God, I missed that sound.
Grady, Big Ed, Coop, and I huddle around Wes, slapping his helmet, whooping, and hollering as the crowd cheers.
Breaking our huddle and skating back to the bench, Big Ed tugs on my sweater. “You know he’s going to play like a rat now.” He nods over to Alex, getting chewed out by his coach on his bench.
As much as I’d love for things to keep going the way they are, I know Alex well enough to be certain he hasn’t started poking and prodding yet.
Every team has a guy like him, and I’m usually on the raw end of their ire, but Alex is in a league of his own. He’ll try to keep up at first, but when it’s clear he can’t compete with me skill-wise well, he goes to Plan B. Cheap hits and remarks to get under my skin are his calling card.
I’m used to it.
But I’m not immune.
The first period draws to a close with us up one to nothing.
In the locker room, Coach reinforces what Big Ed said on the ice and reminds me about the league’s warning before the game. Over the past few years, they’ve suspended me enough that any suspension now will be lengthy.
Four minutes into the second period, I set myself up by the net. Alex hip-checks me. “Saw Veronica last night,” he says.
Like I give a fuck.
“Ate her out. Poor thing was desperate for a man.”
“That doesn’t explain why she was with you,” I mumble.
A stick cracks against my back. A cross-check. It’s a move that should earn Alex two minutes in the penalty box with a minor. But, like always, the refs miss whatever he does, and he gets away with it.
I establish myself further out in the zone, distancing us. Grady passes me the puck.
I deke Alex out. It also draws the goalie off-balance to his left, and I use this, sending the puck into the high-right side of the net. It sneaks in under the cross-bar. Fuck, yes. The foghorn sounds. The crowd erupts with cheers.
Two-nothing.
Gliding by Alex, I give him a little wink. My line jumps on me.
“Hell of a pass, Grady.” I smack his helmet. That goal is as much his point as it is mine.
Skating back to the bench, he puts his glove out for a fist bump. “I saw the cross-check. Let me take care of the prick, okay?”
I shake my head, sitting down. “Nah, I can handle him.”
“Jack, this isn’t up for discussion.” Grady’s voice drops several octaves, and his stare narrows on me behind his visor. “Do not fucking touch him. This isn’t the time. We need you.”
I’m tempted to roll my eyes, but ultimately, I relent, banging the head of my stick on the ground a few times and sliding down the bench during another line shift. “Okay. Fine. Fine. I’ll let it go.”
I’m confident I can manage Alex, but I also don’t feel like arguing with everyone on opening day.
And for the rest of the second period, I let it go, finding satisfaction in dominating Alex enough that I ignore his nettling. Thankfully, he focuses his little prods and pricks around Veronica. A subject I find easy to turn to white noise.
I slam two more goals into the net before the second period ends. Hats fly to the ice at the sound of the third foghorn, and the game is paused to clean them up.
The rush of the game lifts me even higher. I’ve scored hat tricks before, but never before the third period’s started.
On our last shift of the period, Grady lays Alex out on a play. It doesn’t satisfy my thirst for revenge like I was hoping and I end up retreating to the locker room with my team up a somber four to nothing.
The team follows filling the locker room with a chorus of “fuck yeahs” as they take their sweaters and pads off for intermission. Coach tells us to keep it up. Big Ed encourages us to keep playing like a team. And they both level a warning glance in my direction when they remind the team that New York might go for heads rather than pucks in their desperation.
Let them come for me. I’m ready for the fight. Itching for it. But I know that’s not what they want to hear, so I nod and say, “I’ve got it. I’ll keep my head up and stay out of their way.”
