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He laughs so loudly that passersby turn their heads our way.

18

SEPTEMBER

Jax

Washington Senators

Putting on my kit, taping my stick and tying my skates on game day – even though it’s only a preseason game – feels different to gearing up with the guys for training skate. Everyone’s in good spirits in the locker room in Washington.

By the end of the season, I can guarantee there’ll have been fallouts, grouching at each other, gripes with the coaches and other staff, which is all to be expected because we live in each other’s pockets for around eight months of the year. But for the four months we’re off, we miss it.

Coming back today feels like returning to normality. This is what we know. We’ve all been on skates from the moment we could walk. This is life. And I fucking love it.

I had a peaceful two and a half hours’ slumber in the king bed in mine and Sienna’s room, which I guess I’ll be booted out of tonight because I’m not letting her sleep on the sofa. The woman has worked nonstop all day.

What I do is physically exhausting, but at least I got out for a stroll and a drink with the guys earlier. I took a nap. I hung out with Sienna; even if she would call it work, it was nice. That’s the trade-off for me working hard in the gym and on the ice. But Sienna, she’s unrelenting. She never stops. I know professional athletes, that’s all I’ve known, and even we put less pressure on ourselves than she does on herself.

She’s not the only one trying to figure out how to make her life work for her. Even though the woman drives me crazy and the thought of getting out of this marriage is thrilling when she’s griping at me for making a mess in my own home or finishing the oat milk and not telling her, she deserves better than Carl gave her. She works so damn hard, she deserves everything she wants.

That’s what I’m ruminating on as I head out with the boys onto the ice, fresh from a round of the Zamboni. It’s the best feeling in the world to glide over smooth, untarnished ice. Like being the first kid to leave tracks in fresh snow.

Tray knocks a heap of pucks onto the rink and I pick one up, switching it left and right with my stick as I skate down to our goal, then hit a one timer into the top of the net, so high and hard that it would have knocked off the goal tender’s water bottle in a game.

I scoot round the back of the net and twist my body to glide out backwards, accepting a puck from TJ as we knock it back and forth between us. I got so fucking lucky when the Dragons drafted my brother to the team. TJ gets me like not many people do, on and off the ice. I took the heat from Dad when we were kids so that he got less of it, but there was plenty of pressure to go round.

Dad’s own career in the NFL was cut short by injury and he became one of the best, if not the best, sports agents in the country. He wanted me to play football and it was a small act of rebellion that made me play ice hockey. TJ did what little brothers do and followed in my footsteps. But still Dad drilled into us practice, practice, practice to be the best. And when I could’ve been drafted into the pros at eighteen, Dad’s own fears about injuries meant he pushed for TJ and me to go to college. I did that to the best of my ability too, not that anyone would believe it. I wanted to prove my own worth and not become a kind of nepo baby. I act like a dumbass, but I philosophize better than anyone else.

I’m doing that right now, as I skate absent-mindedly around the rink, accepting and returning passes from Cowan, Hughes and Gronkowski, dropping to my knees to stretch out my groin, scouring the stands as preseason fans trickle into the arena. Washington are at the other end of the rink to us and I have a brief chat to Logan and a few of their guys at the center circle before getting back to my own warmup. But the whole time, for some unfathomable reason, I’m looking for Sienna. Thinking about her and where she goes from here. It’s not my business. She’s going to have to figure out the next move on her own, but if I were really her husband, I’d be supporting her.

That’s a question percolating in my head – what can I do to support the most headstrong, pain-in-the-ass woman in my life, to achieve her goals? Another question, about the other most important woman in my life, is when am I going to be brave enough to speak to my mom?

I’ve had a message from Sas, saying she wants updates on my situation; several, actually. My sister knows me as well, if not better, than TJ off the ice. I also trust that she won’t expose me to our parents but I feel shitty that I’ve put her, and TJ, in an awkward position.

Before I got married, I was the most unlikely guy in the world to wed, which is why it didn’t much matter because there’s nothing spoiling. But for someone like Sienna, with life goals and to-do lists coming out of her ears, to marry someone everyone deems a loose cannon, like me, is Mom even buying it?

I have a conflict. Do I break Sienna’s rule about the Vegas Circle of Trust and bring my parents in on the secret? Or do I keep them out of the loop? Would it be kinder to my mom to let her know that she can be disappointed because I made a mockery of marriage – her words will be something close to that effect – or will it hurt her less to think I got married for real and she wasn’t there to witness it?

Sienna thinks her life is a hot mess right now but I’m in a bit of a pickle myself.

It’s so unlike me but I’m spiraling out here on the ice.

I stand from where I’m stretching and watch my skate slide forward, trying to focus my mind on the movement, on the game and the season ahead. But I’m still looking around for Sienna and when I eventually find her talking to Bianca and Fellini in the press boxes, my mind finally settles.

Weird that the woman who has thrown my life for an absolute spin is the one to calm my thoughts. I guess it’s the knowledge that we’re in this together or something.

“Let’s head in, boys,” Coach Garrison says, and the team skates toward the locker rooms for a pregame pep talk.

As I pass under the comms boxes, I glance one last time to Sienna. When she spots me, she stops speaking, holding up a hand with a barely there smile in my direction and, fuck knows why I do it but I kiss my gloved hand and blow a kiss in her direction.

“Come on, lover boy,” Tray says, pushing me down the tunnel toward the locker room.

* * *

I do eventually drop into the game. There’s a sense we aren’t all going full throttle. The preseason meet-ups are about improving ice time fitness and giving Coach a chance to fix the lines for the start of season.

I start the game as center – I’m rapid and probably the best stick handler on the team – but on the second line. I’ll play this position for the season. Tray is center on the first line and not going anywhere any time soon.