COMPLETED. A university student. A professional hockey player. They've proved they can be friends. Can they be more?
Although they're both in their early twenties and living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, their lives couldn't be more different. Cami...
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I really wanted to be alone right now. Was that too much to ask?
I was never the most social guy in the room. Hell, there were probably millions of guys in both Pasadena and Winnipeg that could carry a conversation a fuck-ton better than I could. So, feeling this way wasn't really out of the ordinary for me.
But this situation, the one I was in in that moment, couldn't be more extraordinary.
It took a lot to rattle me, so it didn't happen often. Maybe at the draft, when for weeks and months you've been hearing from every coach, agent, and hockey TV personality that you'd be drafted first overall, yet your name hasn't been called on the big stage before anyone else's quite just yet.
Even then, though, I don't think the situation compares. Bar none, this was the closest I've ever been to finally making it, to doing the thing I wanted to do all along.
It wasn't just a want to be alone. It had become a need.
Because they just never fucking stopped talking.
"It's you, it's you! It's gonna be you!" Michael Dal Corso said.
He was sitting on the backrest of the couch, which gave him convenient access to my shoulders. For a reason I sure as hell didn't know, Mikey took it upon himself to knead his knuckles into my rotator cuff.
Yeah. That wasn't welcomed. I didn't have the first clue in how to respond to his tire pumping. It was a fine line between sound appreciative and arrogant.
At least right now the other two were finally shutting their mouths. David Spooner was hunched over on the loveseat, eyes glued to his phone and Alex Martin was standing near the TV with his arms crossed behind his head.
"Man, Taylor, you should see Twitter. It's blowing up right now!" David said.
So much for the quiet.
The hockey show on SportsCast was on a commercial break, which meant that there were at least a few more opinions I didn't have to deal with. Why was I even watching it to begin with? I guess like my fellow AHL teammates that were in my room with me, I wanted to be kept in the loop. We had been in Saint Paul the night before for an away game and some of us were watching the game on our devices on the short flight back home.
I wasn't one of those people. It was uncharacteristic of me to miss a Storm game but nights when I played were the exception. I preferred to put my headphones on, crank some music and reflect on my performance. It hadn't been a bad one. I tallied two goals and an assist, but I also took a stupid penalty in the third period, which St. Paul scored on, bringing them to within one. Taking penalties wasn't part of my game; I wanted to win games for my team, not lose them. We did end up keeping the lead, but still.
It wasn't until David, who was sitting in the seat behind me, nudged my shoulder that I rejoined reality.
"You're going to want to see this," was all he said.
