Chapter 3
He's got a towel hanging over his shoulder, no doubt, halfway through cooking them a nice dinner so they could eat during Jay's game.
Amara's sort of lost track of time.
"Why are we Darian Radek's rescue crew?"
"Because I think our son might be in love with him."
Grant's eyebrows rocket to the top of his forehead.
"Fuck," he sums up.
Amara nods.
Fuck is right.
They get in the car in a whirlwind of activity – Grant packing up dinner as Amara looks at hotels to book.
It's a bit more than a four and a half hour drive which will get them there a little after 10.
Truthfully, she's not even sure what she's going to say when she gets there.
Excuse me.
We are the parents of the boy who might be fucking, might be in love with, one of your patients and we would love to see him.
God, Radek might not even be there by the time they arrive.
Hopefully he's not there.
If the injuries are bad enough to keep someone like Radek in a hospital bed, it's not looking good for Norvale or Jay's nerves.
Grant turns on Amara's playlist for the drive – 70s soft rock, mostly, sue her, Glenn Yates rocks.
Grant hums along to The Wanderer as the lights from the highway wash over his face, lighting up the crook of his nose and the curve of his jaw.
He didn't ask any questions when Amara told him they were doing this, which reassures her at least that they are doing the right thing.
He rarely questions her, so when he does, Amara knows it's time to reevaluate.
She sometimes lets her stubbornness still win, but Grant has long since learned how to deal with her, the same way that Amara has learned how to ease into his less than competitive spirit and fatal desire to make sure everyone is having fun no matter what.
They've changed each other since they met in college.
They're better together than they were apart.
Grant used to be too saccharine.
Used to let people use him until he dried up.
And Amara knew she was too demanding.
Too quick to anger.
Together, they are a unit.
Grant makes her laugh more than anyone else in her life, and Amara pushes him to become more.
They go on adventures together.
They've been to every continent together.
Train hopped and backpacked through Europe and Gulf Kingdoms and Southern Continent when they were young.
They've raised an amazing kid together.
She wants Jay to have that.
She wants Jay to be with someone who makes him better.
Who makes him feel loved.
If it's Radek, so be it.
That's what she'll tell him the next time they see him.
But there's still this anxiety that thrums under Amara's skin.
Jay has had to fight for his spot in this sport; Amara watched it first-hand.
Amara swore and cursed and cried over the racist shit he had to put up with.
And now, here's another thing his son is going to have to worry about in the locker room.
She wants life to be easy and kind to him.
She wants hockey to welcome him home in a way it never welcomed her.
The clock ticks over to the start time of Jay's game.
Amara pulls up the live score on her phone, the artificial glow illuminating the car as they zip down the highway.
"He never said anything to you, right?" she asks Grant as the game starts.
Grant shakes his head.
"Never.
I don't think I would have been able to keep that from you if he did.
I mean Darian Radek?
I thought he hated him."
"Me too."
Grant is quiet for a second then says, "you really think they're together?"
"Well, I don't think we'd be driving to Belmore for a friend."
The live ticker tells her there's a power play for the Renegades.
She tries to pull up the live feed, but the service isn't strong enough to get more than a grainy image that skips and pauses.
She shuts it off and goes back to the written text, refreshing over and over again.
She looks back over at Grant.
It's not like him to be this quiet.
In the glare of the headlights rolling down the other side of the road, Amara can see him worrying at the inside of his lip.
He stares out at the road like he's a million miles away.
"You aren't upset by that are you?"
Grant jumps.
"No, Jesus, Amara, I'm not upset by that.
Are you?"
"No!" she yells back, too quickly, too loudly.
It rings out in the car over the music Grant put on.
Her phone buzzes; 1-0 to the Renegades, Jay's assist.
"I just –" Grant starts.
Amara sucks in a deep breath, the car feeling claustrophobic in the dark.
It's like a confessional booth.
Both of them staring out at the road in front of them hoping to find answers somewhere out on the road between Lakeshore and Belmore.
Between home and a hospital bed.
"I'm just worried for him," he finishes lamely.
Not exactly a stirring message to God.
"What do you mean?"
"God, Amara, I want him to be happy."
"He is.
At least, I thought he was."
"I want it to be easy for him to be happy.
And if it was easy, he would have told us about Rosanov.
We would have met him already and they'd be out on dates and complaining about living so far apart, and we both know why he hasn't told us while he's still playing hockey."
"He never liked doing easy things.
He likes being challenged.
I bet Radek challenges him."
But Amara is just saying that to make herself feel better.
She knows what Grant means.
Of course she does.
Is it months of secrets?
Years?
How long has Jay been tied up in this web of lies, forced into silence because of a game that Amara was barred from, and Jay had to struggle into being the only Linoviaese kid on every team he played on.
Jay loves loudly.
He loves hockey loudly.
He loves the Renegades loudly.
He loves Brett and Dex and Amara and Grant loudly.
He gets that big grin on his face that crinkles the skin around his eyes and shows all of his still perfect teeth even after more than a decade of hockey.
She's never seen him smile like that when talking about Radek.
But does he go to his room late at night, look at secret pictures and hidden texts, and smile like that just for himself?
"God," Amara mutters, "I've been trying to set him up with people."
"Like two unsuccessful dates with girls whose parents we knew.
To be honest, I'm not even sure he knew they were dates."
"Probably because he was in love with Radek the whole time and I didn't know."
We
didn't know."
We didn't."
Silence again.
The signs above glitter in the light of the street lamps lining the highway.
Their first sign for Belmore, getting closer to something.
A revelation?
A horror movie?
Amara prays Jay has told Radek they're coming so it's not a surprise to him.
She still doesn't even know how badly he's injured.
The hockey reporters have nothing, and with the Renegades now trouncing Suncoast, she's not going to get anything about Radek for hours.
Jay's name doesn't pop up in the live ticker very much.
Not as much as it usually would.
He's just on the one assist.
If Amara were watching she could know if he's playing good solid hockey, standing as the key player in the build-up but not putting up points, or if he's non-existent on the ice.
She could know if this was a good game that just doesn't garner much attention, or a shit game that Jay is going to mope about for weeks to come.
She has a pretty firm guess as to which one it is.
It's not every day you send your parents to go tend to your injured rival turned potential lover.
Grant's hand is fiddling at the gear stick, scratching at the leather there.
Amara pries his fingers off it and takes his hand in hers.
He squeezes back.
They're a team.
The best family team in the ICL.
They will figure this out.
If there's anyone who could figure out how Jay could love easily again, it's them.
They get to the Belmore hospital at 10:35.
Jay has sent Amara a million texts since his game ended but hasn't been able to call as he's still out with his team and can't slink away.
Amara can do nothing more than promise she'll update him when she learns anything about Radek.
He hasn't confirmed what she and Grant already might know, but he keeps calling him Darian in their texts.
I need to know if Darian's okay.
She wonders if that's the closest they'll get to full confirmation.
She hopes not.
They make their way to the front desk, blinking at the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital.
"Hi," Amara says as brightly as she can.
She's not sure how this is going to go.
Amara and Grant aren't famous per se, but it's not out of the question that they are recognized as Jay's parents.
They should have come up with a logical reason that they're picking up Darian Radek that doesn't involve her son and being in love.
"We wanted to check in on a patient that's been brought in."
"Name?" the nurse asks, typing at her computer.
Amara and Grant exchange a look.