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Dane’s walking toward me. Not even turning my music off, I just shake my head at him. I’m not dealing with any of his shit tonight. Nervous energy courses through me, and I take a few deep breaths, feeling like a caged beast.
I just want this night to be over. I’m not even going to enjoy it. But it has to be done, and I’m ready.
My hand finds my mom’s initials on my stick as we gather together as a team in the locker room right before game time. I usually give a pregame talk, and since we’ve won our last six games in a row, it should be an easy win. I don’t know what to say tonight, though.
Pike seems to know.
“Guys, this one’s for our captain,” he says. “We all know why.” There are nods and hands on my shoulders. “Don’t let up. Play hard tonight and leave it all on the ice. Let’s go.”
My blood runs hot as we leave the locker room. It’s time to tie this loose end up.
Coach surprises me when he leans in on the way to the tunnel and says, “I’ve got bail money. Do what you need to do, son.”
My team has my back, which only reinforces my resolve. If I get ejected from the game, it won’t be good for our winning streak. But some things are more important than winning.
The Tampa crowd is obnoxious; hecklers lay into me from the moment my skate blades touch the ice.
“Are you shaking yet, Hagen?” a man in the front row screams.
“Hey, I fucked your fiancée, too!” another voice shouts.
I drown it all out, my gaze on Hunter, who seems to be avoiding looking at me. During the face-off, our eyes meet, but I can’t read his expression.
My focus is split tonight—I’m not just doing my part to score goals, I’m also keeping an eye on Hunter, waiting for my opening. As soon as I see one, I start skating over to him as hard as I can. I only make it halfway, and then someone knocks me to the ice.
“Sorry, dude,” Hunter’s teammate Carl McCoy says, glaring down at me. “I slipped.”
It was a blatant and unwarranted hit, but the refs missed it. The crowd loves it, and I sense that this game is going to get ugly.
As soon as play starts again, Pax flattens McCoy. McCoy is too dazed to even get up and Pax heads to the penalty box, grinning at the heckler yelling about what he did to Pax’s mother last night.
We’re winning 3–2. Penalty after penalty and power play after power play. There are a couple guys on Tampa that I consider friends off the ice, but tonight is a battle, and there are no pleasant words exchanged between us.
I’m not letting our streak end with this game. However ugly it gets, we have to pull this one off.
A Tampa player crashes into Pike and it takes Pike a while to get up. I skate over, praying we didn’t just lose our starting goalie.
“You good?” I ask him.
“Never better.” He’s panting, but also smiling.
“Let’s get this—”
I’m cut off by the roar of the crowd. Turning, I see Hunter Paul scowling up at me from the ice.
“Fucking asshole,” Dane yells at Hunter, standing over him. “My fucking grandma has bigger balls than you!”
Both of them get five-minute penalties, the crowd yelling and stomping with approval. I’m still confused, having missed whatever happened, when we change lines.
“What the hell?” I ask Alexei when we’re back on the bench beside each other.
He squeezes some water from his bottle into his mouth, catches his breath and then looks at me.
“Hunter Paul was about to take you down from behind,” he says. “Dane leveled him.”
“Seriously?”
I lean forward and look over at Dane, who’s looking cool as a cucumber in the penalty box. He’s the last guy on the team I would have expected to watch out for me.
“He’s not a bad guy,” Alexei says. “He’s just got some shit going on in his life.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He’s really private so don’t say anything.” Alexei cranes his neck and then grins. “Good, Hunter got a misconduct. Fuck that guy.”
With Hunter gone, we find our focus and pull out a 4–2 win. The mood is light as we celebrate on the ice at the end of the game.
“That’s seven!” Pike says, pointing at me. “Enjoy your nut hair while you can, my man!”
I try to thank Dane when we’re back in the locker room, after everyone has showered and things have settled.
“Hey,” I say, catching him alone. “I appreciate what you did.”
“It wasn’t anything,” he says with a shrug.
“It was to me.”
He just nods and walks off, and I can’t help wondering what Alexei was talking about. Maybe Dane’s just a prickly asshole, and he doesn’t have it out for me at all. If he’s got something going on in his life, I want to help if I can. But I don’t want to force my way into his business unless he wants me there.
