and what sounded suspiciously like an alligator.

Aleksander kept interrupting with increasingly impossible corrections.

"...I'm telling you it was six feet."

"It was a crocodile."

"It was a decorative fountain."

"It was definitely alive."

I laughed.

Then the elevator chimed.

Everyone looked up.

Jackson stepped out carrying his suit jacket over one shoulder.

He'd changed before leaving his room. Charcoal-grey pinstripes. Perfectly tailored. Broad shoulders. Narrow waist. White shirt. Dark silk tie that probably cost as much as my first truck.

His hair was still slightly damp from the shower. He adjusted one cuff as he crossed the lobby. It should not have been possible to look that put together after a team flight.

It was irritating. Irritatingly unfair. I wondered briefly whether he'd hired someone to tie his tie.

I watched him. Across the reception area. Past the coffee station. Past the luggage carts. Past the revolving doors.

Then I realized I'd been watching him cross an entire hotel lobby.

I looked away.

Behind me came another theatrical groan. Without turning around I heard paper money changing hands.

Eddie sounded wounded. "...Seriously?"

Ben replied cheerfully. "Should've trusted the scouting report."

Aleksander laughed. "Pay up."

I looked over my shoulder. "What now?"

Ben folded the twenty into his wallet. "Takeout pizza."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You people make less sense every day."

"We know."

I looked back towards the bus.

Jackson was talking to one of the trainers.

Perfectly normal.

I frowned. "...What?"

Nobody answered.

---

The equipment staff loaded trunks beneath the bus while we waited.

Our equipment manager, Dave, stood nearby checking labels against a clipboard.

He glanced from Jackson to me.

Then smiled to himself. "You know..."

He shook his head.

"I do enjoy road trips."

I looked around. "...Why?"

"They're entertaining."

Then he climbed onto the bus before I could ask another question.

I looked after him.

Then at Ben.

Then Eddie.

Then Aleksander.

All three suddenly found other things to look at.

I folded my arms.

"I am surrounded by weirdos."

Nobody argued.

Which somehow made it even more suspicious.