Page 49 of Ash and his Dragon

I slammed my stick against the boards as Max disappeared beneath two teammates near the crease, the goal horn barely audible beneath the roar of the crowd.

Forty-one seconds into Game Three, Colorado led 1-0.

Dante leaned closer, his gaze following Max toward the celebration. “Think he's distracted?”

“Clearly devastated.”

Baelor snorted, and the crowd was still chanting Max's name when he skated past our bench for fist bumps on his way to his seat.

His eyes found mine for less than a second. Nobody watching would have noticed anything unusual about a captain looking toward one of his teammates after an opening-minute goal, but I noticed, along with the ridiculous part of my chest that tightened every time he looked at me that way.

“Nice pass,” I said when he got close enough to hear.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Nice of you to notice.”

“Hard to miss when they replay it six times.”

“Only six? Should've been eight.”

I laughed as he moved farther down the bench, and Dante gave me a sideways look.

“What?”

“I'm looking at my teammate. Apparently that's controversial now.”

“Stop.”

His mouth twitched, but the line change was already being called, and Baelor shoved my shoulder with his glove.

“Come on, Romeo.”

I nearly tripped over the boards. “Fuck you.”

Baelor was laughing too hard to answer.

Vegas tied it late in the first. Taz had already stopped nineteen shots by then, including a breakaway that should have been a goal by every known law of physics, but Vegas kept coming and eventually managed to force one through traffic.

We went into the second tied 1-1, and the game came back uglier.

Vegas had apparently decided that if they couldn't outskate us, they'd try to beat us into submission, which was an interesting strategy against a team containing several men who regarded violence as a perfectly legitimate form of communication.

Max took another hit along the boards, hard enough that I was halfway off the bench before I realized I wasn't due on the ice.

Dante caught the back of my jersey. “Unless you've been traded to the first line in the last thirty seconds, sit down.”

I dropped back onto the bench and watched Max climb to his feet. The Vegas player responsible gave him another shove, and even from thirty feet away I could practically hear the French running through Max's head. The referee got between them before he could express whatever opinion had just occurred to him, and a few seconds later, he skated toward us.

“You okay?” I asked as he came past.

Max gave me a look. “Câlisse, Ash, he hit me. He didn't shoot me.”

I couldn't help grinning. I had no idea what câlisse meant but his French always got stronger when he was pissed, although I was beginning to suspect there were different levels. Mon Dieu meant mild irritation, while câlisse meant someone should probably reconsider their immediate choices.

I hadn't yet discovered what came after that, and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to.

“Good to know.”

Kinkaid shouted for our line before Max could answer, and Baelor hit the ice first with Dante behind him and me following.