The Understatement of the Year (28 page)

Because he couldn’t even tell himself
. “You’ll have to ask him.”

We sat there in silence a little longer. “You and Graham,” Bella said under her breath. “
Damn
. I don’t suppose you’d let me watch? That would be pretty hot.”

I choked on my last swallow of coffee.

“Didn’t think so,” Bella mumbled.

—
March
—

Brain Bucket
(or simply Bucket): the helmet.

—
Graham

The regular season ended with Harkness ranked number one on the Eastern seaboard.
Sports Illustrated
wanted to interview Hartley and Orson, so the press office was setting it up. But Hartley wasn’t wild about giving an interview. “Anyone else want to be captain?” Hartley asked in the locker room before practice. “I’m taking applications.”

“Whiner,” Rikker teased him. “You get to talk about your game stats, not your sex life. How tough could that be?”

“Eh. They want to ask me a bunch of questions about what it’s like to represent an Ivy League school. They’re going to photograph the dining hall during Sunday dinner. How do I talk about Harkness without coming off as an elitist jackass? I’m just a poor kid from a shitty part of Connecticut.”

“Then just say that,” I suggested. “Tell the truth.”

“What would you know about that?” Bella mumbled, walking by with a stack of practice jerseys. She tossed one at me without meeting my eyes.

Bella was still pissed at me, and though she kept her reasons to herself, every guy in the locker room knew it.

“What on Earth did you do?” they all asked me during the first week of Bella’s freeze-out.

“More like…
who
did you do?” Trevi asked.

I didn’t know what was worse — the fact that the whole world (except me) had already known that Bella had a thing for me. Or that my love life was up for discussion. It sure didn’t help my raging case of chronic paranoia.

Also, I missed her. Our relationship had never been simple. Or even honest. But there had been happy nights together, with the two of us tucked into a booth at Capri’s telling jokes into the wee hours. It sucked knowing that I’d blown up our friendship.

For the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, we were matched up against Central Mass. It was a three game series. During the first game, we cut through their defense like a hot knife through butter, winning 3-0. Coach warned us that they’d come out swinging for the second game, and that we’d better be ready.

He was right.

Game two was fast and brutal. I got sent to the sin bin before the first period was over. But their side had even more fouls. There was one player in particular, a giant of a guy with a nasty attitude. His jersey actually said TRODER on the back. What kind of a name was that? He had a way of sweeping my teammates’ skates out from under them when the refs weren’t looking.

He was egregious, and I was sick of it. Before the game was over, I was sure I could teach him a lesson. I just needed to bide my time, watching for an opening.

It never came.

In the meantime, I saw Rikker and Hartley score one of the most exciting goals I’d ever seen in any hockey game, ever. The second period was almost over, and Rikker took a shot on goal that missed. Quick as lightning, he skated behind the net to retrieve the puck. But instead of skating it back around, Rikker popped the puck off the ice and over the net.

Hartley couldn’t see much of what Rikker was doing, though, with the goalie in the way. Working on sheer instinct, Hartley raised his stick at precisely the right nanosecond. Tipping the blade, he smacked the puck back toward the net.

Four thousand jaws dropped as it ricocheted off his stick, flying into the goal.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and Hartley stood there looking stunned even as the scoreboard lit up with his goal.

We were all a little stunned, actually. And that proved dangerous for me. When I wasn’t watching, that asshole Troder got me. One minute I was shipping the puck around behind the net, passing to Big-D. And the next moment I was sailing head-first toward the ice.

Shit!

That simple sentiment was all I could manage as the bright surface raced toward my eyes. Then everything went black.

—
Rikker

I didn’t actually see Graham take the hit.

Instead, I heard Trevi say, “oh fuck,” in a sort of awed voice that made me turn to look. And when I saw one of our players spread out on the ice, I just knew it was him.

I just knew.

Later, I’d realize that this was the minute the whole thing fell apart. You can tell each other that your relationship is private. That nobody else needs to know. But that sort of thinking requires that everything go exactly right. It doesn’t account for the dark minute when your lover is being carried off the ice on a stretcher, while you try: A) not to puke from worry and B) not to even look interested.

This wasn’t soccer, where they ran onto the field every five minutes to cart somebody off. A hockey player gets up and skates off, even if he’s bleeding all over the place. Even if he has a broken limb. But Graham wasn’t
moving
. The sight of his limp hand dangling off the side of the stretcher made me forget to breathe.

As his unconscious body disappeared down the chute, a chill slid down my spine, from my neck to the small of my back.

Bella and Coach followed on the medics’ heels.

The game resumed, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to keep track of my own shifts. In fact, I don’t even remember the third period of that game, even though we clinched it.

Coach reappeared at some point to resume calling the shots. But Bella did not come back. I sneaked looks down the chute every chance I got. But neither she nor Graham emerged to put me out of my misery.

“Wake up, Rikker!” Hartley elbowed me.

I stood up and vaulted over the wall, jumping into the fray for what would prove to be my last shift of the game.

But even the final buzzer didn’t offer any relief, since the team took for-fucking-ever to shower and pack up. Coach spent a fair bit of time staring at his phone, while I tried to guess from his face whether or not he’d learned anything.

Naturally, I texted Bella about a dozen times. But she didn’t answer me, which was terrifying. I felt like vomiting just from the stress of not knowing what was going on.

Finally, Coach told everyone to get on the bus. “We’re going to stop at the emergency room so I can check on Graham.”

By the time the bus pulled up outside the little hospital, I was sweating through my clean shirt. I needed to go inside and see Graham. But at the same time, I knew he wouldn’t want me hovering in there. Too obvious, right?

Fuck!

But when Coach got off the bus, a handful of players followed him. So I got up too, and a couple more guys followed me. A minute later, there were probably a dozen guys in hockey jackets standing under the fluorescent waiting room lights, looking around for someone to tell us where Graham was. Coach approached the desk, but the lady manning it was on the phone.

And then, from somewhere behind the desk, I heard my name.

“Rikker?” It was Graham’s voice.

At first, I was just flooded with relief. If Graham was saying my name, then he was okay, right? I took a big breath, as if I’d been deprived of oxygen for hours.

“Rikker?” He called again, sounding agitated. Someone answered him in a low voice. But then Graham spoke again. “Where am I? What happened to Rikker?”

A chill snaked its way up my spine again. And one by one, my teammates, who had been talking to one another, went quiet.

“RIKKER,” came Graham’s hoarse voice again. Then my teammates were looking at me, confusion on their faces. Coach turned, his bushy eyebrows raised in my direction.

An older nurse wearing pink scrubs came out from the back just then. “Is someone here named Rikker?”

For a moment I just stood there, rooted to the linoleum, unsure what to do. Graham was going to burst a vessel when he found out that the team was standing out here listening to him call my name.

That woke me up. Lifting a shoulder in the world’s least-convincing casual shrug, I followed the nurse, with Coach on my heels.

Walking into that hospital room was like having an out-of-body experience.

Graham was lying on a bed in a hospital Johnnie, looking sweaty and confused. Bella stood next to him, holding his hand. And the look on her face was 100 percent freaked out. At that second, my heart went across the room to put my hands on Graham. I really just needed to touch him.

But my feet stayed locked at the foot of the bed, my body rigid with indecision.
Don’t do it
, I reminded myself. Graham wouldn’t want me touching him in front of other people.

His eyes locked onto me the second I entered the room. “Where am I?” he croaked.

The question took me aback. “Um, at the hospital?”

“Why?”

Shit! Wasn’t it obvious? I opened my mouth, but no answer came out. No wonder Bella looked so scared.

The nurse bailed me out. “You got hit on the head during your hockey game,” she said calmly. “You have a concussion, but you’re going to be fine.”

“Okay,” Graham said, sounding entirely unconvinced.

The nurse lifted her chin to me. “He’s been asking for you. He thought you might have gotten hurt, too.”

“I’m fine,” I said slowly. There was something in Graham’s expression that wasn’t quite right. He had a pained squint, and his gaze wobbled.

“Son, how are you feeling?” Coach asked. “That was quite a hit.”

“Head hurts,” Graham said, raising a hand to rub his temple. “Where am I?” he asked.

What the fuck?
Hadn’t we just been over that?

“West Regional Hospital,” the nurse said, her voice patient. “You got hit on the head during your hockey game. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be fine.”

Graham squinted at her. “Okay.”

“Why is he…?” I looked to the nurse for help.

But it was Coach who answered my question. “It’s called retrograde amnesia. When you get hit that hard, for a little while the brain can’t make new memories. You don’t remember the game, do you, big guy?” Graham looked up at him, confused. Coach moved closer to him, giving him the same gentle punch on the arm that you’d give a toddler. “Hang in there, kid.”

“How are we doing?” a heavyset female doctor asked, stomping into the room. She had a voice like a chainsaw.

“What happened?” Graham asked.

“You took a hit on the head,” the doctor said, jotting something on the chart she was holding. Then she looked up at Coach and me. “I sure hope one of you is Rikker. We’re getting tired of making excuses for you.”

“Um…” I started.

“Did they get you too?” Graham asked, looking me up and down.

“I’m
fine
,” I said again. “I didn’t take a hit.”

He squinted at me. “What are we doing at the hospital?”

“Jesus, Graham!” Bella put a hand to her heart. She looked like she might even pass out. So I moved around the crowded little room and put my hands on her shoulders.

The doctor approached Graham with a little penlight in her hand. “You’re at the hospital because you have a concussion. We need to watch you for a few hours just to make sure everything is going well for you.”

“Can I take him home tonight?” Coach asked. “It’s a two-hour drive. We could have him checked out at our own hospital by midnight.”

The doctor frowned. “I’m sure you know your way around a concussion. But I can’t advise that. These next couple of hours are the ones that matter the most. We need to be sure he doesn’t have an even more serious head injury.”

Coach held his hands up. “Okay. It was just a suggestion. I want him to have whatever he needs.” He nodded to Bella and me and then tipped his head toward the door. “Let’s go figure out what we’re going to do. The rest of the team needs to get back.”

“I’ll be right back, Sweetie,” Bella whispered. She lifted Graham’s hand and gave his palm the same kiss that I would have liked to give it. Then she patted his arm, and she and I followed Coach the short distance into the waiting room. “If he has to stay, I can drive him back in the morning,” Bella offered in a shaky voice. I’d never seen her so rattled.

Coach put a hand on her shoulder. “I was just going to ask if you could do that, honey.”

“
Is Rikker here?
” came from the back.

Oh, fuck.

“What the hell?” Hartley asked, wandering up to us. “Is he okay?”

“He’s confused,” I said, feeling sweat begin to coat my back. “
Really
confused. It’s a concussion. Maybe he thinks we all just left him here.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Hartley said, maneuvering around us towards the back.