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Holden has to say, as far as spur of the moment life changing decisions go, Hartford’s maybe a 6.
Well, he guesses it depends on how he’s ranking it. Like, is this 1 to 10 on how life changing, or is it 1 to 10 on how good a decision it was? If you look at impact on his life it’s a pretty thorough 8. The fact he didn’t change climates, countries, or accidentally wander into Ohio or some shit keeps it from hitting the full 10, but even though he’s now all of 100 miles from the city that’s been home since he was 19 years old, it’s definitely 8.
He hears from his first Bruin a week into the preseason, a dashed off, mispelled u and ericson are killer tgthr from Simmer. He spends fifteen minutes trying to find the insult in it, before he remembers that the rivalry they had was completely one-sided. Plus it’s not Simmer’s style to jab. He’s more of a blurt out some dumb shit and not even know why everyone’s upset now kind of guy. A man after Holden’s heart.
Maybe they could have been friends if Simmer being on the roster wasn’t the exact fucking reason the Bs didn’t tender Holden an offer. Turns out when you have enough guys regularly crossing the line, you get a reputation for being a dirty team. Never mind that they picked Simmer up in free-agency when Holden was already on the fucking roster, so they bought the damn bed they made. Not Holden’s fault. Not Simmer’s either.
Holden considers ignoring the message, but cracks after an hour — it’s not like his phone’s blowing up with anything but delivery app notifications right now — and sends haha thanks, just enough so he’s no longer imagining Fee crossing her arms and giving him a thoroughly unimpressed look. She’s so powerful even when she isn’t there, she doesn’t even know.
But Hartford. Life changing decisions.
A solid 8 in how much change is happening, because 100 miles or not, Holden hasn’t stepped foot back in Boston since he packed his shit and moved, and everyone there seems to have collectively forgotten he existed with the exception of Fee and that dude on Facebook Marketplace selling a heartbreakingly big Chase jersey collection. Holden kind of wants to personally apologize to the dude for signing somewhere else, and also ask him if he wants a free Whalers jersey or if Holden’s dead to him now. He also needs to get the fuck off R/BostonBruins, goddamn. He is their enemy now. He knows this because they say shit like ‘fuck Holden Chase, traitor’, which he did not respond to because he has learned. Also see: Fiona, crossed arms, unimpressed look.
Hartford’s got to be about a 4 in actual life off the damn ice, though, and that’s being generous. He’s started looking at the rental and buyer’s market, because it really does get old, getting gawked at every time he walks into his building, and not because of what he does for a living. Last week a woman walked up to him accusing him of smoking pot under her window, and he doesn’t think she accepted his ‘ma’am, my lung capacity is kind of important, so if I am getting high it’s edibles all the way’ judging by how she threatened to call the cops on him. She also didn’t seem to appreciate his polite reminder that pot’s legal in Connecticut and that maybe she could join the 21st century or go back to the 60s when reefer madness was still a thing and hippie was still considered a legitimate insult.
Anyway, Holden has a new neighbor enemy, and even more incentive to move. It’s kind of an awkward time to be looking, considering they’re in the preseason, but it’s only going to get more awkward from here on out, because the games are going to keep coming, and sooner rather than later, they’re going to start mattering. Like, for real.
And as for that hockey? Well, that’d probably be a beautiful 10 out of 10 if James Erickson wasn’t such a fucking dick.
*
“Morning James,” Holden says.
James’ back says nothing, just retreats as he walks away. He’s got headphones on, and anyone else, Holden would just assume they hadn’t heard him, but generally, if someone doesn’t hear you, their shoulders don’t tense up, and they don’t start walking faster. That’s not even pretending.
“Morning James!” Holden yells at James’ back.
James stops up just long enough to give him a jerky wave without looking back, and Holden would consider that a victory, except after that, James won’t talk to him for the rest of the day.
*
James does not like it when Holden speaks. This isn’t particularly unusual, honestly. A lot of people don’t like it when Holden talks. His parents, for one. The majority of his coaches. The Bruins PR department, and, he’s sure, the Whalers PR department sooner rather than later. Every teacher he’s ever had.
James isn’t special, is all Holden’s saying. Telling Holden he talks too much is like telling someone in the middle of a sneezing fit to quit sneezing. It’s entirely out of their control, and they’re way more inconvenienced by it than you are, frankly.
Though by the way James acts, no one has ever been more inconvenienced than him. Holden opens his mouth, and James sighs the sigh of the most put upon person to ever live. If he asked James the time he’d probably groan like he was doing him the biggest favor that’s ever been done, and then look down at his watch and tell him it’s time to go fuck himself.
But you know what? That’s fine. It’s fine. Because this? This is exactly why he picked the Whalers in the first place. Because for all his rudeness, all his distinct lack of charm, all his owning an analog fucking watch when smart watches exist, James Erickson plays really beautiful hockey.
And when Holden’s playing with him? He does too.
The thing is, Holden’s entire fucking life, this is what he’s been looking for. Figured it was unrealistic even as he kept searching for it. Lineys with chemistry like that are so rare they get raved about at NHL level, so how was he going to get there doing minor league shit?
That was a prominent part of his daydreams from the time he was a kid. Hoisting the Cup, obviously, that’s a classic, but he usually threw in scoring the Cup winner — he’s pretty sure every player but the goalies throw Cup Winning Goal Scorer into the fantasy, and maybe even them if they’re feeling really special that day — right off a pass from his liney who has amazing chemistry with him and is also his best friend.
Dream big, right?
Well. apparently the chemistry’s a real thing, and it feels just as electric as he thought it would. He just doesn’t think him and ol’ Jame-o are about to buy neighboring houses any time soon.
*
“Morning James!” Holden chirps.
James grunts.
Is a grunt a victory over being ignored? Sort of, Holden supposes, but he can’t say it feels like much of one, if he’s being honest.
*
The first time Holden met James was probably at some USNTDP tourney or camp, the same way he met a good chunk of the players around his age. He doesn’t know exactly when. He always remembers those camps with a bit of a wince, getting flashbacks to how loud he was, how desperate for people to pay attention to him, the stupid shit he’d spout to anyone who’d listen. Embarrassing himself and not knowing it.
All those memories have worn themselves soft, thin, so now everyone’s disappeared except him, mortifying himself in front of a faceless audience that’s almost certainly laughing at him. He thinks he represses everyone’s identities so he can continue to look at them.
But the first time he remembers meeting James was at preselection camp for the U20s. It was like he stood head and shoulders above everyone else, even though he couldn’t have. Broad-shouldered, mouth stern, sticking out. Sore thumb. He had the hard-gleam features of a man, the body of a man, which they all were, technically, but not really. Not really at all. James even less than everyone — he had the cage, which must have meant he wasn’t even eighteen yet. The prodigy among the rest of them.
He barely said a word, almost never smiled. He played like everyone around him was insignificant in comparison to him. Holden spent the entire tournament watching him, not entirely sure why. Envy, maybe. Awe that anyone could be so very still, so very present, all at once.
When they lost, Holden cried, and not one of those movie magic single tears. It was messy and silent on the ice; messy and loud when he finally found someplace to himself. Opponents chirp him about it on the ice to this day.
Once a guy who had actually played on that team with him did it. A self-fucking own if there ever was one: Hey remember when you cried during that super shitty experience we both had? I obviously didn’t cry myself, or wouldn’t have brought it up, but also now I’m remembering that loss viscerally and wow, that really fucking sucked, huh?
Holden swears he could see every word of that, fleeting, cross his face between chirp and regret. He didn’t even have the heart to sneer at him. Got two minutes for spearing him in the third period, though. There’s shit you don’t say. There’s a kid Holden doesn’t even resemble anymore. He pinched himself bruised.
Holden checked the roster years later for some reason or another. He thinks to settle a dispute, probably about his stats, which were better than he remembered feeling about them at the time. James was recorded as 6'1". There were two players recorded as 6'2". Their starting goalie, 6'3". Their backup, 6'4.5". Holden remembers him as a gangly motherfucker. Gumpy, they called him, and for good reason. He’s playing somewhere in the A now, Holden thinks.
He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about this.
If he stood back to back with James right now, they’d probably be almost exactly the same height. Holden might even have the edge.
He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about this either.
*
“Morning James,” Holden says. “Cold out, huh?”
“It’s not, really,” James says.
It’s literally freezing, or almost. Full on Christmas in September, but whatever. It’s not, really.
“Pretty nippy out,” Finn chimes in.
“Right?” Holden says.
James scowls, and Holden swears, every time someone mentions how cold it is — and it is fucking cold — he sulks a little more. He shouldn’t see that as a victory.
It’s fucking freezing though.
*
The daydreams may have had a face, once in awhile. That’s what you do, right, to keep shit interesting? Same way you jerk it thinking of that dude last week who really knew what he was doing or the flirty leg day guy at the gym or whatever, rather than nobody in particular — putting a face on things makes it more believable. Not that the daydreaming is the same as jerking off. Well, kind of. Stroking the ego, or whatever.
So like, maybe sometimes, the one passing Holden the puck for that Cup winning goal was James. Usually wearing black and gold, having arrived on the Bruins for inexplicable, unexplored reasons — Hartford sure as shit isn’t trading him in reality, not for anything, he’s their guy — but then, after he signed in July, the jerseys turned gray and green.
It wasn’t all that often or anything. It was just after he caught a particularly sweet highlight, or maybe for a change of pace. Sometimes it got kind of boring, doing it with his real lineys, because they had actual personalities and whatever. They were fine personalities, don’t get Holden wrong, he got along with the dudes, but they weren’t ‘perfect liney who is also my best friend (besides Fee obviously)’. Because those didn’t exist in reality, and Holden wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise.
Or, okay, they do, they’ve happened, hockey’s had its bromances, and there have been linemates who clicked on and off the ice, linemates that have won it all after a long career together. Hell, so far the out couples have been in different spots on the roster, but it’s more likely than not that at least one set of dudes with baller chemistry on the ice has similar chemistry off it.
Holden’s never even considered wanting that for himself. That best friend shit is embarrassing enough, something he’s never even told Fee, and he tells her pretty much everything, including objectively way more embarrassing shit.
But he did want that chemistry. Didn’t sign with the Whalers thinking about it, not front of mind or anything, but he won’t lie and say it didn’t have an impact, because it did.
*
“Morning James,” Holden says. Nobody could ever accuse him of not trying. “Morning Finn.”
“Morning Chaser,” Finn says, fulfilling his regular duties as James’ conscience. Holden has to wonder about the dude. He’s always so cheerful, so ‘just happy to be here’, even though he’s stuck doing all the shit the captain’s supposed to do, with none of the recognition for it. There have always been captains who lead more on the ice than off it, that’s what he had on the Bruins and he’d have gone through a wall for the dude even though they had maybe five non-surface conversations the entire time Holden was there, but James is a whole other level.
“Good weekend?” Holden asks, then internally winces. It wasn’t the fucking weekend — they play on the weekend — but consecutive days are basically weekends. Pretty much anyone get what me meant, would let it go, but, well.
“It’s the middle of the week,” James says.
“You know what he means,” Finn says, chiding, and James’ face goes hilariously sulky, like a dog who just got told off, a comparison Holden would usually be making, but he’s not actually trying to make James hate him, not matter how much it looks like it from the outside. All natural talent, baby.
“Was nice to get a couple days off, eh?” Finn says.
“I’m going ahead,” James says abruptly, presumably for Finn’s benefit, and then stalks away.
“How was yours?” Finn says. “Do anything special?”
“So when you said he takes awhile to warm up to people,” Holden says. “Do you have a general timeline, or.”
Finn winces. “I’ll talk to him,” he says.
“Cool,” Holden says.
“He has his—“ Finn says, then gets quiet. “He has a strong sense of right and wrong.”
“Okay,” Holden says, and waits for the rest.
Finn just gives him an uncomfortable smile.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Holden says.
“I’ll talk to him,” Finn says.
“Kind of sounds like you already talked to him and it didn’t go well, Schneider,” Holden says.
Finn gives him another uncomfortable smile. “Finn,” he says. “Please. It gets confusing with two Schneiders on the team.”
“Sounds like you already talked to him, Schneider the First,” Holden says. He knows what trying to deflect looks like, thank you very much. Can’t scam a scammer. “D-Schneider. Old Schneids.”
Finn snorts.
“Well,” Holden says. “Good luck with that second talk, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Finn says. “Thanks.”
*
Holden had an idea in his head when he came to Hartford. Some harebrained good cop bad cop shit or whatever: Upstanding Selke and Lady Byng Nominee and the Troublemaker. Grace under pressure and dude jumping into every play headfirst. The all around guy any GM would kill to get, and the guy you’d rather have on your team than playing you, that’s for fucking sure. Together? That’s a line that shuts you down and pisses you the fuck off. Shit just wrote itself. It did in Holden’s head, at least. James seems to have zero interest in the storyline.
People always have shit to say about the guys like Holden, the ones who’ll play the role of the villain, if that’s what their team needs. They change their tune real quick when it’s their team’s guy, though. Whalers fans have had more of a grudge against him than most, and they’re already chanting his name.
And sure, there are the people who say they don’t want that on their own team, wouldn’t take a player like that even for free. Holden’s always had a name for those kinds of people: fucking liars.
Or James Erickson, he guesses. ‘Strong sense of right and wrong’ and all.
There’s been no shortage dirty players on the Whalers — fuck knows he’s gotten into shit after the whistle with enough of them over the years. Somehow Holden doubts this is the treatment all of them are getting, though at this point, he wouldn’t actually put it past James.
Maybe it’s time to shelve the Cup winner off the perfect pass. Holden’s too old for daydreams anyway. Has been too old for them for awhile.
*
He doesn’t say anything to James, not one single, solitary thing, other than barking his name on the ice, which he assumes James deems acceptable, considering it leads to a no-look backhand pass, one hell of a goal.
That and ‘nice pass’ after, because credit where credit’s due, but James doesn’t say anything to that either, gives him a smile that would almost feel like a victory, if it wasn’t for the fact it looked pained.
From the quality standpoint, Holden can’t give Hartford more than a 6 out of 10, even if he tries. And he is trying. He’s trying really hard.