Page 22 of Interference

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he said flatly. “Just talk to me next time. Okay?”

“I will.” I bit back a suggestion that he could be a little more flexible about FaceTiming, which would give me more opportunities to be open with him about things. But that would just be another battle I was too tired to fight right now. It would be one more thing we’d both have to calm down about before we showed our faces at practice.

So, I let it go. I could broach the subject next time he made an excuse to skip our mostly-nightly chats.

Just like I’d promised myself I would the last three times.

I rubbed the back of my neck and stared out at the glittering water of Lake Washington. We were almost across the bridge now, the traffic breaking up a little as a few cars peeled away to exit. Before long, we’d reach I-5, and from there, we’d exit toward the arena. Then we’d have to have our game faces on, which meant we needed to be calm, collected, and done arguing.

I had to wonder how many of our arguments had only failed to become screaming matches because we’d been en route to practice or a game. Neither of us could afford to be fuming when we got out of the car, so we’d long ago gotten into the habit of quickly and quietly hashing things out, then focusing on cooling off.

It didn’t do much for fixing the cracks in our relationship, but it kept us from drawing any attention to those cracks. I guess that was a win?

Ugh. I hated that we were like this. More than that, I hated who I was with him these days. Provoking him just to get us talking. Lying to him. Apologizing for things I didn’t regret just so we wouldn’t fight anymore.

But he didn’t want to talk about us. He didn’t want to go to counseling. We couldn’t live together without fighting, but we couldn’t fight without someone possibly seeing or hearing us. We were just spinning our tires and getting nowhere, and it fucking sucked.

How much longer are we supposed to live like this?

I tried to remind myself the booing from our hometown crowd was the fans disapproving of the ref’s call. Even when the offense was obvious and egregious, they always booed when a Bobcat was sent to the penalty box.

But as I toweled off my face and watched the penalty kill set up against Calgary’s power play unit, I felt every one of those boos just like I was going to feel Coach’s words during intermission.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Aussie? Tell me, because I’ve got half a mind to go up to Clark’s office and have you sent down. You hear me?”

I didn’t know if Coach would actually tell our GM to send me to the minors over it, but right now… Hell, right now I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did.

Especially since this was my third penalty of the night and we were only five minutes into the second period. While one of those calls had been a bullshit soft penalty to even things up after Calgary had taken three in a row (yeah, I’m on to you, refs), the other two had been ridiculously stupid on my part. That crosscheck in the first period? Yeah. I’d fucked up. Let that jackass winger get under my skin and goad me into reacting. That had been costly, too—a power play goal had broken the 1-1 tie, and Calgary was still holding on to that lead now.

This time, my temper’s fuse had been dangerously short, and after a perfectly legal and clean hit from one of Calgary’s defensemen, I’d seen red. I’d hit that defenseman in the neutral zone, not even caring that he’d long since passed the puck to someone else.

“Seattle, number twelve,” the ref had said over the thundering boos. “Two-minute minor penalty. Interference.”

I drummed my fingers on my stick and chewed my lip as I watched our penalty kill fighting to keep Calgary’s power play from converting. Our PK was solid—third in the League so far this season—but this team had a power play from hell. Two of their forwards were in the top ten in the League for goals, and they were deadly with the man advantage.

Through the Plexiglas, I watched helplessly as Calgary cycled the puck, trying to lure our goaltender to one side or the other and get the skaters off-balance enough to open up a lane. One of them fired a one-timer that I was sure was about to go in, but Russell blocked it with his body. He was grimacing as he kept playing, unable to leave the ice safely until someone cleared the puck or a whistle blew. I owed him dinner for that block alone.

Young cleared the puck, and the penalty killers scrambled for a line change while Calgary’s defenseman retrieved the puck from their own end.

When the defenseman’s stretch pass landed on the left winger’s stick, I knew. Somehow, I could feel it. Even as my teammates formed a dense screen in front of the net, I knew what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the winger sent the puck screaming onto the tape of the team’s most dangerous sniper.

A split second and one slapshot later, the red light came on.

As I stepped out of the box, Beaulieu hung his head in obvious frustration before digging the puck out of his net. Beaus had tried like hell all through the penalty kill, but there’d only been so much he could do. I owed him dinner, too, that was for sure.

The skaters made their way back to the bench, aggravation radiating off all of them. I kept my gaze down as I joined my teammates on the bench.

“Not your fault, Aussie.” Sergei Novikov, my defensive partner, punched my shoulder. “There’s still time to turn it around.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have dug us into a hole.”

“Nah.” Nova shook his head emphatically. “Don’t think like that. There’s time.”

I acknowledged him with a quiet grunt, and we watched our teammates setting up for a faceoff.

My gaze landed on Simon, who was skating up to the dot, and my heart sank even further. I took full responsibility for being a mess tonight. I needed to get my head together and focus on hockey. That was definitely on me.

---