Page 31 of Take Two

He clears his throat and makes a business of checking his watch.

“Wow.” His voice carries a slight roughness that he smooths over almost immediately.

“Yeah,” I reply, and my own voice is not entirely clean either, but I pretend not to notice that about myself or about him. I recognize what this is. It is time to call the session finished and let the arena be an arena again.

“More than two hours.”

I glance up at the clock mounted above the boards and nod, though I already knew that. I knew it when I agreed to one more drill. I knew it before that, if I am being honest with myself, which I am actively choosing not to be.

Somehow the morning simply disappeared. That is the simplest and least useful way to describe what happened.

Cyaire bends to collect his stick from where it came to rest on the ice and skates slowly toward the bench without any hurry. Nothing more needs to be said about the last thirty seconds. That particular understanding exists between us without words, which is either a reassurance or a complication and I am not sure yet which.

“Thank you,” he says as he reaches the gate, and the word carries a sincerity that the professional version of it earlier this morning did not quite have. “Seriously. I know this was not how you had planned to spend your off-season.”

I follow at a more measured pace, pulling my gloves off as I reach the boards, giving my hands something neutral to do.

“You did good,” I say.

His eyes lift toward me, and he looks, for just a moment, proud. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I rest my forearms along the top of the boards. “You learn fast. Once filming starts, you will be completely fine out there.”

The smile he offers me in response is smaller than the ones that came before it, quieter and without any of the polish he arrived with this morning. The professional warmth he walked in wearing is entirely gone. Whatever is underneath it is considerably more difficult to stand next to and does absolutely nothing useful for my peace of mind.

“I appreciate that,” he says.

Cameron appears from the direction of the corridor entrance at exactly the moment the conversation has run its natural course, with the kind of impeccable timing that suggests he has done this before.

Cyaire pulls off his gloves and gathers his things from the boards. The professional distance reassembles itself around him with a practiced efficiency. The actor. The hockey player. The arrangement that neither of us has technically articulated but that we have both agreed to without requiring the specific conversation.

“Enjoy the rest of your day, Jamie,” he says, and Cameron is already leading the way back toward the tunnels.

“You too.”

He makes it most of the way back to the entrance before he stops.

For a second, he seems like he’s considering saying something else.

Instead, he smiles. “Take care,” he says.

Then he is gone.

I remain where I am longer than is strictly necessary, looking at the empty corridor entrance with the particular blank attentiveness of someone whose thoughts have left the building right along with him.

Eventually I look down at the puck sitting near center ice. The one that got away from him on the last drill. The one that started the whole unnecessary physical situation that I am going to spend an unreasonable amount of the afternoon not thinking about.

“Well, that didn’t help my heart. Nope, not one bit,” I mutter to myself.

Two hours on the ice was supposed to make this simpler. More professional. More manageable. It was supposed to be a context that belonged to me, one where I had a purpose and a structure and a reason to stay firmly inside both.

Instead, somehow, measurably, it has made everything considerably worse.

Chapter 9

Cyaire

“Quiet please. Picture’s up.”