Chapter 1
Russell “Chip” Cornish
The first thing Janne Rautio,defenseman for the Lehigh Valley Vortex, said to me was, “You praying, weirdo?”
Not praying, no. Analyzing out loud, yes. There’d been no clean outcome on the last play from the angle I’d been forced to take, and a new calculation had been running under my breath.
“Don’t need to pray when we’re winning.” That was my standard reply whenever thatparticularpraying chirp happened, and it happened a lot. I only used the winning part when we were in the lead.
“Fuck you,” Janne snarled.
We were inourbarn, and the Vortex was trailing by three. Their captain was out—upper body, week-to-week—and his absence on the ice showed in late decisions and long shifts. Their spacing was sloppy, wingers too high, and their center late on the faceoff. If we kept generating chances, we would carry it to a win—seventh in a row in an already amazing season that had us sitting on top of the table.
As Cap said in the pre-game speech, this could be our year.
Janne was a thorn in my side tonight, though, kept talking as if something he said was going to stick to me. Chirp after chirp of nonsensical words that I ignored.
“Your mom could do better minutes,” he said as he crowded me in the corner.
“My mom doesn’t play hockey.” I glanced at the clock as I pivoted, already reading the lane opening at our right side.
He said something else, but I was watching our center, Orly, push through the middle as their other D backed off too early, giving us a space they shouldn’t have. The puck kicked loose just ahead of their blue line, and I accelerated, shoulder to shoulder with Janne, both of us reaching. He tried to cut me off, but he was a half-step late, like most of their line that night. They were chasing instead of dictating, reacting instead of reading, and it showed in every small gap they left open.
I got a stick on it first, and we scrambled in the corner, but nothing came from that play either. My line, the third—centered by Orly and Taft on the left wing—was back on the bench.
Walker Hannan, our captain, leaned in as we sat down. “And?” he asked as if he already knew the answer and just wanted me to say it out loud.
“Their zone exits are down, center support is late, and wingers are cheating high. Entries against them are up. Shift length is stretching past fifty seconds on their second line. Stats are good, Cap.”
He smiled and glanced at the board. “We’ve got this.”
Next time I was over the boards, Janne was all over me again, frustrated.
“Wish they’d send out a real boy for me to play,” he snarked as we waited for the faceoff.
“That’s so cute.”
“I’m not being fucking cute, Robot.”
I guess Robot was better than the other R word people had thrown at me in the past. The ref was having words with Orly and the opposing center, who weren’t positioned right, which gave me time to finish my canned response.
“Autism isn’t a deficit. I don’t waste processing power on things that don’t matter. Like your chirps.” Then I backed into him, accidentally on purpose, angled his stick off mine, and took the inside lane, the puck hitting my stick just right. He hooked at my hands, subtle, but I felt it, enough to throw off the clean entry. I dumped the puck deep instead and chased hard, forcing their other D to turn. They both hesitated for a second as if neither was sure about who was taking it, and that was all it took at this level.
I hit the end boards at speed and absorbed the contact as Janne caught up and slammed me into the glass. Solid hit. Legal. I braced, dug, and kicked the puck loose behind my skates, keeping my balance while he tried to pin me there longer than he should. He was too close—pressure at my shoulder, his breath hot through the cage, sweat and tape and damp gear—and outside the rink that kind of proximity would have spiked everything, but on the ice, it resolved to contact, angle, force. That was the thing nobody understood about me and hockey. The noise was predictable noise. The contact was purposeful contact. Every collision had a reason, a direction, a consequence I could calculate in real time. Off the ice, the world came at me without structure. On it, the chaos had rules, and rules were something I could work with.
He huffed a laugh in my ear. “Bad luck, Robot.” I tightened my grip on my stick and shifted my weight half an inch to square up.
The puck cycled high then back down low. I peeled off the boards, finding space in the right circle with my stick down, ready. Cap threaded it through traffic, a clean lane opening for half a second because their coverage collapsed.
I dropped to one knee as the puck hit my stick, weight forward, the angle already there. The release was clean, fast.
I shot.
I scored.
The team didn’t make a big deal out of it. No jumping on me, no arms around my shoulders dragging me into a pile. They knew better than to crowd me, but they tapped my ass, gloves knocking once, twice, quick and solid. Taft was there first, a firm tap to my helmet, then Cap and the rest closed it down for a few seconds, noise and movement and heat.
I let them, and the huddle broke as quickly as it had formed. We peeled off, reset, and lined up again as if nothing had happened.
