MARCUS
I fucking hate Jamie Hartford.
Standing across the ice from him during warm-ups, I listed all the reasons why. His perfect hair that never moves even when he's being checked into the boards. His Ivy League education that he somehow works into every post-game interview. The way he captains the New York Vipers like he was born wearing the C. His old money family, his perfect image, and his everything.
Most of all, I hate how good he is. He's the best defenseman in the league, and I'm a forward whose stats are tanking because my shoulder is destroyed and I'm too stubborn to admit it.
Tonight's game is critical. Boston Griffins versus New York Vipers. The rivalry that sells out arenas. Blood on ice. We've hated each other for four years, since I checked him so hard in my rookie season that he had a concussion for two weeks.
He's never forgiven me, and I've never apologized.
The puck drops, and we're at war. The first period is brutal. Hartford is everywhere, blocking shots, breaking up plays, being the golden boy defenseman everyone says he is. Every time I try to get past him, he's there, always fucking there.
By second period, my shoulder is screaming. I took three painkillers before the game, the good ones, the ones I get from a doctor who doesn't ask too many questions but they're barely touching it anymore. Each shot sends lightning through my shoulder muscle.
Every check makes me want to vomit, but I can't stop. This is my contract year if I don't perform, if my stats don't improve, I'm done, and my family back in Chicago, my mom with her MS treatments, my sister with her college tuition at Northwestern, they need my salary, and they need me to keep playing.
So I play through the pain, through the nausea, and through the growing certainty that I'm doing permanent damage to my body.
Third period, we're down by one. Coach is screaming at us during the timeout, spittle flying, and face red.
"Kovač, what the hell is going on with you? You're supposed to be our scorer and you've got nothing tonight. NOTHING!" Coach yelled at me.
"I'll get it done, Coach." I assured him.
"You better because right now you're playing like you belong in the minors." He said, and the words hit harder than they should because he's right.
My shooting percentage has dropped fifteen points from last season. I'm slower on the ice, I'm becoming a liability, and I'm becoming replaceable.
The puck drops for the third period, and I'm flying on pure adrenaline and spite. I've got the puck, racing down the ice, and there's an opening, a clear shot to the goal then Hartford appears out of nowhere.
He checks me, clean hit, perfectly legal, textbook defensive play but when his shoulder connects with mine, something goes critically wrong.
The pain isn't normal hockey pain. It's white-hot, blinding, and all-consuming. Something in my shoulder gives like a rope snapping and the agony that floods through me is unlike anything I've ever felt.
I'm going down, the ice rushes up to meet me and I hit hard, gasping, trying not to scream because the cameras are on me and I can't show weakness. I can't let anyone know but fuck, it hurts. It hurts so bad I can't breathe.
Through the haze of pain, I'm aware of the whistle blowing. Of skates surrounding me, and of voices asking if I can move, if I'm okay, what hurts, and Hartford.
Hartford is standing over me, and he should be skating away, he should be smirking, maybe chirping some shit about me being soft, about how I can't take a hit but instead, he's looking at me with... concern?
No, that can't be right. Jamie Hartford doesn't give a shit about me.
"You okay?" His voice is low, quiet enough that the refs can't hear, that the mics won't pick up.
I want to tell him to fuck off, I want to get up and shove him away and pretend I'm fine but my arm won't move right. When I try to push myself up with my right hand, my shoulder won't cooperate, and it won't lift.
Panic edges into the pain, this is bad… this is really bad.
"Kovač?" Hartford says my name, and there's something in his blue eyes I've never seen before. Something that looks almost like worry.
Why would he be worried? We hate each other, that's the natural order of things.
"I'm fine," I grit out through clenched teeth. "Get the fuck away from me, Hartford."
He hesitates. For a second, maybe two, he just stands there looking at me with that strange expression. Then our team medic is pushing through, and Hartford skates away but he keeps looking back.
The medic helps me off the ice. The crowd is a blur of noise, some cheering because a Griffins player went down, some booing because they think Hartford's hit was dirty, most just drunk and loud because it's Griffins versus Vipers and that's always a spectacle.
In the tunnel, away from the cameras, I finally let myself react. My vision blur, I'm breathing too fast, shallow gasps that aren't getting enough oxygen. The medic is talking to me but I can't hear him over the roaring in my ears.
"Marc. Marc, look at me. Can you lift your arm?"
I try, I really fucking try but my shoulder is useless, dead weight, and when I attempt to raise it even an inch, the pain makes my vision go white.
"Okay, okay, stop. Don't force it." Johnson the medic says as he probes my shoulder. Every touch is agony. "This needs medical attention, Marc. I think you might have a significant tear—"
"No." The word comes out harsh, desperate. "No hospitals, no medical attention."
"Marc, if this is what I think it is—"
"Just tape it up. Give me something for the pain. I need to finish the game."
Johnson looks at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. "You can't play on this. If you've got a rotator cuff tear, you could make it worse. You could cause permanent damage."
"I don't care. Tape it up." I ordered.
"Marc—"
"Please." I hate how I sound. Pleading like I was broken. "I can't sit out, not now, and especially not in my contract year."
Understanding flashes across Johnson's face. He knows. He knows that if I'm injured, if I need surgery, I'm fucked. Benched players don't get contract renewals.
He shouldn't do it. It's irresponsible, potentially dangerous, and definitely against protocol but he's been with the team for twenty years. He's seen players sacrifice their bodies for this game. He knows what's at stake.
"This is a bad idea," he says as he reaches for the tape.
"I know."
He tapes my shoulder tight enough that I can barely move it. Gives me two more painkillers that I definitely shouldn't take on top of the three already in my system. Hands me a small white pill I don't recognize.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Something to take the edge off. Don't ask questions."
I dry-swallow it. The drugs hit my system fast. The pain doesn't disappear, nothing could make it disappear but it becomes distant, and manageable like it's happening to someone else's body.
"You've got maybe one period in you," Johnson warns. "After that, your body is going to shut down whether you want it to or not, and Marc, this is the last time I do this. After tonight, you see a real doctor or I report you to Coach myself."
"Fair."
I don't go back out, I can't. Coach takes one look at me when I try to stand and benches me for the rest of the game. We lose 3-2.
In the locker room after, Coach tears into us. Into me specifically.
"Kovač, what the hell was that? You go down from one check and suddenly you're useless? You're supposed to be our goal scorer and you're giving me nothing. Your shooting accuracy is shit, your speed is down, you're a liability out there."
I take it. Stand there and take the verbal beating because what else can I do? Tell him my shoulder is destroyed? That I've been hiding a serious injury for eight months? That I'm playing through pain that would sideline most players?
"You need to figure out what's wrong with you," Coach continues. "Because right now, you're not worth the roster spot."
The words land like physical blows. Each one confirming what I already know: I'm replaceable, and expendable. One injury away from losing everything.
When Coach finally stops yelling and storms out, the locker room is silent. My teammates won't look at me. They're all thinking the same thing: Kovač is washed up, and maybe they're right.
By the time everyone clears out, I'm alone. Sitting in front of my locker in my underwear and skates, staring at nothing, trying to figure out how I'm going to shower without letting anyone see how badly I'm shaking.
My phone buzzes. Three missed calls from my mom, and a text from my sister:
Sasha: Hey, did you send this month's tuition payment yet? The bursar's office is asking.
Fifteen thousand dollars. Due in a week.
I check my bank account: $3,247.
My mom's treatment next week: $8,000.
I'm drowning, literally drowning in debt and obligations and a body that's betraying me.
I pull out the pill bottle from my locker. Oxycodone, prescribed for "moderate pain management" by a doctor who barely examined me and didn't ask questions when I requested the prescription. I've gone through two refills already this month.
The bottle says "take one every 6-8 hours as needed."
I've taken six today. It's barely touching it.
I dry-swallow three more, knowing it's too many, knowing it's dangerous, but not caring.
The pills take the edge off just enough that I can move. I shower carefully, keeping my right arm mostly immobile, washing one-handed. Get dressed in sweats and a hoodie that I can pull on without raising my arm too much.
Later that night, I'm at the mandatory league charity event because attendance is non-negotiable. Some bullshit fundraiser at a fancy Boston hotel, all the players in suits and ties, chatting with donors and pretending we're not exhausted and battered from the game.
I don't want to be here. My shoulder is screaming despite the pills. I can feel my career slipping through my fingers like water, and I'm supposed to smile and make small talk with rich people who want to feel good about supporting hockey.
I ditch the main event as soon as it's socially acceptable, and find my way to the hotel bar. It's mostly empty this late, just the bartender and a couple of business travelers who clearly aren't here for the charity event.
I ordered whiskey, drank it too fast, and ordered another.
The bartender gives me a look. "Rough night?"
"You could say that."
He pours me another without comment. I like him for that. I'm on my third drink, staring into the amber liquid and listing all the ways my life is falling apart, when I sense someone sit down beside me.
I don't look up, I don't care who it is. I just want to be left alone with my spiral of self-destruction.
"Is this seat taken?" The voice asked.
That voice, I'd recognize it anywhere.
I look up, and Jamie Hartford is standing there in a perfectly tailored suit, tie loosened, looking like he stepped out of a goddamn magazine.
Looking at me with those impossibly blue eyes that I've hated for four years. He looks like shit, actually. Now that I'm really looking. Dark circles under his eyes despite the perfect exterior, tension in his jaw, and something haunted in his expression.
I should tell him to fuck off, and I should leave before this becomes a thing.
"Free country, Hartford," I hear myself say instead.
He sits, orders a drink. Whiskey, same as me. We don't speak for a solid five minutes. Just sit there at the bar, two rivals who should hate each other, drinking in silence.
The silence is heavy. Charged with four years of animosity and something else. Something I don't want to examine too closely.
"You hit like a fucking accountant," I finally say, because the quiet is getting to me and I need to break it somehow.
Hartford almost laughs. "Funny. You fell like you've got glass bones."
His words hit too close to home. My jaw tightens, and I know he sees the flash of pain in my eyes before I can hide it.
"Fuck you," I say, but there's no real heat behind it.
"Is that an invitation?" He asked.
The words hang in the air between us. Both of us freeze. What the fuck did he just say? What the fuck did he just imply?
Hartford is staring at me, and I'm staring back, and suddenly we're not rivals. We're two men sitting too close at a hotel bar, and the air between us is crackling with something dangerous.
He turns to face me fully, and now we're way too close. Close enough that I can smell his cologne, expensive, sophisticated, and everything I'm not. Close enough to see that his eyes aren't just blue, they're blue with flecks of gray. Close enough to notice the way his pupils dilate as he looks at me.
"You don't want this," I say quietly, but I don't move away.
"Don't I?" His voice is rough, and uncertain. "Because I've been thinking about it all night."
My heart is pounding so hard I'm sure he can hear it. "Thinking about what?"
"You. Me. This thing that's been building between us."
"We hate each other," I remind him, and remind myself.
"Yeah," he agrees. "We do."
But neither of us moves. Neither of us looks away. The air between us is electric, dangerous, wrong, and impossible.
We hate each other, that's the natural order of things. I gave him a concussion four years ago. He's been trying to destroy my career ever since, and we're enemies, but right now, looking at Jamie Hartford's mouth, watching the way his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, all I can think about is what it would feel like to kiss him.
What it would feel like to have him, to take something for myself instead of sacrificing everything for everyone else.
"This is insane," I mutter.
"Completely insane," he agrees.
I don't know who moves first. Maybe we both do, but suddenly we're kissing hard, desperate, and angry. His hand fists in my shirt, yanking me closer. My hand tangles in his perfect hair, messing it up, and he tastes like whiskey and bad decisions.
We break apart, both breathing hard, both staring at each other like we can't believe what just happened.
"My room," Jamie manages, his voice wrecked. "Now."
Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to say no. To walk away, and to not cross this line that we can never uncross but I'm tired of being rational, tired of sacrificing, and too tired of everything hurting.
"Yeah," I say. "Okay."