Page 158 of The Waiting Game

But although they did their best to tighten up their defense, Jonah felt like he couldn’t see the puck. It seemed to slide right past him and he lost more battles along the boards than he could count.

Despite his frustration and anger, he tried to center himself, tried to not let his worry over his grandma and his tangled feelings about Felix impact his play, but passes that should have been crisp were sloppy, going wide and forcing Felix to scramble after them.

The final nail in the coffin was Dominic’s horrendous turnover that left them down 4-2 when they exited the ice after the second period.

“I’m sorry, Jonah, I don’t have any news for you,” Kate said as he approached, hopeful and terrified.

Her assistant, Mitchell, shot Jonah a sympathetic look.

Ignoring them both, Jonah ground his teeth together and walked past. Fuck this shit.

“I need my phone,” he said to Felix, who had already stripped down to his base layers and skates, his curls a sweaty, tangled mess on his head.

“No,” Felix said. “You gave it to me to keep because you didn’t want the distraction tonight.”

“I changed my fucking mind. Give me my phone.”

“No.” Felix rose to his feet. “You want it, but it’s a bad idea. You need to push through the temptation—”

“I’m not in fucking AA like you,” Jonah shouted. “I just want to check my goddamn phone to see if my grandma is okay.”

The flash of hurt in Felix’s eyes made Jonah immediately regret his words. “Fuck. Felix, I—”

Felix tightened his jaw. “No. You’re right. You’re not in AA. But I’m still not giving you your phone. We all agreed that Kate would be the contact person for the hospital. She’ll tell you as soon as she knows something. Period.”

“Fuck you,” Jonah shouted, tossing his shoulder pads on the locker room floor to get in Felix’s face. “You have no idea what this feels like. Grandma Ji-min’s the only family I’ve got.”

“Yeah? And what about me? Don’t I matter to you?” Felix shouted back, not giving an inch.

“Hey!” Dustin said, grabbing Jonah and pulling him back and pinning him against his chest while Matty did the same to Felix. “You both need to take some deep breaths. Jonah, I know you’re worried about Ji-min but the two of you need to be working together to get through it. Felix cares about you, Jonah. You know that. He’s just trying to look out for you right now.”

Felix immediately subsided but Jonah struggled against Dustin’s tight grip.

“Fuck all of you,” he spat.

Jonah was beginning to wonder if the entire team knew that something had gone terribly wrong and just weren’t telling him. Maybe they were waiting until after the game to break the bad news.

After all, nothing’s more important than hockey, he thought snidely.

“Brewer!” Coach Casey shouted. “If you don’t take three deep breaths and calm the fuck down right now, I will bench you for the final period. You know I don’t want to do it. We need you in this game, but you are out of control and you’ll be a bigger liability to us than a help. Are you going to play the next period or not?”

“I’m going to play,” Jonah said between gritted teeth as he finally wrenched free of Dustin’s grasp.

He grabbed his pads, stomped over to his stall, then took several deep breaths, chomping on his bite guard when the breathing didn’t help.

“Now,” Coach Casey continued, expression steely behind his dark-rimmed glasses. “I know we’re all on edge right now but we have got to get it together. We have one period of regulation left, the ice quality is shit, we’re down 4-2, and we all know what’s at stake here. None of us want to be knocked out of contention now. Get your fucking shit together!”

There was a low murmur of agreement from the team before Coach Casey continued. “And for the love of God, keep it out of the penalty box. Their power play unit is too good for us to mess with tonight.”

In the third period, Jonah didn’t sit next to Felix on the bench.

It happened sometimes when they were in a hurry to get off the ice or risk a penalty but they usually shuffled around to sit next to each other.

Felix hated it.

He knew why Jonah was angry and lashing out. Why he was pulling away. God, he understood it. He’d done the same to Jonah when he was in the depths of the breakup with Whitney and his alcohol dependency.

But that didn’t mean Jonah’s words hadn’t stung.

---