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After Chase ambushes him in the parking lot, James steels himself for a terrible day, but it ends up being a surprisingly good one.
Chase steers clear of James after that, for one, and James hopes that’s a sign of things to come. Unfortunately it doesn’t make him any quieter, but the further away he is, the less likely he is to distract James. And now that everyone’s gotten the introductions and reunions out of the way, they can get to work, start testing everyone’s readiness for the season.
James feels good about the work he did over the summer, feels strong, secure in his body. It’s too soon to tell how that’s going to translate to his on-ice performance, but at the end of the day Coach takes him aside to tell him he’s impressed with his progress, and James is smiling down at his watch as he straps it back onto his wrist, pushing his damp hair off his forehead.
He feels someone behind him, and his jaw goes tight, but Finn sits down in the now empty stall beside him — Georgie’s long gone, rushed out the door saying he had to make some day care thing — tips his head back to meet James’ eye before looking out at the room.
“You wiped or—“ Finn says.
“You can come over if you want,” James says, because he is tired, but he wouldn’t mind Finn’s company, and he’s pretty sure that’s what he’s asking.
“We’ll catch up,” Finn says, as if they haven’t seen each other practically every day since they both got back into town. James didn’t have a particularly eventful offseason, and Finn didn’t really either, outside of a very prolonged breakup, and James heard all about that as it happened. Any catching up has already occurred.
“Playing nice with the newbies?” Finn asks after he’s made himself comfortable on James’ couch with a glass of water and a bottle of Gatorade. He asks it offhand, the remote in his hand, but James is suddenly on guard, wondering if this is what Finn meant by catching up.
James sighs. “Look,” he says. “Whatever Chase said to you—“
“He didn’t say anything to me,” Finn says, blinking at him. “What happened with Holden?”
“Nothing,” James says, inwardly cursing. Finn doesn’t try to trap him, and James knows this. He doesn’t need to, since apparently James will trap himself.
“If it was nothing you wouldn’t have your guilty face on,” Finn says, and puts the remote down on the coffee table.
“It’s not guilty,” James says. Outside of a court of law, guilt requires some measure of remorse, and James is not remorseful.
“Your ‘oh shit’ face,” Finn says, which isn’t the way James would describe it, exactly, but is a little more accurate. “What’d you say to Holden?”
“I clarified a comment,” James says.
“Oh boy,” Finn says. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not,” James says, but tells Finn anyway, because he knows he’ll get it out of him eventually, so he may as well save them both some time.
“Jamie,” Finn says, and James holds still as Finn repeatedly bangs his head against James’ shoulder. He doesn’t want to accidentally hurt Finn while he’s dramatically pretending to hurt himself. “What happened to being nice to the new guy?”
“I didn’t agree to that,” James says.
“Argh,” Finn says, then sits up, serving him a very disappointed expression.
James internally squirms. It isn’t guilt, but it’s something very close.
“Buddy,” Finn says.
James hates when he becomes buddy. He’s gravely disappointed Finn if he’s become buddy. Being Finn’s friend is good, but being his buddy means you fucked up and he’s about to tell you how in the nicest possible way.
“I know,” James says, before Finn can say anything, because whatever it is, he knows.
“Argh,” Finn repeats, banging his head against James’ shoulder a few more times, presumably for emphasis, then says, “Want to watch something?”
“Yes,” James says, so relieved he even lets Finn pick the Bachelor. Or maybe it’s atonement. He doesn’t think remorse is required in order to atone. In fact, he’s pretty sure it isn’t.
James doesn’t know what season of the Bachelor they’re on now, all he knows is that it isn’t the current one, and that whichever it is, he has seen far too many of them. Finn isn’t mad at James very often, but when he is, he invariably makes James watch the Bachelor with him, and considering they’ve been on the Whalers together since they were rookies, the seasons have piled up. Luckily for Finn, the show appears endless. James is less enthused about this fact.
The Bachelor loudly equivocates before he hands out the final rose. James doesn’t know why; he’s clearly going to pick the blonde. “He’s going to pick the blonde,” he says
“No way,” Finn says. “He doesn’t have any chemistry with her.”
He picks the blonde, of course.
“I swear you read spoilers,” Finn complains.
“I swear you haven’t already seen this,” James retorts. Finn says he has, but he always seems surprised anyway. Certainly more surprised than James ever is.
“In one ear and out the other,” Finn says cheerfully, though that doesn’t explain the failure of his eyes. “Another one?”
“Fine,” James sighs. It’s still early, and he doesn’t want to be alone quite yet. When he does, Finn will know; he always does, seems to pick up some edge in James that he can’t recognize in himself. Finn will excuse himself while James still wants him there, and James will only realize after he leaves that he didn’t, really, not anymore. It’s a gift of his, one of many. Most of Finn’s gifts James isn’t envious of, but that one he wants: to be able to know himself as well as Finn knows him. Even half as well would do.
“Hungry?” Finn asks, and James shakes his head before he realizes he is, actually, and by the time he says as much, Finn’s already pulled out his phone to order them something to eat.
*
James is in a good mood when he walks into training camp. He warms up on the elliptical, feeling loose but settled as he gets his gear on for ice time, listening to Georgie and Troy talk about school districts. It sounds somehow banal and labyrinthine at the same time, which he suspects is the point.
He replies to a text from Chelsea reminding him their mom’s birthday is coming up — like he would have forgotten — and that he needs to order a gift soon if he wants to ensure arrives in time, which he had forgotten. He thanks her, spends the rest of his preparation time musing about what he could get his mom that she doesn’t already have. He’s still at a loss when he steps on the ice. He’ll ask Finn later. Finn is very good with mothers, including James’. Every time James calls home, she asks how Finn is.
He’s jerked forcibly out of the thought by a shoulder slamming into his, too hard to be friendly, not quite hard enough to be described as violent without making James sound like he’s exaggerating.
“Morning James,” Chase says, cheerful to the point of parody, a thin level of sugar James can see right through. It’s not even cloying, but almost sticky, like the way cotton candy clung to his fingers the one time he convinced to try it, somehow grainy and gluey at the same time. It took five wet wipes to get it off, and he still didn’t feel entirely clean until plentiful amounts of soap and hot water were involved.
James has nothing nice to say, so he says nothing at all, skates to the nearest teammates, which are, unfortunately, a cluster of goalies, who collectively give him the wary look they give any skater, particularly forwards.
“I need to be with someone chill for a minute,” James says apologetically.
“Oh buddy, only you would come to the goalies looking for chill,” Kenny says, but he moves back enough to let James into the goalie circle. They’re talking about goaltending drills. James knows enough from watching over the years to follow, though not enough about to interject. He doesn’t mind, listens, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, until he’s called over for the first skaters’ drill.
“Thanks for having me, gentlemen,” James says, and gets two slaps to the ass in answer, a blocker to the side of the head.
*
Generally nuisances are more tolerable with exposure. That’s a fact of life. If you use the same tone for your alarm every day, you gain the ability to sleep through it: James changes his at least once weekly to avoid that exact problem.
The first time he blocked a shot it was agony, and he babied what must have been a tiny bruise, leapt out of the way of incoming pucks for months after, his teammates laughing at him until he was more embarrassed to step away than afraid to stand in its path. Now he won’t even miss a shift unless it catches him somewhere vulnerable, and the shots he’s blocking are significantly harder than the ones he blocked as a kid.
Even the hardest drill gets easier over time — barring, James supposes, the bag skate. No one is inured to the bag skate. That’s exactly why coaches use it as a punishment.
Holden Chase is not more tolerable with exposure. He is the human embodiment of a bag skate.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Finn says after an extremely trying set of drills, tapping James’ shoulder with a closed fist.
“He’s a complete asshole,” James says. “Who shows zero respect for our coaching staff and his fellow teammates.”
“He just tries to get a rise out of you because he knows he can,” Finn says. “And come on, jawing at you a little isn’t showing zero respect for the coaches and the team. He gets down to it during the drills.”
“So it’s my fault?” James says. “He says shit to me all practice long and it’s my fault?”
Finn sighs. “Just ignore it and he’ll get bored,” he says. “He’s not a bad guy, Jame-o, he just runs his mouth a bit.”
Finn didn’t think that two years ago when Chase took Damien out with a knee-on-knee in the first round of the playoffs without an ounce of remorse. Finn was as angry as anyone. Apparently his memory’s short, though. Or his loyalty easily swayed.
“No, he’s not a bad guy,” James snaps. “He tore Damien’s MCL out of the kindness of his heart.”
“James, come on,” Finn says. “He’s a Whaler now, whether you like it or not. Just — don’t let him get to you.”
James accidentally makes eye contact with Chase as he heads out the door.
Chase blows him a kiss, and James looks away quickly, though obviously Chase already knows he saw him, walks to his car with his phone out, eyes down, so no one tries to talk to him, and fumes the entire drive home.
*
They finally get through training camp. James starts to relax now that the first cuts have been made, some of the crowd clearing out, and the team’s starting to look more like the roster they’ll ice in October. There are still plenty of guys who won’t be here when the regular season starts, but James knows most of them from past call ups, previous seasons — depth players, career AHLers, prospects not quite ready to make the step. They don’t feel like team, not quite, but they have the potential to. That’s enough for James, at least for now.
Georgie hosts a barbecue, kids running around screeching while Finn and his brother take control of the grill — James won’t see him for the rest of the day, probably. He reluctantly circulates alone. He doesn’t love it when events aren’t Whalers only, though he does like seeing the kids, and no one’s bringing a casual hookup to a backyard barbecue, so he knows almost everyone. The only introductions he’s had to make are to the significant others of the new guys. Also to newborns, and he doesn’t mind that, but he’s not sure how the introduction to Cale’s newborn escalated to temporary custody of her.
Nina frowns up at James, and James frowns back down at her. He isn’t sure where her parents have gotten off to, and he doesn’t understand why they left. If he were a parent, he would never leave his children in the hands of any of his teammates. Well, except for Finn, but Finn’s his exception for almost everything.
“Please tell me you’re not a dad.”
James looks up. “This is Cale‘s kid,” he says. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a pretty obvious statement,” Chase says. “So I don’t understand your confusion.”
James blinks at him.
“That was what you said,” Chase says. “In the parking lot.”
“Yes,” James says. “My memory is fine, thank you.”
Nina squirms, making a quietly discontent noise, and James looks back down, gently bouncing her until she settles.
“See the thing is, usually that would make someone laugh,” Chase says. “You know, in recognition at least, even if they didn’t actually find it funny. Instead of just staring at me blankly like I’m an obnoxious intruder.”
“That’s a surprisingly self-aware description of yourself,” James says.
“Wow, okay,” Chase says. “First off, genuinely, what the fuck is—“
Nina starts to cry, and bouncing doesn’t help this time. James ignores Chase to focus on the more pressing issue, quietly furious that he still can’t see Cale or Rosa, then relieved when Finn appears, smelling like charcoal and seared meat and shaking his head. “Not in front of the baby, guys.”
“She’s far too young for language acquisition,” James says, handing her over. Bouncing and rocking are the only tools in his repertoire, and he’s certainly not trusting an innocent baby with Chase, so Finn it is.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Finn says.
“He started it,” James says when he realizes Chase has disappeared, left him to make explanations and take the blame.
Finn pats Nina’s back while she hiccups cries over his shoulder. “Do you realize how that sounded?”
“Yes,” James mutters.
“Okay,” Finn says, the patting settling to a rub as Nina quiets down. “Just a little gassy, huh?”
“I’m not gassy,” James says.
“Buddy,” Finn says.
“You were talking to the baby,” James says.
“I was talking to the baby,” Finn confirms.
“And you just pat her back, or—“ James says.
“Come here,” Finn says, and James is learning how to burp a baby when Cale and Rosa finally return.
“I hope she was good,” Rosa says, and James doesn’t tell her that hope is not a plan, and that they’re lucky Finn arrived when he did, and Chase left before Nina got any more upset.
“Just a little gassy,” James says, and for some reason that makes everyone laugh.