Face-Off

He shook hands with everybody, flirted with the shaving cream girl a little bit more, and finally he and Les were free. As they hit the pavement both pulled out similar black shades and slipped them on against the glare of an endlessly sunny L.A. day. “Two days to film a thirty-second commercial?” he complained, as though he’d never done one before.

“I should make your hourly wage,” Les said.

“It was boring.”

Les patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I know it’s tough now that you’ve had to hang up your skates. And stuff.” A delicate silence hung in the air, but they both knew that and stuff referred to his ex making a fool of him in public. “You have to do something with your time,” he reminded him.

And that was the problem.

He’d have countered with some smart-assed remark except that his new smart phone rang. And call display told him it was somebody he actually wanted to talk to. Unlike Les, on the subject of what he was going to do with his life.

“I was just thinking about Fred,” he said into the phone, waving goodbye to his agent as he did so.

Greg Olsen, his oldest friend in the world laughed. “He was the greatest dog. Except that he ran off with all our baseballs.”

Jarrad adjusted his shades against the neverending sunshine of L.A. He still missed real winters and, amazingly enough, he even missed the Vancouver rain. “So, what’s up? How’s cop business?”

Greg ignored the question. “I saw eChat Canada last night.”

“Since when do you watch entertainment porn?”

“Since your ex is making a fool of you with some seven-foot-tall ball jockey. She flashed a big engagement rock on TV.”

It wasn’t sadness or grief that made his teeth clench on his expensive dental work, it was the humiliation of being reminded he’d been that stupid. Dumb enough to fall for the face and body that were as fake as the nice-girl routine. “Don’t worry about it. I’m over her. And you never liked her.”

“Dude, nobody liked her.”

“Yeah, call it my L.A. phase, hang around movie stars, marry a swimsuit model, get a house with a pool, start—”

“I’m glad you said that,” his oldest friend interrupted. “L.A. was a phase. It’s not you.”

Even as he accepted that his friend was right, he wondered if he even knew what he was anymore. Or where he belonged.

“I need you to come home.”

“What are you talking about? Is somebody sick? In trouble?”

“No. But here’s the thing. I need you, man.”

“What, you’re gay now?”

“Funny. No. It’s the big league game.”

“Big league” only meant one thing to Jarrad. NHL. From which he was forever barred. He shook his head. His thinking was hardly ever muddled anymore. Mostly, the only effect of the career-ending hit he’d taken was that he’d lost his peripheral vision. He wasn’t Big J anymore. He was an unemployed thirty-five-year-old man who had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life apart from shaving in public on camera. “Big league?”

“The World Police and Firefighter Games hockey championship,” Greg said in a “duh” tone, as though there could be no other league of any importance.

“Right. Sure. Ah, if you want a ringer, I can’t play hockey anymore. You know that.”

“You can’t catch crooks or fight fires, either. I don’t want you on the team.”

“Then what do you want?”

Jarrad beeped open the doors of his overpriced luxury sports car.

“We’re the worst team in the league. It’s humiliating. We have this big rivalry going with Portland and what we need is a coach. They told me I was crazy to try, but me and the boys, well, we want you to coach us.”

Jarrad damned near dropped his fancy new phone. He’d thought shooting shaving cream commercials was as low as he was going to fall. But coaching a bunch of cops and firefighters for an amateur hockey league?

“I don’t know how to coach,” he said, playing for time.

“Sure you do. You can play, can’t you? So practice your coaching skills on us. We’re not paying you, so we can’t complain.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty busy.”

“No, you’re not. You’re sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.”

He could argue the point, but Greg wouldn’t be fooled.

“I need to think about it.”

“Come home, do a good thing. Get your life back.”

“I can’t.”

“Think about it.”

“I’m heading out into traffic,” he lied. “Gotta go.” And he flipped shut the phone. Then he got slowly into the car, let the hum of the engine and the air-conditioning system—which constantly adjusted itself to his preferred temperature—soothe him.

As if he’d go home to his rain-soaked town and coach a bunch of amateurs. Home. He wasn’t sure if it was the images of Fred or the call from Greg, but suddenly he felt a twinge of homesickness. Which was weird. He used to go back a lot when his dad was alive, but Art McBride had died a couple of years back from a sudden heart attack. Shortly after that, his mom had moved to Vancouver Island. A nurse, she’d taken a demanding hospital position, which all the family understood was her way of dealing with the grief and loneliness.

Vancouver in February was cold, rainy and dreary, he reminded himself as the sun beat against his expensive shades and the engine purred obediently beneath him.

He headed out the coast road to his Malibu home. He’d grab a swim, call up a nice woman and go get some dinner. Enjoy the riches life had so generously given him. So he couldn’t play hockey anymore. Big deal. He’d figure out something to do with the time hanging heavy on his hands.

Sam, his younger sister by three years, was busy with her law practice. Even though she bugged him all the time to leave L.A. and move back home, she had a full life. It wasn’t as if she needed him.

And Taylor, the youngest McBride, was too busy trying to take the McBride spot in the NHL to have much time for his older, washed-up brother.

Be great to see them, though. Maybe he’d fly up for a quick weekend. See the family and a few old friends. Maybe when the weather was better.

But as his house came into view, he realized that his old buddy, Greg, wasn’t the only one who wondered how he was doing now that his ex-wife was engaged to a new victim.

Paparazzi clogged the gated entrance to his home like rats packing a sewer.

He swore under his breath. Didn’t stop to think. He swung the car around in a tight U and sped away from his own house cursing aloud.

A couple of miles down the road, he pulled over. Even in the perfectly controlled air-conditioning he was sweating. He knew from experience that for the few days he and his ex and her new guy were the love triangle du jour, he’d get no peace.