“Can I have some chocolate cake?” Cookie asks.
“No!” we both shout at him.
Third period’snot much better. Actually, scratch that—third period’s an epic disaster and will go down in NHL history as such.
Zayne’s passed out on the floor.
“You should have just let the old woman give him cocaine,” Jonesy tells me as we line up for face-off.
I don’t even want to look up at the scoreboard to see how badly we’re losing.
One goal. Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas—please, just one goal. One. I don’t need to win. I just need a goal. Not a Christmas miracle, just a Christmas pat on the back.
The Direwolves rookie in front of me has his game face on. I lean in, set my legs for the face-off just like I used to do when I pretended to be Murphy’s Law way back in Juniors.
I win the face-off. The puck shoots to Carlsson, who’s ready. He backhand passes it to the Finn, who’stherethen out in front, and I’m waiting, collecting the puck effortlessly on my skate.
It’s suddenly like I haven’t been playing the last hour. There are rockets on my skates as I head to the goal. I can hear Ellie cheering. The crowd roars. I can taste it—my first NHL goal. I crossover, sweep the puck, and—
The goalie comes out and poke checks me, and I go sprawling, tumbling and colliding, dazed, into the net, my back slamming into the pole.
Right.
Just because the Direwolves took out their star forwards doesn’t mean they’re letting us win. They left their iron curtain of a Czech goalie in the net.
He yells at me in guttural Eastern European language while I try to untangle myself so I can help my team so the Direwolves won’t—
“GOAL!”
“Dammit.Fuck.” I smash my stick on the net then dance back before the goalie can go after me.
“Fletcher.” Ellie’s calling me back. I ignore her.
“Dude,” Jovi tells me as I skate back to the red line. “You’re not on my line.”
“There are no lines,” I snap at him, taking my spot at center ice. “She’s just randomly pulling names out of a hat. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“Fletcher Sullivan.” She’s using that teacher voice. Everything in me is screaming to obey, to go back to the box like a good little boy.
“I want my goal.” Snarling, I set my legs for the face-off.
The ref seems confused then raises the puck.
“Fletcher,” Ellie is yelling, “you will not be getting a sticker today.”
“Ooh!” Eddie snickers to the right of me. “Fletcher’s not getting his dick sucked after this.”
“Your coach is sucking your dick?” the Direwolves rookie yelps, half standing up just as I turn to lay into Eddie—
Which is bad because I clip the Direwolves rookie in the face with my stick as I whip around to attack my defenseman.
The baby-faced rookie stumbles back, bleeding, red dripping onto his white uniform.
“Ah, shit, kid, I’m real—”
The wind and all my ribs are knocked out of me as a huge Direwolves D-man clears like twenty feet of ice in half a second and launches into me.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd chants as the huge Midwesterner pummels me.
