I slide him a look. “Always.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth. Beck sees my hardened expression and says nothing. Usually, my co-captain is the first to give sometimes-unwanted advice, but now? Nothing.
Warmups are fine. We run our drills separately, no contact, no puck battles, nothing that requires coordination. Before we head out for the opening faceoff, one of the assistant coaches pulls us both asideand runs through the basic hand signals Cross uses for line changes and position calls. Standard stuff that most of the team already knows. Konstantin listens with his arms crossed, and nods once when it's done.
Then he fidgets with his ear. Shit. I’m a prick. I know about his cochlear implant thingie, but I think it’s just sinking in right now.
Standing on the ice with fifty thousand watts of arena lighting bouncing off the glass, I realize that on-ice communication between any member of the team and Konstantin is going to be entirely visual. And I’m right beside him. Is that why Coach Cross put us together?
There’s no calling for the puck. No shouting positioning adjustments mid-play. Just eye contact, body language, and whatever we've managed to build in two weeks of cross-training that we both hated.
Shit. I raise my eyebrows at Konstantin and mouth, “You good?”
His nod is brusque, but it’s better than nothing. Then the puck drops and all of that goes out the window immediately.
The problem is that we're both centers. Two men who have spent their entire careers owning the slot, controlling the puck, making the play. Cross has designated me the center and Konstantin left wing, but neither of our bodies got the memo. The first time he drifts into my space, I compensate, and we nearly collide at full speed. The second time, I compensate wrong, and we both miss a clean shot at the net. The third time our instincts have us arriving at the samespot, at the same moment. We knock an opposing defender flat, entirely by accident.
The ref doesn't care that it was an accident.
Konstantin and I sit in the box together for two minutes and don't speak. He's got his elbows on his knees and his eyes on the ice, breathing through whatever he's feeling with the contained energy of a man who is very good at not showing it. Me, though? I’m vibrating with anger.
"That was your fault," I say.
He turns to look at me, and something in his expression says he’s read my lips just fine and is choosing his response carefully. "Maybe."
I glare at him. "Definitely."
He looks at me for a long moment. "Are we going to have a problem?" he asks. “Because I didn’t decide who plays where. That was all Cross.”
“I know.” I suck in a deep breath. I’m a captain, a leader. It’s tough to push career worries aside, but I’ll do it because it’s my job. Besides, my fears aren’t helping the situation any. We’re getting our asses kicked. “Look. I don’t know you, but you’re obviously a great player. We have to work together, though.”
“Agreed.” Then he looks back at the ice, his expression unreadable. I still can't tell if he's agreeing or humoring me. I stillhatethat I can't tell.
We get out of the box and do it again twenty minutes later. Different play, same problem. We both want the puck, we both move to take it, we both crash into an opposing player and go down hard.
Fuuuuuuuck.
This time I catch Mollie through the glass as they march us back to the box. The small frown she's aiming at me is the specific one she reserves for when I'm doing something she finds both impressive and deeply stupid.
Goddammit. I rap my stick against the box three times. I’ve got to play better. This is kiddie league shit.
The second two minutes in the box are quieter than the first. At least it seems that way until Konstantin taps my arm once, sharp. When I look at him, he jerks his chin toward the left boards where Vancouver has set up a cycling play. He wants to know who's taking it when we get out.
I hold up two fingers, point at him, then point at the boards. He nods.
That's it. That's the whole conversation. It's the first thing we've agreed on all night.
Beck scores on the power play we created by being idiots. He skates past the box and doesn't look at us, but I can see him working not to smile. I hate him a little for it.
The third period is better. Not good, but better. Something shifts around the twelve-minute mark, some unconscious calibration that happens when two stubborn people have been forced into working together for long enough.
Konstantin stops drifting into my space, I stop overcompensating, and we both start using our eyes the way we should have been using them from the drop. A head tilt means ‘I'm going to the net.’ An open palm down means ‘hold.’ We don't have a system, and wedidn't discuss it. Somehow, it's working anyway, the puck moving between us with the snap.
Cross stops pacing behind the bench, at least.
We lose the game 3-2, but at least we were clicking in the final period. That’s more than I hoped.
Afterward, Beck picks up his bag and heads for the showers. I sit on the bench for another minute with my phone face down, thinking about the line combinations on the whiteboard this afternoon and what Cross said and what he didn't say. What am I missing here?
