Page 19 of Flagrant Foul (Totally Pucked #3)

Teddy “T-Dog” O’Reilly

I’m not fresh or ready, and my head is sure as shit not on straight.

I couldn’t nap because Sev was home, hot as hell, and was making this big deal of trying to be super quiet.

Tiptoeing down the hall when he needed to use the bathroom, whispering when he talked to Nate on the phone, going to his own room and lying down so as not to disturb me. It was goddamn infuriating.

Do you know how hard it is to sleep when there’s a man in your house who’s trying not to make a sound?

It’s fucking impossible.

I overcook my pre-game pasta but eat it anyway, and by the time I get to the rink, I’m in a fury about traffic, bags without wheels, big groups of people, and the fact that Sev is wearing a suit.

Obviously, he’s wearing a suit. We all are.

That’s not the point. The point is, Sev wears his differently from the way other men wear suits.

Lots of men, most of them, in fact, kind of look like they’re playing a part when they put on a suit.

You know, there’s something a little off about the way they stand when they’re wearing one.

Something small, hard to put your finger on, that makes them look uncomfortable, or like they’re playing dress-up.

The way Sev wears his is nothing like that.

He wears a suit like it’s a second skin.

The mood in the locker room is charged, a fission of excitement wired into witty banter and shit talk.

I spend the entire time I’m getting ready trying my best not to snap at anyone.

I plaster a thin smile on my face and nod when anyone speaks to me, whether I agree with them or not.

Across the room from me, black eyes watch me like a hawk.

It does nothing to help me calm down.

A swarm of nerves gathers, attracting each other like magnets and growing exponentially as we make our way onto the ice. I watch the countdown clock the way Sev watches me.

Five minutes until puck drop.

Three

Two

I’m in position, warmed up and stretched. I’ve checked my pads and my helmet three times. I’ve checked the net and scuffed the ice with my skates three times each as well. My stick is in my hand, but something feels off.

These nerves aren’t the good nerves. They aren’t the nerves that make you play better. They’re the ones that make you play worse. My intestines twist, and I don’t need to look at my hands to know they’re shaking. It’s not good. Nothing good ever comes from me feeling like this.

Sev loops around and skates over to me. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he takes hold of my shoulder, right near my neck, and squeezes the muscle he finds there so hard that one side of my body is robbed of its tension.

His eyes meet mine, and for once, don’t skid away. He holds my gaze, a rare treat that warms me from my head to the blades of my skates.

“It’s going to be a good game, T-Dog.”

He skates back into position with seconds to spare, leaving me so winded I don’t even have it in me to mind what he called me.

The words, “ It’s going to be a good game ,” aren’t just words to Blackeyes.

They sound like they are, but they aren’t.

They’re words that were immortalized by Ben Stirling himself.

According to legend, they’re the words he said before every game he ever played, as a mite, a squirt, a peewee, a bantam, and a midget.

They’re the words he said before strangers knew his name and long before anyone called him Captain.

They’re also the words he said a few months back, right before he played the last professional game of his career.

When we got to the arena for our first practice after that exhibition game in Las Vegas, there was a long box on one of the benches in the locker room. Inside it was a badly scuffed kids’ hockey stick and a note that said:

Found this in Luca’s room and thought you could use a reminder.

Love,

Ben

Bryce picked up the stick, turned it over, and started laughing and choking up at the same time. The rest of us followed suit when he showed us what he’d seen. There, on the hook of the stick, written in childish block letters were the words It’s going to be a good game.

We had the stick framed and hung it above the Blackeyes locker room door.

Before on-ice practices and home games, Bryce presses two fingers to his lips and points to it as he leaves the locker room.

Some players do the same. I tap my stick twice on the wall beside it.

Sev touches it lightly with a flat hand as he heads onto the ice.

Since Ben left the Blackeyes, no one has said those words aloud.

At first, it was because of the circumstances under which he left.

We were raw. He was gone, and it wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair, and for a long time, we were in limbo, unsure if he’d come back or not.

And then, after his last game, when we knew for sure he was gone for good, no one said it aloud because no one could say it the way Ben said it.

No one could make it mean the same thing.

So now, before we play, we think it and will it, but we don’t say it.

It kills me that Sev the Mess, Sev the Wildman, Sev the bane of my fucking existence, is the one who not only understood how badly I needed to hear those words tonight, but he’s the only one on the team with enough power to invoke them.