The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

A kid named Logan needed his ankle wrapped. I showed him how to do it.

I could buy a boat, write I quit this goddamn circus on the back of a bar napkin, and spend my days drinking beer while fish nibbled at the end of my line.

Lawson, in particular, found Brody absolutely delightful.

I wanted to say hell yes and have you ever been to Key West and grab your swim trunks, let’s hit the road, I’m going to buy a boat and name it Blue Eyes after you.

Lawson volunteered to partner with Brody.

we came together like a kaleidoscope forming shimmering fractals out of piles of nothing. Every time you looked at us, we were different.

Lawson, a ghost when I’d first met him, had gained fifteen pounds and rediscovered his inner teddy bear. I’m a traditionalist: I like my goalies chubby, and Lawson was a beaut. He was also, once the nightmares melted away, a tenderhearted softie with a belly laugh that filled up the corners of the dressing room.

Of the rookies, no one was louder or brighter or more vivid than Brody.

I could cry, this second read through is rough

Brody and Lawson had gone pedal-to-the-metal into a Bonnie and Clyde, ride-or-die friendship.

with Lawson

Good god how did I not notice this the first time, it’s constant 😂🥰

Brody picked that moment to holler, “Dad! Watch this!” He waited until everyone, the entire damn rink, had turned to him before powerhousing a one-timer from the point that sank perfectly into the net.

Brody is precious

Lawson shot out of his net, crashed into our group hug, and grabbed anyone he could reach while he shouted Brody’s name.

sticky

Brody flopped in the middle, leaning on Lawson with his goal puck in his hands, rereading the tape and my words scrawled around the edge. “This is the best night of my life,” he whispered.

Shea woke slowly. Always the same way, on planes, in hotels, or napping before practice. I’d watched him pull himself awake so many times in so many places. It shouldn’t be different to see it happen face-to-face, but it was. It was because he’d never opened his eyes and seen me before. His smile grew gently as his ocean blues zeroed in. If he was shocked to wake up in my arms and on my couch, he wasn’t showing it. In fact, he looked happy. No, more than happy. I’m not sure I had a word for it, but it looked like he’d been waiting for this, maybe anticipating it like a dream. Like Christmas morning arriving with all its wonder.

let’s do this.

Shaw and Burke 😭

Brody looked up from where he was fidgeting with the joystick on his controller and shot me a fragile smile. His eyes glittered, the deep brown muddled with complicated emotions. There was happiness there, but something else, too. Almost… relief, if I had to put a name to what I was seeing. Like something I had done just now meant more to Brody than me coming out to the team, or revealing our relationship. Kissing Shea out in the open, showing off how happy we were, or how gone I was for Shea, meant something different to Brody.

I’m so happy I got Brody’s perspective on this moment FUCK 😭😭😭😭😭😭 “But… Morgan was still the captain, you know? So when Shea said he and Morgan were together, it sent me right back to all that stuff, before. ‘Cause Coates was the captain, and…” He shoved the tree bark into the sand and started to bury it. “I just thought the worst, and it was all coming back, and I was remembering how bad everything had been.” … “And after Shea totally cheated and helped Morgan win, and then Morgan laid one on him, in front of all of us? That was it. That was all it took. All my fears went pop. Because they were so obviously happy, and so obviously in love” … “They weren’t a secret. They didn’t want to be a secret. What they had wasn’t shameful. And that mattered a lot to me, because that’s all Coates wanted me to feel: ashamed. Hiding. His biggest weapon against me was telling everyone what had happened.”

Somewhere in Key West, there was a boat bobbing on the waves, soaked in sunshine, and I wasn’t on it. Thank fucking God.

The trust they put in me, to silence all alerts and tags and turn off the news because I said so, because they trusted me to take care of them,

“What is this made out of?” I held my hand up to the sunlight, tried to follow the whorls and spirals of the metal swimming around my finger. It looked like set liquid, like something molten had frozen and captured the rush and rumble of the waves. “I asked my mom to send me one of my skates from when we were the conference champs at Harvard. I took the blade and had a jeweler melt it down to make a ring.”

Lawson’s father came onscreen. He was a burly man, a larger version of Lawson, decked out in plaid and a trucker’s hat and a brand-new Outlaws scarf. He stared at the ground for a long time. “I know we don’t talk a lot,” he finally said. “But I’ve always been proud of you. I watch all your games, and I’m always cheering for you.”

trying to come out to his dad and how his dad told him to stop. Don’t be like that. You’ll never make it if you’re like that. Don’t you want to get out of here, and have a better life than this? Easy to find that bottle rocket fury and aim it toward Lawson’s dad. Harder to take a breath and remember that his dad was on that video, and he had told Lawson that he had always, always been proud of him. That he watched every game, and that he loved him, too. He showed up at that surprise skate, too, and he and Lawson had clung to each other on the ice after, when our families all tentatively picked their way out to hold onto our hands and give us big hugs and wave at the crowd as everyone just kept cheering

kaleidoscope,

His fingers uncurled from the edge of the couch and found mine. He squeezed, so tight and so hard I thought we’d fuse together. I held on as long as he needed,

IM SOBBING GOOD ‘BERTA BOY 😭😭😭

He’d written his notes—

Literally every book Tal writes in this universe I’ll thank him for keeping Brody alive to see it