I'd Do Anything

Max was looking around the stands wildly. This was normal for him. His teammates expected it.

“Bro. Relax.”

“She’s not here!”

“Dude, she’s always fucking here. Look, her and her boyfriend, right there.”

“Where?”

But the line changed and Max went out onto the ice. Finally, he caught sight of her. She smiled and gave him a thumbs up. But then turned back to her boyfriend. They were fighting. She had said something about them having plans for the night, and he didn’t want to go to the game. Probably because Trisha always came to Max’s games.

The next time Max looked up, they were gone.

Late that night, Max found her sitting on her old swing set in her backyard. There was a party that they were both supposed to be at. She was smoking, something that he never understood how she managed to keep from her parents. He sat on the swing next to hers.

“Woah. Hello cologne.” She teased halfheartedly.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine.” She smiled. It was forced. “Congrats on the win.”

“How would you know? You weren’t there.”

She rolled her big blue eyes. “You’re such a brat.”

“You waiting for him to pick you up in that clunker?”

“For your information, we broke up. And I’m actually still a little upset about it, seeing as it happened an hour ago.”

Max winced. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Asshole.”

He smiled. Typical Trisha. “Was it about me?” he asked.

“No.” she said with a sense of finality.

But they both knew she was lying.

He sighed and stood. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

“I don’t think I’m going.”

“Come on, be young for once in your life. Senior year of high school! Hey, I heard Rosetta’s older brother has some acid.”

In spite of herself, Trisha snorted. “Even if he did manage to get his hands on some acid, you know that neither of us would be taking it.”

“True. And tonight’s probably going to suck.” He got off his swing and held his hand out to her. “But it would be a lot better if my best friend was with me.”

~*~

Lars Eller’s girlfriend Annalise had gone to Vegas for the week. Her pool team was playing in a competition – playoffs, as the Old World Tavern Walkers called it. Somehow in her sister Olivia’s mind, despite the Habs being so close to their own playoffs, this meant that it was now Lars’ responsibility to drive her around the city. Especially since he had more or less moved in with them.

“Why can’t she take the metro?” Brendan Gallagher groaned from the backseat as they pulled into the parking lot of a rec center.

“You know, her sister asks that all the time.” Lars muttered.

Max watched a group of thirteen or so people spill out of the rec center. They carried hockey sticks and seemed exuberant, but didn’t seem to have any other type of gear.

“I didn’t know there was a rink here.” he said.

“There isn’t. Not that I know of.” Brendan frowned, leaning forward.

Lars found Olivia’s bright red hair and honked the horn twice. Olivia ran towards the car.

Max watched a woman lead a few other people over to a car, curly hair bounding in the cold air. Something about her walk, the way the sunlight made her dark hair lighter, reminded him of something.

One of the backdoors opened and Olivia threw herself into the car. “Lars. Boys. Thanks for coming to get me.”

“What were you doing out here?” Lars asked.

“Well, a bunch of people from Ann’s bar play street hockey here on Sundays, and – “

“You? Play hockey?” Brandon snorted.

While Annalise had been raised a Montreal fan, Olivia couldn’t care less. She managed to show some excitement when Lars won, but then returned to her calculus texts.

Olivia gave him a well-practiced glare. “No, I don’t. My new boss, however, does. She needed me to bring her something.”

“And you couldn’t get a ride with someone from here?” Lars asked.

“Well, I did call an hour ago. And by the time you showed up, they were done. Not my fault you’re so slow.”

“We were at practice. When your sister hears about how ungrateful – “

“Yeah, what’s she gonna do? Ground me? She can’t even claim me on her taxes.”

Max had to laugh. “Kids, be nice. If you don’t stop fighting this instant I will pull this car over!”

“You aren’t even driving, man.” Brendan said. “Besides, you’re not the one who has to sit back here with – “

“With who, exactly?” Olivia asked.

“A very lovely lady.”

~*~

It was a quiet night at the tavern, which could only mean that something was about to happen. In the short time that he had been hanging out here, Max had seen fights about anything from pool games to sci-fi series, soul trains that lasted the length of the bar, and people hurting themselves walking down the stairs to the bathroom on more than one occasion. And that was just on weekday nights.

Max studied Olivia sitting next to him, a heavy math text open in front of her. She wrote in steady print, stopping only to drink her beer.

“Seriously, why are you doing homework in a bar?”

“Helps me think.”

“Bullshit.” He leaned close. “You’re here to watch Gally aren’t you?”

Olivia rolled her eyes, carefully not looking over to where Gallagher and Eller played pool. Max knew something had gone down between the two youngsters, but no one seemed to know exactly what.

“If I wanted to do that, I’d just go to canadiens.com.” She said frostily. “If you must know, it’s really lonely at the apartment without Ann around.”

“Isn’t she always here anyway?”

“Fuck off and let me do my homework.”

“That’s homework? I thought that was fun for nerds like you.”

“Seriously Max, go play with someone else.”

Before he could reply, the door opened and a huge group of people spilled in. They all wore an assortment of hockey jerseys, some of various professional teams and some just plain practice jerseys.

“Squids win!” an older man with a huge mustache shouted. “Owls buy!”

The middle aged bartender rolled her eyes. “Like I can tell the difference.”

A few people stepped forward and started paying for pitchers of beer. Several people stopped and said hello to Olivia and Max.

“Hey, where’s Trisha?” Olivia asked.

“She’s coming in.” the man with the mustache grinned. He nudged Max. “Kid, you’re gonna love this. It’s a miracle we didn’t lose the thing on the pub crawl.”

“That’s where you’ve been all this time? I thought you had your fake awards ceremony.”

“That’s next weekend.”

“Hey, are you the ones who were playing hockey?” Max asked.

“Yup, got our own league going. Ah, there she is!”

The door flew open again and a woman in a huge Canadien’s jersey strode in, holding a fake Stanley cup above her head. It was made out or red solo cups, and built to scale.

The woman herself shocked Max more than the cup did. Her dark hair was curly, her eyes flashed like electricity. She stood all of five nothing but spoke like she was the queen of everything.

“All hail King Stanley!”

The bar roared with laughter.

“Two years ago she was the rookie of the year.” The old man said. “Been one of our top players since. Scrappy little thing. But absolutely top shelf girl.”

Max still hadn’t gotten over his initial shock. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

She came over and set the cup on the bar. “Hey, Olivia.”

“Hey.” Olivia muttered, burying her head back in her book.

Lars came over, Gally in tow, laughing. “Wow, that’s fantastic.”

“PJ made it.” she said, gesturing to the old man.

“To scale and everything.” He said proudly.

“Trisha?” Max finally asked.

She turned and finally saw him, and her smile faltered. “Max.”