Page 6

FOUR

SANTA

One Day Before The Season Starts

Distracted, hoisting up my duffel on my shoulder and making sure I have the key to my room, I don’t see the man leaning against the opposite wall of the hallway right away. When I do, I jump about a foot in the air.

“Jesus Christ,” I cry. I don’t like to be startled. I have well-honed instincts that make me react defensively, and outside the rink, that’s frowned upon. “I did not think I would see your ugly face so early,” I quip, with my usual shit-eating grin.

He says nothing, though, just keeps staring intently at me, and that’s when I realize he’s here to take me to the rink because he thinks I need it. “Bear,” I growl at him, already mad at the reminder of having to see Charlie Heart today.

I make myself stay still and not fidget. I don’t need him to see how rattled and anxious I truly am about today’s practice.

“Picard was at Gab’s last night when he got there.” He speaks evenly and steps away from the wall.

I ignore his words and start walking to the elevator, but that doesn’t deter him from continuing his report or whatever this is supposed to be. “He said he looked excited to be there, to meet Gab?—”

“Of course he is excited to meet Gab. Only an idiot would not. She is a badass and a treasure.” Again I focus on exaggerating my Russian accent. It’s always hard at the start of the day but gets easier the more I use it, then I don’t have to focus on it so much.

Bear snorts as we wait for the elevator to arrive.

“In any case, he said he doesn’t get any anger from him, and he didn’t say anything about you.”

“Why would he say anything about me?” I raise an eyebrow at Bear and he holds up his hands in defense. I guess maybe I growled the question.

“I didn’t say anything to anyone about you hating him, bro. But your reaction to the news the other day was pretty self-explanatory. Everyone saw it. And just now... you were your usual happy self, but as soon as you remembered his existence you went all icy Santa.”

I only grumble in answer to that. I’m not exactly proud of the way I stormed out of the team event, but I also don’t regret it. No one’s mentioned it since—at least not to my face. We’ve practiced normally, gotten workouts in for the upcoming season, and it’s all just been normal. I know all that familiarity is about to go to shit today.

Clearly, Heart brings out the worst in me, and the thought that my teammates already think differently of me because of the effect he has on me pisses me the fuck off.

But my plan is to not let it change my attitude with my team any longer. I’m just going to ignore Heart. I’m going to pretend he’s not even there, and he’ll get the hint that I want nothing to do with him and the season won’t be ruined.

“Come on,” Bear tells me, tapping my arm when we arrive at the garage.

“What?” I ask him, confused.

“I’m driving you to the rink and back after practice,” he says like it’s obvious. I only stare at him and he sighs like I’m the one being unreasonable here. “You’re in no state of mind to drive, Santa. Just get in the car for fuck’s sake.”

“You are finally embracing your role as my chauffeur. I am so happy for you!” I tease him but follow him to his SUV without any more protests. Bear has a nice car.

Not as nice as my Aston Martin Vanquish, but nice enough.

And maybe he does have a point about me not driving today.

“Please take me to the practice rink, sir,” I say mockingly as I fasten my seatbelt. Bear grunts and starts the car.

See? I’m in a great mood, talking shit to my friend like I always do and ready to play some hockey .

Nothing and no one is going to ruin the excitement of the start of a new season, I decide.

Especially not Charlie Heart. I won’t let him.

A hush falls over the locker room as I’m pulling up my compression shorts and I know exactly why that is. He’s here, and I bet everyone is staring at him. I hope he feels very fucking uncomfortable.

I go about my business very deliberately , and just keep suiting up. After the pause, small murmurs fill the room again, and I bet Jules is shaking Heart’s hand and welcoming him to the team.

I wouldn’t be mad about it. I’m not mad about it. It’s his job and duty as our captain, our leader, and our best player.

I’d even bet Mater is right next to Picard and will be discussing a game from the past or something or other with Heart. He’ll probably show him to Fire’s cubby—which I discovered yesterday he was fine with giving up for the season.

Problem is, that cubby is right next to mine.

Alphabetical order, they said, but they didn’t count the ‘Von’ in Von Bruun for whatever reason and so...

Shit.

I don’t know how but I feel it when he stops right behind me. I look up and see Bear looking at me from the other side of the room. I don’t know what Bear expects me to do right now. I don’t know what he wants from me, but I don’t particularly care.

I’m going to do what’s good for me.

So when I turn to look at my cubby again, I don’t steal a glance to my right, and I don’t say a fucking word even though normally I’d be bullshitting someone right about now. I just grab my tape and my sweater then sit my ass down and get to work on my stick and my skates.

“Hey,” I hear him tell me and I have to grind my teeth.

Hey? He’s going to greet me like that? So fucking casual like he hasn’t been a smug fucking bastard to me since we were drafted fifteen fucking seasons ago?

The fucking audacity . . .

I forget every promise I made to myself about ignoring him and staying true to myself in front of my teammates, and I turn my head very slowly and look up at him, dead in the eyes and say nothing.

“How you doing?” he asks with a wide fucking smile. I stare at him for a longer moment, and once more there’s a long beat of silence in the room. I focus all my hate for him into my eyes, and I hope he can read my expression clearly.

I hear someone stand, and by the sound of the steps, I know it’s Bear, probably coming over to try and drag me away from Heart if I throw the first punch. He shouldn’t bother, I sure as hell won’t.

I see the second it dawns on Heart that I’m just not going to answer him. His face falls, his almost black eyes dim, and his smile disappears. Good, he should never smile in this building.

Without a word I turn my head back to my skates and get to work. Hopefully he got the fucking message that he should stay away from me and not try to make any type of conversation.

If he doesn’t, well, that’s when Bear is going to have to worry.

“Line up,” Laney, our head coach, shouts at us once everybody’s on the ice. He’s looking down at his clipboard. “Heart, you’re with Mater on defense in line one. Everybody else stays the same. Ten-minute scrimmage line one and two. Bear and Baby Bear on the net. One goal and then lines three and four get a go.”

I’ve had almost a week to assimilate the fact that Heart was more than likely going to be on the first line, but my hands still react to hearing Laney say it. My grip on my stick hardens until I have to make myself let go.

More than half the team follows behind him. Bear isn’t in my team because he always plays with the first line—it’s the way it is, nothing personal—so I clap Baby Bear on the shoulder and give him a nod. I don’t care if it’s childish. I don’t care about anything other than beating the first line to that goal.

I look at Milkman, Twocox, and Spiderman, the baby forwards for my line, and give them the look they know all too well.

Bates nods at me too, so I know everybody got the assignment.

It always surprises opposing teams when we open with this particular play, and the guys on the first line sure have seen us do it a bunch of times, but I know damn well they’re not expecting it today because we never practice this play with them.

The first time it happened it was a pure accident, maybe even a miracle, but after that I got the line together on one of our off days and we perfected it.

So, to start the play Milkman faces off with Jules the way it’s proper, and we all wait with bated breath so see who wins the puck. Laney stands next to them and drops the puck.

Jules wins it, because he’s way too good at it and has much more experience than Milkman, but he sends it back to Eagle—predictable—and that’s bad news for them, because Eagle is right next to me. I wouldn’t normally be too rough on a simple scrimmage, but today isn’t a typical day, so I slam my shoulder against his and he loses his balance—clearly he wasn’t expecting a hit like that.

I make a mental note to teach the kid some tricks and hammer in the fact that practice or not he should be ready for anything, but I fly down the ice toward Bear. He’s between the pipes in perfect form and waiting for me to attack, but I don’t .

I can’t look back to make sure because that would give the whole plot away, but I shoot the puck back between my legs and keep skating to go around behind the net. Only then can I see that my boys are playing keep away from Mater, Heart, and Eagle, while Jules and Benny fight with Bates to get into position.

They’re hoping that someone can steal the puck from my guys and send it their way, but they’re delusional if they think that’s going to happen. I do a one-eighty and skate back to the other side of the net.

Milkman passes the puck to Spiderman who’s less than a foot away from me, but Spiderman shifts and I take the puck and lift it over Bear’s shoulder and just drop it in, casual as ever.

Laney’s whistle blows long and loud over my line’s shouts of victory and he stares at me with hard eyes.

“Brotnik.” Shit, he only calls me that when he’s mad. “You save that shit for game day, asshole.”

I shrug, ready to take whatever punishment he deems necessary. Because while my boys were celebrating, I was looking at Heart’s defeated expression as he stared at the net.

And that was fucking priceless.