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It had to be the fourth fight in ten minutes, and from where Shane was standing it looked like Detroit didn’t even care about goals tonight. Their Right Wing was especially bad, picking targets like he didn’t care about the game misconduct that had to be waiting for him after the next punch.
This time it looked like he’d picked his opponent from way back by the Red Line. He slammed into Hayden just as Coach waved at him to get off the ice. Whatever Hayden had insisted back at the team meeting, he’d look rough in the room and his color hadn’t improved over the game. His friend had been fine earlier, but sometime after lunch he’d gone quiet, and when Shane had stopped to really look at him, Hayden had looked unusually pale. It could have been a game day flush, but his blue eyes had been too bright.
But this was a big game and Coach hadn’t been in the mood to bench anybody over “maybe”, and Hayden could teach a seminar on how to be stubborn when he wanted to be. So he suited up, and for most of the First Period he’d seemed almost fine.
The Second Period had started, as had the fights, and as Detroit’s Wing flew past him, Shane worried that his Alternate wouldn’t stand a chance.
Gloves off, Detroit’s guy was shouting something about being a pussy, one hand gripping the front of Hayden’s sweater. The other was balled into a fist, which the guy kept slamming into Hayden’s middle. Shane skated over, teeth bared as he dropped his stick. One of the linesmen got there first, hauling back on Detroit’s guy as Hayden tugged himself backward, his own gloves still on.
“Get in the box, Liddell. It’s over.”
“Fucking fight, Montreal! Drop your gloves!”
“Liddell, move it.”
“Come on!” Detroit broke free of the linesman, grabbing hold of Hayden once more.
Shane reached them as Detroit shook his friend, screaming in his face before letting go as the linesman yanked on the back of his sweater.
“Enough, Liddell!”
Detroit spat on the ice between them, sneering at Hayden. “What, not even gonna chirp?”
Shane started to say something, to fire back at the dick, when Hayden made a choking sound, opened his mouth as if to speak, and threw up all over Detroit’s skates.
That got the whistles going.
Grabbing Hayden’s shoulders, Shane pushed him back from the mess on the ice. Detroit’s Wing was really shouting now, though he couldn’t seem to decide if he was mad at Hayden for being sick or the linesman for reminding him about the penalty.
“He fucking threw up on me!”
“That’s what you get for punching a guy after I say stop. Get. In the box.”
“Hey,” Shane said, his voice quiet enough that only Hayden really heard him, “You remember when I was asking you if you were OK?”
Hayden nodded, dragging the back of his glove over his mouth.
“And you said you were fine?”
Hayden looked a little embarrassed. “I actually do feel better now.”
“Uh huh.” Shane gestured to the bench, where Coach looked unfortunately red-faced. “I think you’re still gonna sit out for the rest of it.”
“Fair,” Hayden mumbled. He risked a grin before skating off. “Guy deserved it, though.”
“Should have aimed for his chest,” Shane called after him. He waited for Roy to take Hayden’s place, hanging back with the rest of the players as local staff came out to clean up the ice. “How are you feeling?”
“Glad I didn’t eat the catered lunch,” Roy said. The team had arrived late enough that letting the players find food individually risked guys being late to the game. But some of them, like Roy, liked to pack their own lunch anyway. Concerns about macros or gluten-free options driving them to look after themselves when the day’s menu was uncertain. For his part, Shane had eaten the catered lunch, but he’d skipped the unidentifiable meat in favor of enough beans on his salad to make even him hesitate over his protein choices.
“Pike’s not the only one who got sick,” Roy went on. “That’s why Coach was waving at him a minute ago. He just got done sending Olsson and Berkes to the room for looking green around the gills.”
“Hayden didn’t look green.”
Roy rolled his eyes. “Bro, he didn’t look fucking healthy.”
Shane winced at the missed social cue, but then the ref skated over to let them know what was going on and how it affected the game clock. And until Intermission, there wasn’t anything Shane could do to help his friend either way. So he sunk back into the game, focussing on goals and passes and the way Detroit’s forecheck was probably why they’d been so determined to fight. They were leaning hard on their defense tonight, and now that Shane knew it, they were gonna be sorry they’d picked that strategy for a team that liked to score.
The buzzer went at the end of Third, sealing Montreal’s victory, and Shane celebrated with the rest of the team. But he got off the ice just that little bit sooner, kept his answers to the press that little bit shorter, and Hayden was still gone by the time Shane got to the room. So were Olsson and Berkes, like Roy had mentioned, as well as Miitka, who hadn’t been expected to play tonight anyway but had dressed all the same. Stripping out of his gear, Shane packed his concerns away in preparation for Coach’s post-game speech, focusing on the team and the game for a little bit longer.
On the ride back to the hotel, he ordered chicken soup and green tea through his phone.
Slipping into their hotel room, Shane offered a smile and the bag of delivery in greeting to his miserable looking teammate. “Hey.”
Hayden looked back at him from under every blanket he could find, including the ones off Shane’s bed. “Hey.”
Crossing the room, Shane set down the soup and the tea. “I figured you wouldn’t be going out with the team, and who knows what this place has for room service.”
“Thanks.”
Sitting on his own bed, Shane studied Hayden. His friend was curled up in a ball, just his head sticking out, and he still looked rough. His face was as pale as it had been earlier, but his eyes looked normal now. That weird brightness that should have been a clue was gone.
Mostly, Hayden just looked tired.
“You can go out, you know.” Hayden wasn’t looking at him, his distracted gaze fixed on the TV that wasn’t even on. “We won. Go party.”
“As if I would ever go to a club without you,” Shane said.
“You would if we were in Boston,” and it was almost a grin. “Nobody worth going out with in Detroit?”
“Nope.” Toeing off his shoes, Shane kicked his legs up onto his bed and made a show of getting comfortable. “You’re officially stuck with me, Pike.”
“You could have taken your shoes off like normal.”
“I’m proving my loyalty.”
“That’s gonna bother you. What if you damaged the backs?”
It did, in fact, bother him, but Shane was proving his friendship. He could hold off on checking his shoes for a few minutes.
Instead, he reached for the remote on the side table and turned on the TV. The hotel’s default channel blared out at them, earning winces from them both. As Hayden hid his face from the noise, Shane lowered the volume and started flipping through channels. Looking for anything that wasn’t the Food Network or an action movie with unrealistic car stunts.
He settled on the weather channel.
“How many documentaries can they make on tornados?” Hayden asked, his voice muffled from where he’d only partially remerged.
“I dunno,” Shane said, “but at least one more.”
“As always, Ms. Swan.”
Shane ignored the reference he didn’t get and settled in to learn about cloud shapes and the crazy people who liked to drive large trucks after those shapes. After the first commercial break, he did get up to fix his shoes.
By the end of the hour-long stress fest, Hayden had emerged enough to eat his soup and was now sipping on the long cold tea. He didn’t look any better, though, and Shane was wondering if there was anything else he could actually do to help.
At which point Hayden set down the tea, jogged into the bathroom, and Shane could hear his poor friend throwing up everything he’d managed to eat in the last half hour.
They weren’t in Boston. But it was late, even in Hawai’i, and he didn’t want to bother his parents if they had plans.
Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he called Lily.
Rozanov picked up on the fourth ring. “Hollander. Looking for some fun after your victory?”
“Not really,” Shane said. He rubbed his hand nervously along the top of his thigh. “What do you know about food poisoning?”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Um…you still there?”
“You’re calling me because Hayden Pike threw up?”
Shane bit his lip. “Yes?”
Rozanov hung up.
“Jesus,” Shane muttered and called him back. “Hey, I need help.”
“Call your mother”
“Fuck you.”
“No. Fuck you. Why would you call me because Montreal’s weakest Wing is sick?”
“Because you know shit,” Shane snapped, “and I tried to help him and it didn’t work.”
There was another silence, then a loud sigh. “What did you do?”
“Fuck you.”
“To help, Hollander. What did you do to help your friend?”
Shane inhaled. “I brought him chicken soup and green tea.”
Rozanov said something in Russian.
“What?”
“He can’t eat.” He thought he could hear Rozanov moving around. Setting something down on a table. “No food. No drinks. Water, maybe. But,” more Russian, this time like he was thinking, “small water. How you say…small…drinks.”
“He has to sip it,” Shane said.
“Da.”
“For how long?”
“Till tomorrow, probably.” Another sigh, this one almost…sincere? “If he eats breakfast and gets sick, go to doctor. Is bad thing.”
“But not tonight?” Shane asked, his worry spiking.
“After that mess during game, he should be feeling better.” And this time, Rozanov laughed. “Liddell deserved it. Pike should have aimed for his chest.”
“That’s what I said,” Shane said, grinning.
“See? This is why you are better player. Pike aimed for skates. You would have ruined jersey.”
“Sweater.”
“Whatever.”
“So nothing but water till morning, and sip that,” Shane said as Hayden emerged from the bathroom, looking worse for wear.
“Maybe ice. Little chips to suck on.”
“Thanks,” Shane said.
“Go look after your shitty friend.”
“Fuck you, too.”
Hayden collapsed onto the bed next to him as Shane hung up. “Sorry about that.” He did look genuinely remorseful. “The soup tasted good going down.”
“Well, apparently I wasn’t supposed to bring you food,” Shane said. He held up his phone. “You’re supposed to be sipping water or sucking on ice.”
“Your mom said that.”
“Yeah.”
Hayden still managed to raise an eyebrow. “You say ‘fuck you’ to your mom?”
Shane chewed his lips, then pursed them as he looked down at his phone. “I might have called Lily.”
Both Hayden’s eyebrows went up. Then he laughed. “You can call her back when I’m asleep.” He crawled back under the blankets as he spoke, burrowing down with a sigh as he closed his eyes. “I promise not to listen.”
“Hayd.”
“You feel like finding out if this hotel has an ice machine?”
Grabbing the bucket off the dresser, Shane went in search of ice. The one on their floor was out of order, so he went down to the front desk and asked. Nerves got the best of him so instead of just asking for the ice he blurted out half the story of his evening, but the concierge was nice about it. She even got him shaved ice instead of cubes.
Back in the room, Hayden was dozing. But he was doing that thing he sometimes did where he couldn't seem to get comfortable. That couldn’t be good for getting the rest he needed, and if Shane was honest, it was going to be annoying. Which he’d never say, because his friend was sick, but at some point Shane wanted to be able to go to sleep, too.
Setting the ice bucket and an open mini bottle of water on the side table within easy reach, Shane walked around Hayden’s bed. He sat down on the other side of the twin, scooting over until his leg was pressed against Hayden’s now still back. Leaning against the headboard, Shane considered the newest documentary, which appeared to be about the dangers of overland hurricanes.
There was a couple minutes of scary footage, then, “Shane?”
“The ice is shaved,” Shane said, “so it should be easier to. You know.”
Hayden shifted, just enough to look at him over his shoulder. “Not what I meant.”
Shane kept his attention on the trees getting ripped out of the ground by the power of wind. “You gotta hold still if you want to get any rest.” He paused. “And I know you like…it makes you feel better if…when people touch you.”
A longer pause.
“Bro, that sounds so bad.”
Shane laughed and Hayden tried, the sound turning into a cough. “I just meant you’re a hugger.”
Hayden cleared his throat. “I know. And you hate it.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“Yeah, you do.”
He did. Kinda. Most days.
But tonight was not most days. Tonight, his best friend felt like shit and had embarrassed himself on live television by losing his literal lunch all over some asshole’s skates. And now he was stuck with ice chips and water until breakfast. And that was hoping that this was boring food poisoning and that Shane wasn’t gonna have to call a doctor in the morning.
“Please stop panicking.” Hayden breathed out, finally starting to settle. “I’m fine.”
“You said that earlier. Then you threw up.”
“Like an hour later.”
“On national television.”
“Fuck.”
“Did Jackie call yet?”
A moment. Then another, “Fuck.”
“I’ll text her,” Shane said, his phone already out.
“You don’t have to tell her about the chicken soup. You were trying to help.”
“She’ll know,” Shane said as he typed. “And then I’ll be in trouble for lying to your wife.”
Hayden’s laugh was smaller this time, so it didn’t earn a cough. “Yeah. She’s great like that.”
Shane sent the text. And answered his phone when Jackie called him back. He was honest about the game, and the soup, and he leaned over and pressed the back of his hand to Hayden’s forehead as ordered. He nodded along to the instructions about water and ice and bed rest, and promised to keep her updated regularly until he fell asleep and to make Hayden call her himself in the morning.
By the time he hung up, Hayden was dozing, for real this time, and the weather had switched to something about scorching heat.
“They should call this the scary shit channel,” Shane said. Hayden grunted, not really listening.
He half watched a commercial about cat food, diabetes medication, a local supermarket blowout sale, and two different car dealerships offering lower-than-ever financing.
“You can move,” Hayden mumbled into his pillow.
“Not until you’re actually asleep,” Shane said, watching a talking duck fall into a kitchen sink while his duck friend laughed at him.
“M’k.”
The terrifying desert heat reclaimed the TV, a baritone voice narrating the threat to wildlife throughout the state.
“Th’nks, Shay…”
Looking down at his friend, Shane reached over and twitched the stolen blanket a little higher. Then he leaned his head back against the head board and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the colony of scorpions and their desperate choice that was their only chance to stay alive. It was just late, and he was tired, and for all that he’d rather sleep alone, Hayden’s back was a warm weight against his side. His friend’s breathing evening out as the shaved ice melted in the same weirdly heavy bucket that existed in every North American hotel. And they did have a flight to catch the next morning.
The scorpions scuttled to safety as Shane’s chin dropped toward his shoulder, his breath evening out, too.