Chapter 2
"Yeah," she called back.
"Big machine, makes the ice smooth?"
Simon pulled his helmet off, glanced at Baranov, and then they looked at the clock in unison.
"Oh," he said, because he thought it had been twenty minutes but it had been an hour and fifteen since practice ended, and shit, he had a lot of things to do today besides fuck around on the ice with Baranov.
He smiled at the trainer and skated out of the net.
"Sorry, lost track."
"No worries," she said, and headed off, probably to tell the zamboni guy he was good to go.
Baranov was grinning when they got off the ice, his face flushed and his hair sweaty and matted.
"I'm not great at time," Simon admitted, rubbing his hand through his equally disgusting hair.
"Sorry?" Baranov said, and looked at Simon like he was crazy.
"Don't be sorry.
Was fun."
It was the most fun playing hockey Simon had had in... weeks.
Months?
He didn't want to calculate that particular number, if he was being honest, so instead he grinned over at Baranov, and Baranov grinned back, and then they were both laughing for no real reason that Simon could tell except that hockey had been
fun
and it was a gift.
"I'd kind of forgotten," Simon admitted.
"That we get paid to play a game?"
"Yeah," Simon said.
"Weird, right?"
"Very weird," Baranov agreed.
"Good, though."
They walked in silence for a few moments, Simon trying not to grin like a maniac because hockey had been
, and maybe this was going to work out, he couldn't wait to call Zoe later—
"Running errands today?" Baranov asked, changing the subject.
He did that a lot.
It took Simon a second.
"Could be," he said.
"Why, you got a better offer?"
"Are cheeseburgers and poutine better?"
"Dunno," Simon deadpanned.
"Kind of a tossup between that and calling around for moving estimates."
"That is the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me," Baranov said, and Simon laughed again, probably because he was still high on endorphins, but whatever.
"There's no way that's true," he said.
"Hell yeah, I love poutine."
Simon was not a naturally suspicious guy, but the whole
Baranov goes to Rivermill
thing was weird as fuck because there was no good reason for it.
Obviously Simon didn't know the inner workings of anyone else's contract negotiations, but Eldridge hadn't wanted to keep him?
A
team hadn't offered him more money or something?
Rivermill
of all places?
Simon knew he was there because Bellwood wanted good draft picks more than they wanted him, but Baranov made, like, zero sense.
Simon figured there were two options:
Rivermill had offered Baranov something either intangible or illegal, like a herd of trained wolves to do his bidding or world domination, or
He was such a nightmare to have on a team that literally nowhere else would take him.
But Simon hadn't seen any trained animals, and sure, Baranov could be a dick but he was mostly a dick in a way that was annoying at worst and sometimes even kinda fun, so Simon still had no fucking clue.
And as much as he wanted to quiz Baranov on what, exactly, his whole
entire
deal was, he also figured that everyone else on the planet had already asked and not gotten an answer, so.
"How'd you find out about this place?" he said instead of all that, dredging three fries through poutine while Baranov took his sweet time answering, apparently, because when Simon finally looked up with a mouth full of fries and cheese curd, Baranov was just watching him like he was trying to decide something.
The guy was weird for sure, but Simon could roll with weird.
Way better than he could roll with
boring
"Or keep your secrets," he said, reaching for more fries, and Baranov snorted.
"Ellison told me about it," he said.
"How'd
know about it?" Simon said around a mouthful of fries, which was impolite, but whatever.
"He's from here," Baranov said, as if everyone memorized Graham Ellison Facts for fun.
"His parents still live in town."
Cool," Simon said.
"I keep forgetting you guys are friends."
Baranov shrugged.
"I saw your press conference, by the way.
I'm really sorry about your mom.
That must have been hard."
Simon chomped on another mouthful of fries so he wouldn't keep talking and say something dumb and unhelpful like
I can't even imagine
you were so young.
"Thank you," Kostya said carefully, without meeting Simon's eyes.
"Did you find a place yet or are you still at a hotel?"
It was a pretty obvious subject change, but, well.
Not everyone wanted to talk about their mom's death by suicide at what was clearly a
size up the new guy
lunch.
"We still haven't decided what we're gonna do," he admitted.
"Last week when Zoe—sorry, she's my wife—"
"Yes, you have mentioned her once or twice."
"Right," Simon said, and smiled because he couldn't help it.
"She came up for a few days last week and we looked at a bunch of places but I dunno if we should bother with buying a place, or just rent, or what." He shoved more fries into his mouth before he could also say
who knows how long I'll even be here.
"You think you will not stay?"
Simon just shrugged and made a gesture that he hoped conveyed
I thought I'd warm a bench in Bellwood until I retired and now I'm here so who fucking knows anything, really?
while he tried not to notice that Baranov had basically read his mind.
"Could go somewhere better," Baranov admitted, after a minute, though he was kind of smiling about it.
"Less snow, more..."
He made his own hand gesture, so Simon picked up the thread.
"More literally anything else?"
That," Baranov agreed, leaning back in the booth and smiling.
"More something to do besides play hockey, watch hockey, and look at snow falling."
"I read there's a tulip festival every spring," Simon offered.
"Sounds amazing," Baranov said flatly, and Simon snorted.
"You must miss Eldridge."
Simon hadn't exactly meant to say it, but sometimes the filter between his brain and mouth was more of a sieve.
Baranov looked away for a moment, and Simon wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Sometimes, yes," he said, the paused again.
"A lot, actually.
Eldridge was very fun.
I miss that, I miss being near the water.
I even miss the terrible drivers."
"I didn't want to leave Bellwood," Simon blurted out, his filter failing again.
"I mean—I don't know.
It's complicated.
Now I get to actually play but I'm four hours away from everything else I had going, you know?
My friends are all there, my favorite comic store, the good kabob place that's open all night, the second-run theater that does midnight showings of B-list horror movies, Zoe's parents, all
her
friends..."
"You would have rather sat on the bench and stayed?"
Simon scrubbed both his hands over his face and wished he could rewind his mouth by about thirty seconds.
"No, of course not," he said.
"I'm all in. Go Raiders."
Baranov snorted, but he was still smiling.
"Is fine," he said, and snagged the last two fries.
"I do not think you are the first hockey player to have mixed feelings about being traded.
But I can keep a secret."
"Thanks," Simon said, and felt a little lighter.
If, during Simon's rookie year, someone had told him that one day he'd miss Bellwood, he'd
have laughed, or puked, or something.
But he got through that year, even if he didn't think he would—the stupid rookie hazing, the pranks that tended to tip over from
funny
to
mean
, the way half the team couldn't be bothered to give the backup goalie the time of day.
More than anything, he got through game after game on the bench, trying not to think about what could be different.
He'd made it to the show, and the show kind of sucked.