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The door to the coaching office opens.
No one’s supposed to find him in the coaching office, except for Trevor Hall and the cleaning staff, and Hall’s only here when his physical presence is absolutely required. It is Kent’s sanctum, it has his laptop and his espresso machine and his Brita filter, it’s where players come to get very good news or very bad news and is therefore comprehensively meant to remain a place of mystery and awe.
“You are the world’s stupidest shithead,” Larissa Duan says.
Damn. He’d been hoping it was the cleaning crew.
“I’m conserving my energy,” he says, without lifting his head. “It’s simpler to stay here. This way I don’t have to walk back before practice tomorrow.”
“I can’t tell whether you actually think that’s a good idea because you never went to college and have never actually tried it, or if you’re just really fucking dumb.”
“Since I refuse to believe that a four-year circlejerk teaches anyone anything, it’s obviously the latter.”
“Ohhh buddy, I cannot believe an NHL player left himself open to that one.” She crosses her arms. “You cannot sleep here tonight.”
He crosses his arms on the desk and props his chin on them. “Can and will. I’ll be in pain, but I’ll just take another Percocet before practice.”
Lardo glares at him mulishly. “If you try to stay I’ll beat you around the head and shoulders with a clipboard.”
He gives her the slow smile. “Is that a promise?”
She folds her arms across her chest, bridling. “I’ll call Bittle.”
His smile flickers out and as much as he’d like to keep it going he’s just scowling all of a sudden. She stares back until Kent drops his face into the corner of his elbow.
“I can’t actually walk to my car right now,” he says, muffled. “If I take enough meds that I can do it, I’m too stoned to drive. My aide’s in Boston tonight and I don’t want to make her drive out to get me.”
“Is this a pain thing or a nerve thing?”
He scrubs his face against his sleeve and stops at least hiding it, even if he’s looking pretty determinedly at the floor. “Pain thing.”
“How far can you walk?”
He’s a good judge by now but the answer is pretty grim. “About fifty feet.”
“Damn,” Lardo says, uncrossing and recrossing her arms. “If only you had friends you could ask to help you get home.”
“If I didn’t have to walk to my car I’m pretty sure I could manage the drive.”
“O-kay,” she says slowly, “you wanna rephrase that in the form of a question?”
He sighs and thumps his head down again. “Lardo, can you please help me get to my car? It’s in the disabled parking on the east side of the building.”
“Why Kent, I’d be delighted. If you ask nicely, I could even let you take your painkillers now, get you to your car, and drive you home.”
“Okay, but how would you get home after?”
“You live three blocks away, bro. It’s less than a mile. I’ll walk.”
Kent grits his teeth and sucks in air and hates her for that, a little bit. “Thank you. That would be wonderful. I mean, please.”
She doesn’t lord it over him. “Okay, you got water and a glass here. Where’s your meds?”
He pulls the backpack out from under his chair, holds it up as proof.
“Okay,” she says. “You take what you need tonight, I’m gonna go get a way to get you from here to your car.”
He downs his painkillers, packs his bag, and amps himself up to fight not to get into the wheelchair he's sure she's bringing when she appears in the office doorway pulling a platform dolly, just a sturdy square of carpeted plywood on wheels. He’s arrested and charmed.
“I love those. We’d race them when the arena was empty.”
She gives the rope attached to it a tug and it hops like an excited puppy. “Well, come on then.”
He levers himself up, grabs his cane, switches off the lights in the office and makes sure it’s locked before sitting down on her solution, cane held across his knees. The rope has a big loop in it to go around somebody’s shoulder and Lardo puts hers into it, pulling him across Faber’s polished concrete floors. The walls whizz by, and their photographs of past athletes with them.
She gets the dolly over the threshold of the outside doors, but progress slows immediately when she hits the asphalt and he says, “Stop, I can walk the rest of the way.” He sets himself up to rise, shifting his weight forward and placing the cane tip against the ground. After a minute she figures that the most helpful thing she can do is wedge her foot against the dolly so it doesn’t roll back when he pushes off, and after a precarious minute, he’s upright.
He tosses her the keys to his car and begins walking towards it. She has to drag the dolly back to Faber, stops and turns back at its doors to find the unlock button on the fob; he takes the extra time her errand affords him to walk around the back of the car, instead of trying to balance between the hood and the rosebushes to take the short way to the passenger seat.
He’s reclined when she comes back and gets in, doesn’t offer help when she fumbles before figuring how the electronic key fits into its slot and pressing the button to start the engine.
“I’m not using a wheelchair,” he says.
“Okay,” she says, pressing her lips together, and navigates the car’s reverse, slides it onto the street. “But consider: In not asking anyone for help, you’re not actually making yourself less of a pain in the ass. Using a wheelchair would give you a lot of freedom and mobility. We spend a lot of time running around for you.”
He squeezes his eyes shut against the light and blur of buildings moving past. “Wheelchair means conspicuous, conspicuous means photographers. Photographers mean news stories about how I’m either paralyzed or faking the whole thing. I’m not using one.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m gonna take a walker on roadies, okay? That’s humiliating enough. Oh, the black thing on the tab. Press 3.”
She presses the remote for the underground parking garage, parks the car without him needing to remind her which space is his. When she turns off the engine she turns to look at him.
“Thank you, Larissa. I’m good from here.” He reaches over to take the key out of its slot, opens the car door and propels himself out.
She gets out, shuts her door, then stands there looking at him over the roof of the car. “You sure you’re okay to feed yourself?”
He’s actually not, pain and fatigue gnawing at his stomach so he’s half-sure that even though he can definitely go upstairs and microwave a couple Hot Pockets he’ll be too nauseous to eat anything once food is in front of him, but he says, “This is me not asking you to help me upstairs.” He squeezes his eyes shut again, feeling himself edge into something too sharp for this, then makes himself be gracious. “But I do… appreciate the ride home. Thank you.”
Lardo looks at him soberly, then nods. “Happy to,” she says.
He uses the car to support himself until he’s ready to step into the open floor of the parking garage and he can launch his cane forward. Lardo quietly walks the other way, to the little man-gate in the grille of the garage’s exit.
It’s not the last time he has to rely on her to get him home, get him safe, get him fed. It’s not the last time he has to ask a friend for what he really needs.
But. For Samwell, it’s a first.