Mackenzie
I arrived back in NYC on the day of game six. I hadn’t planned it that way. In fact, I would have preferred not to be in town, knowing Jake was only miles away.
But at least I was home.
Meg and Anna had gone out of town for a girls’ weekend to Atlantic City and had already left a couple of messages on my cell phone. I’d been home two minutes when they rang again. Drunk.
“Hey, girl, get on a bus and meet us out here!” Meg yelled enthusiastically through the phone. I could hear slot machines zinging and pinging in the background.
“Yeah, baby!” Anna yelled over her shoulder. “Get your crazy ass down here!”
I couldn’t help but grin. I loved my girlfriends. And as appealing as a girl’s trip sounded, I decided not to make the two-hour trip to New Jersey.
“Next time, I promise.”
Instead, I went for a walk, hoping that the smells and sounds of the city I loved so much would ease the heavy sadness in my chest. But the city was alive with playoff fever because the beloved NYC Ice Cats were set to take home the Stanley Cup glory, and every nook and cranny of the city seemed to hold some kind of reminder of the hockey match about to take place.
I told myself I wasn’t going to watch the game. But when the game started I was sitting at the bar in a dark, wood-paneled Irish pub on 7th Avenue, nursing an untouched glass of wine and staring at Bob and Jim on the TV screen behind the bar. Here, the hockey fever gripping the city seemed quieter, although there were two tables of Ice Cat jerseys behind me and a table of Fury fans to my right, so I had no doubt it would get rowdy once the game started.
Which took all of two minutes after the faceoff between Jake and Salazar, when the Ice Cats got the puck past Jupiter and Cowboy, only to be denied by the rapid deflection of Loki.
Despite my heavy heart, I couldn’t help but smile at Loki’s Chewbacca helmet. I knew how proud that crazy kid would be. It didn’t make him look as formidable as his Loki mask, or the Lucifer helmet, but it looked very, very cool.
When one of the Ice Cats stick checked Michel Angelo and tousled with him up against the boards, the table of Fury fans yelled furiously at the TV screen, while the Ice Cats banged their palms on the table. Then the Ice Cats fierce enforcer, Lou Peedy, set his sights on Cowboy and the two went to town with their fists. The three tables of hockey fans went wild. The barman, who had given up trying to keep them under control, glanced up from drying glasses and then turned back to his task with a shake of his head.
I listened to Jim Keeper and Bob Murdoch.
“They’ve got this game tied up so tight even Christian Grey would have a hard time getting this one untangled.”
“Did you seriously just reference Fifty Shades of Grey, Jim?”
“Why, yes, Bob, I did. Saw the movie on a recent visit to Canada.”
“And did you grow a vagina while you were there?”
During the third period, when the Fury were leading one to nothing, a huge Fury fan in a hockey jersey and a Stetson slid up next to me. He was a hundred-foot tall and signaled to the barman for service.
“Another round for me and my buddies,” he said with a heavy Texas drawl. He turned to me while he waited, his jovial face beaming with a smile. “What about you, lil’ lady? My team is winning and I’m feeling generous, how about I buy you a drink?”
I shook my head and indicated my untouched glass of wine. “I’m still working my way through this one. But thanks, anyway.”
He winked at me. “Tell me, sweetheart. You an Ice Cat fan? Or a Fury fan?”
“I don’t know much about hockey.” I don’t know why I lied. Well, kind of lied, because let’s face it, I still didn’t know that much about hockey. I guess I didn’t want to talk about t.
“Well, let me tell you, sugar. The Fury are the best goddamn hockey team in the world. And tonight they are going to mop the floor with those dang Ice Cats, you mark my word.” He was theatrical in his delivery. “With Pennington playing, they’re unstoppable as a freight train.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “That boy is a special kind of something.”
I nodded regretfully. “So I’ve heard.”
Tex paid for his drinks then lifted four bottles of beer off the bar. “You have yourself a great night, you hear.”
“You too.” I gave him a big smile. “And go Galveston Fury!”
He winked again and rejoined his friends at the table, while I toyed with my glass of wine and listened to Jim Keeper and Bob Murdoch on screen.
“And here we are, Loki the Destroyer faces off with Salazar, Salazar flings a slingshot to Tex and—awwwwww, he takes a slamming bodycheck from Cowboy. And it’s like a massacre out there, folks. Little Big Horn has got nothing on this hockey game. The Fury are annihilating the Ice Cats, Bob. It’s what I call a pussycat bloodbath. How on Earth are the Ice Cats going to comeback from this, Murdoch?”
“I’m suggesting a couple of aspirin and a career change, Jim.”
When the Galveston Fury took out the game to win the Stanley Cup championship, I watched with mixed emotions. Around me, the Ice Cat fans were vocal in their disappointment while Tex and his Fury fans started to get raucous in their joy.
I quietly got up from my barstool and walked home.
Jake felt farther away from me than ever.
* * *