Page 32 of Sinful Mafia Santa

“Fine,” he says, but he doesn’t believe me.

“Fine,” I say.

He shuts the door more carefully than Logan.

I straighten the room. I move my toothbrush from its hiding place in the nightstand to the bathroom counter. I shift my box of Barry’s Gold from Gage’s top dresser drawer to the kitchen, right beside the electric kettle.

I’m eating a bowl of corn flakes when the puck drops. Players on both teams are chippy; Boston injured the Aces’ goalie when they played just ten days ago. The Aces’ center goes down in the crease, tripped by a Boston stick between his legs. Logan’s gloves are off before the whistle blows.

For a minute, it’s just a typical hockey fight. The men square up, Boston and Atlantic City. Gage is late getting to the scrum;he’s favoring his right knee. A Boston defenseman sucker-punches him, and Gage’s head lashes back. He crashes to the ice, sliding halfway to the blue line.

No one notices. No one cares.

Because Logan is lying on the bright blue ice in front of the crease. He’s staring up at the rafters like he’s looking on the face of God. His throat is slashed; someone’s skate has carved him an extra smile.

Players on both teams wave for help from the bench. Two Aces skate over to the boards, ferrying a trainer onto the ice. White towels bloom with red, only to be replace by more cloth. More.

Gage struggles to his knees, trailing one hand on the ice to keep his balance. He tries to drag himself to Logan’s side, but his coordination is shot. He sprawls like a kid in a snowsuit.

He’s still trying to reach the goal when Logan dies.

12

GAGE

Fuck.

I sweep a pile of goalie pads off a shelf, sending the teal-and-purple equipment flying. I knew tonight was a fucking mistake, the instant Aeryn suggested it. Every mile of that silent drive down from New York proved I was right. I should have pulled over before we passed New Brunswick.

We could have gone to a bar there, one of the dives Logan and I went to when we were in the AHL. Drink a toast. Share some stories. I could have had her home before midnight.

Not that “home” makes any difference. She’s been up-front since I saw her at the bar in Kynk’s Great Room. She’s flying back to Chicago tomorrow morning. She’s a Reardon, through and through.

Get your arse out of here by the time I get home tonight, or I’ll tell Da.

I can still hear Logan’s voice, rough with the Irish accent that only came out when he fought. I remember every word he said in that shithole house on Beach Avenue.

She’s not one of your whores, shitehawk.

How long have you been beating my sister?

You motherfucking, cocksucking cunt!

I crash into a pile of hockey sticks and send them flying. Logan wasn’t a fucking Boy Scout. He had his pick of the puck bunnies. More than once, he took two girls back to his hotel room at the same time. He paid a thousand bucks to a one-night-stand who said he knocked her up, then ten thousand more to keep her from telling the Atlantic City Press about the abortion. Every man on the team knew he was the reason the trainers started leaving a big glass bowl of rubbers on the counter in the treatment room.

But in all the years we played together, I never heard about him hitting a woman—whether she wanted it or not. The place we planned to build in the abandoned Brooklyn subway tunnel was a sports bar, not a sex club. Logan knew sports. That’s what he wanted.

I pick up the closest stick and beat it against the floor of the equipment room. One blow. Two. Three. The blade snaps off, and I grab myself another. It breaks on the first hit. Fucking loser. I kick the rest of the sticks like they’re kindling.

Yeah, Logan wanted a sports bar. But I’m the sick motherfucker who started Kynk.

At first, I did it because I didn’t want hockey players dropping by. I didn’t want to be reminded thatIwas the reason Logan died.

If we hadn’t fought on in the house on Beach, he would have been in better shape for the game. A few seconds faster. More flexible. Able to dodge.

If I had caught the puck on my stick and taken it down ice, no one would have fought at the game. Or we would have fought later, without the freak slash of that blade.

If I had seen that sucker punch, I wouldn’t have been concussed. I could have gotten to him before the trainer. Put pressure on the wound. Kept him from bleeding out.