Page 49 of Flagrant Foul (Totally Pucked #3)

Sev Delorean

The entire first line, including Teddy, is crammed into an office Coach has commandeered.

He’s standing to one side so as to give all of us as clear a view of the screen behind the desk as possible.

He has both hands planted on his sides and is wearing an expression typically seen on moms who’ve been home alone with toddlers for one too many days in a row.

He leans over the desk, wakes the mouse, and hits play on the video again.

He’s already made us watch it twice, so I have a pretty good idea of what I’m about to see.

It’s the start of the second period. We’re two-one up.

The ice is smooth and freshly resurfaced.

A pristine sheet of white with crisp blue and red lines and circles on it.

The rink stretches out across the screen with twelve players on it.

The Dogs in white with blue trimmings, us in head-to-toe black .

Capaldi has the puck and he’s running with it.

I’m giving chase, but I’m too far back to get to him before he takes his shot at the goal.

It’s a snap shot. A quick release with a fuck ton of power.

Tee stops it, and yeah, technically, there’s a chance he chirps Capaldi, but that’s neither here nor there because Capaldi gets in his face, and I mean right up in his face.

He takes Tee by the scruff of his jersey and shoves him hard.

So hard, he falls back, kidneys connecting solidly with the goal frame.

Teddy’s eyes slam closed on the screen, and I see the same thing I saw on the ice—a flash of his mouthpiece as he cries out in pain.

In real time, that was the last thing I saw.

In the video, I drop my stick and gloves like they’re made of battery acid and close in on Capaldi.

I move like someone I don’t know. Black ice with the wind behind it.

I throw him against the board, and I really do mean throw —he’s airborne for several split seconds and then he’s pinned against the board by the force I used to launch him into the air for a couple more.

He slithers down, and before his skates touch the ice, I start swinging like my life depends on it.

I land three blows, two right uppercuts and a left hook, before anyone gets close enough to pull me off .

What I like about the video—though I sincerely don’t think I’m meant to—is that within seconds, the ice is littered with black gloves. Tiny black dots on a glistening white canvas. Every single Blackeye is in it. And they’re all in .

It’s carnage. There are linesmen everywhere. Hands and fists. Dogs strewn about like confetti.

In the video, I note that it takes three men to pull me off Capaldi.

In reality, I didn’t feel their hands on me.

I didn’t feel the blows Capaldi landed either.

One in my gut and one that glanced off my cheek.

All I felt was blind rage. It was the old rage.

The bad rage that drowns everything out and transforms me into something or someone completely different from who I normally am.

As I watch the brawl on the screen devolve into an ungodly mess that got every player on the ice sent off, I think of all the times it’s happened to me in the past, the old rage, the bad rage. It occurs to me that every time it’s ever happened to me, it’s been inspired by Teddy.

It makes sense now, given what’s happened between us. What’s sobering is the realization of how long my body has been trying to tell me he’s mine. Mine to protect. Mine to defend.

A long time .

A long, long time.

In the video, I see myself being dragged off, teeth exposed, eyes black with fury, right arm still swinging despite the weight of the linesman hanging off it, left hand clutching Capaldi’s jersey like a mechanical claw that hasn’t been programmed to let go.

The camera angle changes, panning out and then zooming in. Teddy’s face fills the screen.

His eyes are as black as mine. Face sliced into perfect quadrants by the bars of his helmet. His chest is heaving, spittle flying, chin drawn down low.

He looks fucking majestic.

He looks like someone who knows the old rage and likes it.

He shoves two players out of his way to get to Capaldi. He’s successful. His hips twist as his fist swings back, his teeth clenched, like mine were when I was in the frame.

From this angle, I don’t see his punch land.

On the ice, I didn’t see it either, but I heard the crunch of the impact. Fist into face. Knuckle into bone.

On the screen, I see a beautiful face light up with the bare bones of a lethal smile. A smile, that without any other angles, without any other video evidence, tells me that Teddy O’Reilly put Capaldi flat on his ass .

There’s a long, tense pause when the video ends. None of us moves as we wait to find out if Coach is going to make us watch it again, or if he’s ready to start lecturing us now.

He doesn’t hit play again, and he also doesn’t start yelling. Instead, he pinches the bridge of his nose hard and says, “Now, what have we learned from this mess?”

No one answers, but a few guys look to me, and I can tell from the severity of Coach’s expression that it isn’t a rhetorical question. Someone needs to answer, and I think that, as captain, it should be me.

“We learned that no one touches the goalie and gets away with it, Coach.”

Coach drops his forehead into his hand and makes a pained sound.

A few of the guys around me snort as they attempt to stifle their laughter.

Coach looks up at me eventually and shakes his head slowly from side to side.

I can tell he’s fighting a smile, though, and not because he’s always had a soft spot for me—because we played better tonight.

Before the snafu that saw every man on the ice receiving a ten-minute penalty, we played well. Really, really well.

Coach sighs heavily and motions to the door. “Get out of here, the lot of you. ”

I feel light as I head to the locker room.

I don’t know why. Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I’m evolving.

Maybe I’ve run out of shits to give because, honestly, no part of me regrets what happened on the ice tonight.

I don’t regret it almost as much as I know I’m not going to regret what I’m going to do to Teddy when we get home.