Deke The Halls

The Christmas tree behind me had been decorated by someone in marketing who hated joy.

Every ornament was Riptide teal and stamped with our logo, a cartoon wave with teeth. A plush goalie mask hung from every third branch. Somebody had hidden a speaker in the trunk, and it played a jazz cover of “Jingle Bell Rock” on a loop so short that I’d heard the saxophone solo nine times while I waited.

“Barker.” Tasha from media relations pointed her clipboard at me. “You’re up. Smile.”

“I am smiling.”

“You’re doing the thing with your eyebrows.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where reporters think you’re going to bite them.”

I sat on the stool in front of the tree and tried to put my eyebrows somewhere neutral.

December media day meant the same eight questions for every guy on the roster, asked by reporters who’d been told to keep it festive. The whole thing streamed live on the Riptide app, which a few hundred people watched, most of them moms. Sorensen had answered every one of his questions with a fact about reindeer. Lacasse had finished in five minutes and left to pick his daughter up from ballet. Across the room, behind the cameras, the rest of the team had laid siege to the catering table. Somebody had already knocked over a tray of mini quiches.

The reporter in front of me was Phoebe Pugh from Channel 9. She had a teal phone case with a sticker on the back: a cartoon puck inside a heart, with a B on one side and an M on the other.

I knew what it meant. Sorensen had shown me two seasons ago, holding his phone so close to my face that I could see my own reflection in it.

“It’s a ship,” he’d said. “You and Mac. Barkintosh.”

“I’m not going to be in fan fiction.”

“Brother. You’ve been in fan fiction since October.”

Phoebe smiled at me as if she’d been waiting all year. “Griff! Okay. Easy ones. Favourite Christmas movie?”

"Die Hard."

“Classic. Best gift you ever got?”

I took too long. She waited. The saxophone started up again.

“Skates,” I said. “From my coach, when I was thirteen.”

“Aw.” She pressed a hand flat to her chest. “And what are you doing for Christmas this year?”

The honest answer was Golden Dragon. Number three on my speed dial. Hot and sour soup, General Tso’s, and a free spring roll because the owner’s son had my jersey. I’d eat it at the kitchen counter with the TV on, since my condo was quiet enough that I could hear the fridge cycle.

That had been last Christmas. The one before had been the same, except I’d watched a Hallmark movie all the way to the end and then sat in the dark, furious about it.

“Low-key,” I said.

“Going home to see family?”

“No.”

Her smile held a second too long. Then she leaned in, and her voice dropped into a register I’d only ever heard from people about to ask a question they’d been saving for years.

“Anyone special?”

Across the room, Colin McIntosh threw his head back and laughed.

He was wearing a reindeer sweater with a nose that lit up. It blinked red, out of time with the music. Sorensen was explaining something to him with both hands, and Colin had a mini quiche in each fist and his hair in his eyes, and he was laughing loud enough to turn two camera operators around.

He was the loudest thing in every building he walked into. I’d played beside him for two seasons and had never once heard him come into a room quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m spending Christmas with him.”

I tipped my head toward the catering table.

Phoebe turned around. She looked at Colin for a long moment. Then she turned back to me, and her face lit up with an expression I’d only ever seen on fans in the front row during overtime.

“With... Colin?”

My brain had left my body. It was somewhere over the Atlantic and still climbing.

“Yes.”

“Are you two together?”

There was a correct answer to that question. The correct answer was no, sorry, I meant the team, we’re all doing a thing, ha ha.

“We’ve been keeping it private,” I said.

Behind the camera, Tasha’s clipboard hit the floor.

Phoebe had gone very still. “Since when?”

Stop talking.

“Summer.” I heard myself say it, and I kept going. “It’s not that new. We didn’t want it to be a distraction for the room.” I sounded like a press release written by a hostage. “He’s taking me home to Scotland.”

I didn’t even know if Colin went home for Christmas. I knew he was from Scotland because everyone knew he was from Scotland. He told the trainers that Raleigh in January was “roasting.”

Phoebe’s hand was trembling around the microphone. “Griff, this is—thank you. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s all I’ve got.”

I stood up so fast that I clipped a branch, and one of the plush goalie masks dropped onto the stool behind me.

“Barker,” Tasha hissed. “Barker. What was—”

I walked.

The catering table was between me and the door. Colin saw me coming and lit up, which he did for everyone. He did it for the mailman, the Zamboni driver, and the other team’s equipment managers.

“Barker! Did you know reindeer can see ultraviolet light? Marty’s been going for twenty minutes. I’m learning so much against my will.”

“Colin.”

“Have a quiche.”

“I need to—”

“McIntosh.” Tasha’s assistant had appeared at his elbow with a sponsor lanyard and a Santa hat. “Car dealership photo, then you’re on in the main room. Let’s go.”

Colin let himself be steered away. He walked backwards for a few steps so he could keep talking to me, pointing a quiche in my direction. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate. Eat something.”

Then he was gone through a side door, nose blinking.

I could have followed him. I could have found Chloe Pruitt, who ran PR and drank cold brew like an IV drip, and told her I’d just lied on a livestream to a reporter with a Barkintosh sticker on her phone. I could have called my agent.

Instead I went into the bathroom and washed my hands three times.

The door banged open behind me. Sorensen came in still wearing the reindeer antlers marketing had made him put on, and went straight to a urinal.

“Did Phoebe get you?” he called over his shoulder. “She asked me if I had a special someone. I told her about my mom.”

I turned the tap off. “Marty.”

“Yeah?”

I could tell him. Marty was the only person on the team who would think this was better than Colin would. He’d tell me how to fix it, or he’d tell the whole bus, probably both, in that order.

“Nothing,” I said.

He zipped up and came to the sink beside me, squinting at me in the mirror. “You look weird. Weirder than usual.”

“Thanks.”

“Like, haunted.” He shook the water off his hands and flicked it at me. “Eat a quiche, bud.”

He left. The door swung shut and the jazz from the media room came through the wall, muffled, the saxophone starting over.

My face in the mirror looked normal, which felt like a betrayal. The scar over my eyebrow was the same. The bump in my nose from the Boston game was the same. Nothing about it suggested I had just told the internet I was sleeping with my defenceman.

I took out my phone and opened my texts with Colin. The last message was from October. It was a photo of a raccoon in the arena loading dock, with the caption ur cousin.

I typed: hey so I need to tell you something before your presser.

I deleted it.

I typed: I told channel 9 we’re dating. don’t freak out.

I deleted that too, because Colin didn’t freak out. Colin had once taken a puck to the mouth and skated to the bench grinning with blood on his teeth. He’d find this funny. He’d find it so funny that he’d tell everyone, and then I’d have to die.

The livestream had a few hundred viewers. Phoebe’s real segment wouldn’t air until six. I had time. Colin would do his slot, he’d get asked about the power play and his favourite Christmas cookie, and then I’d find him in the parking garage and explain. He’d laugh, and we’d go to Chloe together and fix it.

I dried my hands on a paper towel and then again on my jeans.

The hallway outside the main media room had a monitor bolted to the wall so staff could watch the feed without crowding the doorway. When I got there, two interns were standing in front of it eating sugar cookies. They saw me and scattered.

On the screen, Colin was settling into the chair. The Santa hat sat crooked over one ear. His sweater nose blinked on and off.

The first question came from off camera, a guy from the News & Observer asking about the penalty kill. Colin gave a real answer, mostly with his hands. Then a woman from a podcast asked about his favourite Christmas food, and he said, “Clootie dumpling,” and spent forty seconds explaining it to a room that clearly didn’t believe him.

Then Phoebe Pugh raised her hand.

I put my back against the wall.

“Colin. How are you feeling about your first Christmas together?”

Colin blinked at her.

“Whose first Christmas?”

“Yours,” Phoebe said. She was glowing. “With Griff.”

Nobody in the room moved. On the monitor, even the boom mic hung perfectly still.

Colin turned his head toward the back wall, slowly enough that I could count the blinks of his sweater nose.

The camera followed him. Chloe Pruitt was standing against the wall by the door with her cold brew halfway to her mouth. Her face had gone the same colour as the printer paper in her other hand.

Colin looked at her for a long time. Then he looked back at Phoebe.

“Our what?”

The phone in my hand started to vibrate.

It buzzed once, then three times in a row, and then it didn’t stop. I stood in the hallway holding it while my lock screen filled with names I hadn’t heard from in months, and on the monitor above me, Colin McIntosh sat in a Santa hat with his nose blinking and his mouth open.