Chapter 2
He reminds her too much of herself in those moments.
That's where Grant, blessed Grant, comes in. He talks them both away from ledges, makes them go out to do non-hockey activities, makes sure there's somewhere warm to come home to after they've both been out on the lake or at the rink.
They're a team.
The best functioning family team in the ICL.
Amara is proud of that and is proud that the teamwork means Jay becomes a diamond for the Renegades, exploding on the hockey scene and catapulting towards his well-deserved captaincy and even more deserved Champion's Cups.
That's her boy.
That's their dream.
And Darian Radek, she thinks, is the villain to their storybook career right up until the moment that she watches him go down hard in a game against Belmore and her phone rings with a call from Jay.
The game was exciting.
Belmore sort of ebbs and flows in terms of ability depending on the day – nowhere near consistent enough for a successful cup run.
But today they're playing well against the Rampage.
The defense has held Darian to just one goal and it's going into the second period 0-1.
It's in these tight, low scoring games that players tend to get scrappy, hoping that sheer violence will magically transform into goals.
Jay has good enforcers on the Renegades, and Amara has instilled in him for years that the best way to fuck with someone is to let your playing do all the talking.
Radek is the exact opposite.
The Rampage might have decent enforcers, but Radek doesn't want them.
He wants to talk shit while smiling and win the ensuing fist fight.
He spends minutes in the sin bin, and he grins the whole time doing it.
He's a little shit on the ice.
This game is no different.
Amara can tell even a thousand miles away and through a TV screen that he's being a menace.
He gets this look on his face when he's chirping successfully and it's riling Belmore up.
The second period descends into bone crunching hits that even make Amara wince.
But Radek just laughs his way through it.
He gets a good pass out of the back from one of the Bear's defensemen and flies up the ice.
The puck sticks with Radek like glue even as he weaves through players and tackles.
Amara will never say this to Jay for fear of watching his head explode, but Radek really is that good.
Jay's the best, of course, but Radek is a good match for him.
The ICL loves him because he's got the shit talking to start the fights that bring the crowds, and the skills to back up being an asshole.
On screen, Radek barrels down towards the goal.
There's a pass open to his right and a defender in front of him.
Amara sits up to watch what decision he'll make.
It'll be good for Jay to know if he's making more assists this year.
But he doesn't get the chance to do either.
The hit comes from behind him and to the left, one of the players Radek humiliated a little early taking his vengeance.
It's a total blindside hit that sends Radek flying.
Amara winces at the sound she can hear even through the TV as his body hits the ice, rattling and bouncing against the hard frozen surface.
She knows it's not possible, but Amara thinks that after a bad hit, the whole stadium goes quiet.
Frozen, still.
She's been in enough arenas to hear it happen, the collective intake of a breath.
The silent anticipation as thousands of people stop to stare.
Radek doesn't get up off the ice.
His body is slack and unmoving against the ground.
Teammates rush over to him while the bench clears to try to beat the shit out of the guy that hit him.
It's utter chaos, but Amara can't take her eyes off the unmoving figure on the ice.
As a mom, some of Amara's worst moments have been watching Jay get hurt.
He's been lucky.
His worst injury was that broken wrist and then a broken collarbone before he turned pro, but even those injuries had Amara nauseous and shaking for the whole drive to the hospital following the ambulance from the rink.
She wonders if Radek's family is watching.
With the time difference between here and Severia, maybe they won't see it until the morning.
Maybe that's better than watching the back board come out onto the ice and Radek's unconscious body hauled up onto it and secured.
Maybe that's better than crying in the car as Grant swears his head off and prays that their son is alright.
The game ends 3-1 for Belmore.
Insult to injury.
Bad injuries are a part of hockey, but it's hard to watch a team, clearly rattled, unable to pick themselves back up after a teammate is rushed off to a hospital.
Especially when the teammate doesn't come back to consciousness before being peeled off the ice.
Jay's game starts soon.
He's down in Suncoast, bemoaning the heat and humidity in their family group chat.
Amara pulls out her phone and idly trolls through Blurt and some hockey news sites to see if she can get word on Radek.
Norvale will be fucked if he's out for that long.
Good for the Renegades at least, but Amara doesn't like beating a team that's been crippled by injury.
There's no glory without a challenge to success.
She's reading a long ass Blurt thread about the worst hockey injuries – haunting, not something a mother should be reading – when her phone screen switches over to an incoming call from Jay.
She checks the clock on the mantle.
It's way too close to start time for Jay to be on the phone.
Her heart catches in her throat as she rushes to answer it.
"Jay, honey.
"Hey mom.
I just –" he hesitates.
Amara lets him pause.
"I wanted to ask you a huge favor?"
"What is it?" She mutes the TV so she can focus on Jay.
"Could you, if you're not busy at all, and please feel free to say no, could you maybe go to Belmore tonight?"
"Why would I go to Belmore tonight?"
Grant pokes his head into the living room doorway, having eavesdropped on her.
Belmore?
He mouths at her in question.
Amara shrugs.
It's just, there's no one to get Darian out of the hospital and so I was wondering if maybe you could go see him?"
Amara pulls the phone away from her ear to make sure this is actually her son calling and not a very bizarre prank.
"Radek?
You want me to drive five hours to pick up Darian Radek?" she asks when she's certain it really is Jay.
Or at least Jay's phone.
Jury is still out if it's somehow an evil clone of her son using his phone.
I'm so sorry to ask you guys.
He got hurt tonight, and I know this is sudden, but I just need to know he's okay."
There's a long pause.
Jay is breathing hard on the other side of the call like he does after conditioning or before he puts his head between his knees in the midst of an anxiety attack.
Then he says, "he's special to me, mom."
What the fuck.
Amara is struck silent by that.
She wants to say
I know he got hurt.
Wants to say,
why the fuck do you care he got hurt outside of professional respect?
Special how?
But she doesn't.
Because Amara hears that little warble in Jay's voice that gets when he's trying not to cry.
It's the same sound he had when he called her from his first hockey sleepaway camp at ten and everyone was nasty to him.
His voice cracked trying to tell her how happy he was and Amara's heart shattered in kind.
It was the same sound when he called her after his first ICL loss and then cried on the phone with her for an hour.
Darian Radek is "special" to her son.
God help them all.
So, Amara says, "okay.
We can go," and listens to Jay suck in a shaky breath on the other side of the line.
She wonders where he's standing right now.
Probably hiding away from the team, tucked in some corner, half whispering into the phone so nobody knows that he's asking his mother to drive to another city to pick up his archrival.
"Thank you," he breathes.
Then, "I have to go.
Can you please text me when you see him?
I won't be able to answer right away but I need to know."
"Of course, baby," she says.
"Good luck tonight."
"Thanks, mom." And then he hangs up.
As Amara holds the phone numbly in her hand, feeling like a freight train has just hit her, she mulls over three things she's learned in very short succession: her son thinks Darian Radek is special.
Her son might be sleeping with Darian Radek, and thus is gay.
Her son didn't think he could tell his parents either of those things.
No, not just sleeping with.
You don't call your mother to pick up your secret fuck buddy from the hospital hours away out of some weird courtesy.
You don't cry on the phone over him being injured.
He's in love with him.
For how long, she can't even begin to guess.
He's had to keep this so hidden, so tight to his chest.
This could ruin him.
How many times has he sat on the couch as Amara shit talked Radek?
How many times has he had to listen to people bad mouth him as he willed away a secret so big it might consume him?
Maybe Amara is the one who's going to cry tonight.
"Belmore?" Grant asks now that Amara is off the phone.
"Yeah," Amara says, pulling herself together, "we have to go pick up Radek."
"Darian Radek?"
"You know many others?"
Grant snorts.