Chapter 1
The San Diego Sharks play in Toronto at the end of March, and Lucas tears his fucking shoulder checking one of their kids into the net.
Daniel watches the replay on the jumbotron after Lucas’s been ushered off the ice and back to medical.
It’s a total freak accident on both their parts, Lucas covering the Sea Lion’s D-Man and the kid small enough that he just sort of gets underfoot by accident.
It’s a toss-up of who looks more distressed in the aftermath, the rookie or Lucas, but at least the kid’s got nothing but a bloody nose from the whole thing.
It’d suck to add child abuse to Lucas’s list of current concerns, Daniel thinks.
He’s put on IR for the rest of the season, obviously.
It sucks, but they’ve only got two more games in the regular season, and then hopefully one of those legendary play-off runs that end with a Cup, the kind that Daniel’s only experienced twice before.
If it had to happen, at least it happened so close to the summer, is all Daniel’s saying, though he’s definitely not stupid enough to say this to Lucas’s face.
“Fucking sharks,” he says instead when he visits him in the hospital the next day.
It’s gonna be a surgery, apparently, but a minor one.
Lucas’s not too worried about it, but maybe that’s because they’ve kept him pumped full of drugs since he was admitted last night, and plus Mara’s worried enough about it for all three of them.
“She’s just worried that if I’m laid up in bed all summer, I’ll lose my manly physique,” Lucas tells him in an undertone when Mara’s outside the room talking with his doctor.
“Yeah, that’d be my top concern too,” Daniel says.
“Not, like, having to survive the whole summer of taking care of four kids and a kid husband all by myself.”
“Jacks won’t be by herself,” Lucas replies, taking a sip of his juice box.
“She’ll have you around, won’t she, bud?”“Ha ha,” Daniel says.
“Here, I got you this.” He reaches into the bag at his feet and pulls out a sea lion plush to set on the tray in front of Lucas.
He’d driven up to Vancouver for it and paid the thirty-five dollar aquarium entry fee just so he could go to the gift store and buy it.
“For next time you wanna rough up a sea lion.
This one has a softer head, I think.”
“Fucking sharks,” Lucas groans with relish, the moment he sees it.
He grabs it anyway and tucks it into the crook of his arm.
“You know the rookie came here with his mom?
To apologize to me?”
“With his mom, wow,” Daniel says, and he’s grinning.
It’s okay though, because Lucas’s also grinning, eyes wide and a bit dopey, which might just be the drugs.
“Did she have to drive him here, do you think?”
“Like what do I even do with that?” Lucas’s complaining.
The sea lion plush looks pretty sad about that, but maybe it’s just the embroidery stitching of its mouth.
“It’s like—if Volkov sent me a get well soon card, you know?”
Daniel chokes on his next inhale.
“Uh,” he says.
“Yeah.
Totally.”
“I bet he laughed about it,” Lucas’s eyes unfocus, lips turning down into a scowl.
“No, pretty sure the rookie was crying,” Daniel tells him.
“Think you were his first NHL casualty.
Like, on a technicality.
Even though you nailed him.”
“No, not Junior,” Lucas says.
“Volkov.” He spits Volkov’s name like a curse word, which is, at least, par for the course with Lucas.
“I bet he heard about it and he laughed from wherever he is.”
Daniel shifts in the hospital seat, feeling the back of his neck heating up.
His phone is burning a hole in the pocket of his joggers.
The last thing Nikolai had texted had been, in fact, a string of laughing emojis and a link to an article about Lucas Vane eating net after trying to beat up a child, but he’d at least waited to make sure that the injury wasn’t serious before he texted.
Daniel’s not going to say this though.
He wouldn’t want to kick Lucas when he’s down—sea lion plush aside.
“Hey,” Lucas says suddenly, an accusatory note in his voice that makes Daniel freeze.
Can Lucas read thoughts now?
Did Lucas just hear that?
Was Daniel talking out loud by mistake?
Lucas raises a threatening finger.
“Hey, you gotta promise me, Hartley.
Whoever they call up from the Outskirts, you better not like them more than me.
I’m coming back, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, man,” Daniel tells him, heart rate slowing back to its normal crawl.
Fuck.
How can it feel like a close call when he’s just being stupidly paranoid over nothing?
He clears his throat and stands up, rubbing his hands along the tops of his thighs and tucking them into his pockets.
“Can I at least win a Cup with your replacement or do you think that’ll get in the way of your mental journey towards recovery?”Lucas hums, tilting his head back and forth.
Yeah, the drugs have definitely kicked in. “You can win one cup with him,” he tells him magnanimously.
“But I better still be your favorite player in the league when I get back on the ice next season.”
“Hah,” Daniel says.
His phone is burning against his leg again.
There goes his heart rate, ticking up.
At least Lucas's attached to the heart monitor and not him, so no one else notices the change.
“No promises, dude.”
Toronto’s second-tier professional ice hockey team, the one that plays in the BHL, is officially called the Toronto Minors, which everyone agrees is a stupid team name so everyone just calls it the Outskirts instead.
Daniel isn’t sure that’s much better, but it’s not exactly official or anything.
It’s apt, at least, for the team that’s on the permanent peripherals of the Toronto Express.
It works like this.
When a Express player gets injured, the coaches put their heads together and select a player from the ‘Skirts to move up to the premier leagues for a handful of games.
They’re always workshopping their shortlists, trying to find the best second-string guy, the one who clicks with the team, who won’t need a month’s worth of practices before he’s connecting on passes and sending pucks into the net like he’s been playing in the PHL for ages.
It’s a tall order, and Daniel can’t imagine the pressure those guys feel when they get the call.
The dream’s probably never felt closer: score enough points, perform well enough, maybe you get to stay at the PHL level.
Maybe the guy you’re covering for has to go on LTIR, maybe you get sent back down but the coaches ask for your contract next season anyway because you’ve managed to wow them with your chemistry, your talent, your hockey IQ.
Maybe the guys on the ‘Skirts gather around their TVs and their phones and their iPads every game day and pray that a Express player gets crushed into the boards or shatters his ankle on a bad turn or goes shoulder first into the net cause some eighteen year old kid popped up underneath his arm like the second-coming of Christ himself.
Maybe every ‘Skirt player sleeps with his phone on high volume, in case the next time it happens, it’s his turn.
Which is all to say that when Daniel gets to practice the morning after he leaves Mara to handle her drug-upped husband and Daniel’s best friend, he’s only a little surprised to find that he’s the second person in the locker room.
That hasn’t happened in years, but he thinks—if it were him, called up and given one opportunity to finally catch the dream he’s been chasing for years, he’d probably sleep at the rink.
It’s only a little awkward because the assistant’s cleaned out Lucas’s locker for the call-up, and it’s right next to Daniel’s.
So even though the room is quiet and deserted, Daniel has to sidle up next to the guy and put his stuff down beside him like they’ve known each other for years.
“Hey, I’m Daniel,” he greets, sliding his equipment bag off his shoulder and sitting down on the bench.
He feels a bit like he’s just entered the restroom and decided to use the urinal directly next to someone else, but then—he’s the fucking team captain.
He’s got nothing to be embarrassed about.
This is his locker room.