Page 74 of My Pucking Crush

Max

I sleep for nearly ten hours straight, shocked my brain let me. I showered last night, but could only let the water glide over my bruised skin. I could barely lift my fucking arms to cleanse myself.

This morning, I’m feeling a little better, but I nearly scream in pain when suiting up in my Armani, challenging very sore muscles.

At the stadium, I make like I’m too busy to let trainers get a look at me. I don’t let anyone fucking touch me. I’m the team captain, so I do what I usually do. I focus on the team.

Coach Beck holds a pregame meeting focusing on his new play strategy. It mostly affects the offense. I have a secondary meeting with each wingman, then the centers.

Whoops, there’s no time for anyone to check me out, so I get dressed for the game. And I feel like I’m going to die. But I’ve been doing this forever. I hold my breath strapping on the shoulder pads, then I look down and cringe.

My skates.

“Guys, go on without me. I have to answer these texts.” I wave my empty phone, lying to them. When I catch an equipment intern rushing by, I bellow, “Hey!”

The shadow creeps back toward the locker room entrance. “Um, yeah?”

“Can you help me with my skates?”

The guy pales, and jams his finger into his chest, making a permanent dent in his Crushers golf shirt. “ Me?”

“Yeah, you.” Especially him because he’s so low in ranks, I can vomit all over him and make him promise not to tell anyone. “Come on. I got caught up in the strategy meeting. Lost track of time.”

“Okay,” the guy says, and tosses the equipment bag on the floor.

I sit and walk him through the lacing-up process. Turns out the guy’s pretty good.

“Do you skate? Or play?”

“In a church league. Been playing since I was a kid.” He sounds so proud.

But he’s only an equipment intern. I look around, realizing how lucky I’ve been. That I made it. I’m raw at this point and will start blurting shit I need to keep inside.

“You’re still fucking around with your skates?” Stefan Willis says from the entryway.

The intern snaps up. “Um.”

Willis stomps inside. “What the hell are you doing?”

I get to my feet, blocking the intern. “He helped me with my skates. Everyone else was busy. He did a great job.”

Willis looks dumbfounded. It’s the most important game of the season. We can clinch the round, right here at home. Send those Richmond assholes back to Virginia as the losers they are.

As I mull over those words in my head, something doesn’t sit right. I’m blaming innocent guys who are victims of a bad owner, misinformation, and gaslighting.

“I’m good, Willis.” I turn and give a nod of approval to the intern.

Shoulder to shoulder, Willis and I clomp through the tunnel. I make my way to the front of the line to take the ice like every other game. There’s so much in my head competing for attention, but I have to shove it all aside .

Luca is gone, but he sacrificed himself for me.

My job is to win hockey games, and make what he did worth it. I’m going to do my job tonight, and hopefully have a week off to heal my head, my body, and my heart.

“Listen up,” Coach calls out above the hum of the cheering crowd in the stands. “Send these losers back to Richmond empty handed. You’re the better team. You deserve this. Keep that in your head with every rush to the goal and every swing of the stick.”

“Send the puck to the goal. Good things will happen,” I repeat a famous line from the 1994 season.

The announcer calls out both teams, starting with Richmond, and I catch a signal from the coach that I haven’t seen in...forever. Richmond is refusing the opening greeting.

Holy fucking shit.

The booing in the stands startles me and it’s so unsportsmanlike. It’s not who we are under these uniforms, and when we’re not beating the crap out of each other. We’re gentlemen. That’s why once we’re out of these sweaty and bloody jerseys, we wear suits.

The Richmond players look lost as their names are called. I feel their embarrassment from this side of the ice. God, my heart goes out to them. Then one set of eyes catches mine. The one guy not looking down.

Jake Quinn.

He looks like he wants my head on the end of his stick. Steam practically floats out of his ears. What the hell is wrong with him?

He’s a winger. As soon as the puck drops and his forward has it, he’ll race into my zone and eviscerate me. The adrenaline rushes through my body, and I feel my wounds heal. I feel my muscles relax, and it doesn’t hurt as much to move .

Our names are called and the crowd cheers at a near-deafening level. The screaming for me feels hollow considering my plans to leave at the end of the season.

Whistles, cowbells, and airhorns all combine to only make me feel worse. The rest of the team is announced, and I’m thankful the energy level is the same.

The national anthem plays, and I zone out. Center myself, but my heart aches. I stupidly thought Luca and I had a chance. Even if he worked for that mobster in Manhattan. He made it seem like some night job we could work around as far as his hours.

He left you to protect you , the second half of my brain pipes up.

At the puck drop, Troy Madison aggressively gets possession and shoots across the neutral zone. Madison’s energy can level this place. He’s done with these motherfuckers. He takes a shot before Richmond even realizes their forward doesn’t have it.

Jake, who’s been miraculously promoted to first shift, got lost in my eyes. He shakes his head comically to chase after Madison. Richmond’s goalie whacks it away instead of covering it, but Willis catches it, stealing the puck from Jake and uses the opportunity to shoot.

Bounce, click, clang. The sounds of the puck hitting sticks, blades, and even the goal get absorbed into my head. After Willis shoots, I wait for the silence that comes from the puck flying into the nylon net.

Nothing.

Jake gets possession and that creep races right for me. He should be heading toward Reynolds and the damn goal. I’m protecting the left flank. It’s painfully obvious, Jake wants a piece of me, and fought for that puck just to confront me.

On the ice. The only place someone can hurt me, according to Luca .

Who I’m aching without.

Jake roars toward me, and my fingers itch. My blades dig into the ice to be part of what becomes chaos in the crease. Jake shoots the puck from an impossible left flank angle. With the black biscuit no longer in his possession, he slams me into the boards.

Stars would pop out behind my eyes from the pain on a good day. All my bruises wake the fuck back up, as my game adrenaline starts to fade. I’m winded and disoriented as Jake skates away.

But my game health kicks back in and my body reacts from muscle memory. My ears are ringing from the pain, and I doubt I’ll remember any of this.

The period ends and Coach eyes me, looking for a signal that I’m fine. I shake my head and go through my usual break routine. I check in with my guys and talk about their missed plays. Then we meet about what to look out for during the next period.

We line up to take the ice again, and a hand on my arm turns me around.

“Let The Ace take your shift,” Coach suggests the second shift D-man, who even I’m a little afraid of, take my place. No one knows his real name. The back of his jersey just says The Ace.

“What? Why? No.” I shake my head.

“You think I can’t tell when a player is injured after doing this for so many years? That’s a fucking insult.” He looks me up and down. “I might have initially bought that our enemy would kidnap you and not hurt you.”

“I’m fine,” I admit, even if my lies insult him. The team needs me .

“It’s actually my call, you know that right?” Coach can bench me. “Just a few rounds. I want to see something.”

“See what?” I ask, intrigued .

“How Richmond plays when you’re not on the ice. Get it on film how they’re targeting you.”

“Fuck, that’s smart,” I say, shaking my head.

I agree to forfeit playing with my usual line. I don’t mind avoiding Jake for twenty minutes, but my absence on the ice seems to have made him angrier.

And that’s when it happens.

He goes after Damien Carter.

Uh oh.

They can be wearing the same uniform. Jake is all over Carter. Chirping in his ear, looking like he wants to kiss him. What the hell?

I pull aside Roarke Keegan, a new winger called up. He skated close enough to hear them on the last shift. “What the hell is Quinn saying to Carter?” I ask.

They’re not even supposed to be tangled up like that, given their positions.

“He’s calling him a fucking faggot,” Keegan says, his voice even.

I shoot to my feet. “What?”

“Let it go,” Coach yells, hearing us. “Carter can handle a minor-leaguer like Jake Quinn.”

Beck doesn’t know about Jake and me.

Richmond’s other winger, Jensen, gets in The Ace’s face so their forward can take a shot. It bounces off the goal, but Carter gets it, and with Madison on his flank, they race back across to Richmond’s zone.

The Ace digs in to follow, but Jensen is relentless. I watch for any foul plays, when I hear a collective gasp from the crowd. Even Jensen looks surprised. I see Jake grab Carter by the nuts and punch him with a right hook.

What. The. Fuck?

Coach screams from the bench to call a penalty, but the gasps turns to cheers when Carter blows it off and steals the puck .

He shoots, he scores!

Forgetting everything else, they all huddle and hug. I fight being jealous, but they have to learn how to win without me.

I tell Coach the break helped, so I’m back to my usual shift.

Then the game gets really ugly.