Page 42 of Game On

Show this to Poppy so she doesn’t forget what I look like.

Dorian sent back an eye-roll emoji.

Three minutes later, he sent a picture of the dog.

Dorian

Poppy wanted me to send this to you so you don’t forget what she looks like.

Jamie snickered.

“That your dog?” Archie asked, peering over his shoulder. “Cute.”

“I’m fostering,” Jamie said. “Sort of. Don’t suppose you’re looking to adopt?”

Archie grimaced. “We already have two dogs, and I leave my wife alone with them and the kids often enough as it is. She’d kill me if I brought home a third dog.”

“What about you, Brawsiski?” Jamie asked his fellow D-man, who stood on Archie’s other side. “Want a dog?”

“Yes,” Brawsiski said, and Jamie’s hopes lifted. “But I don’t have the time for one right now.”

And crashed back down again.

“All right, everyone, listen up,” Coach Shore said, stepping into the room with Assistant Coach Li and Skills Coach Stanton. He barely raised his voice to be heard over the music, yet everyone quieted anyway. Someone turned off the music. Shore planted his hands on his hips, his suit jacket pulling against his shoulders. “How are you feeling tonight?”

A cheer rose along with a “Like we’re going to kick some ass, Coach” from Toussaint.

“We all know this is an important game,” Coach Shore went on. “There’s a lot of pressure to win tonight, but here’s the thing: I don’t want you to let that pressure go to your heads. It leads to mistakes and penalty kills, and we can’t afford either tonight. Instead, I expect you to play like this is just another game.”

“But it’s not just another game, Coach,” Walters said.

“It is,” Coach insisted. “Because if we don’t win tonight, we’ll win two days from now against Ontario. The Bakersfield players know what’s at stake for us tonight, and they’re going to try and get into your heads. Don’t let them.”

Easier said than done, from Jamie’s experience, but it was like when Coach Shore said it, it wasn’t just a directive, it was a sure thing.

A good thing too, because Bakersfield was fucking chirpy tonight, hurling insults like they’d stockpiled them just for the Orcas. Those insults slid off the Orcas’ backs, though, and the fact that Jamie’s team wasn’t reacting just made the opposing players meaner.

Mean players ended up in the penalty box. A lot.

By the end of the second period, the Orcas were up by four. Jamie would’ve laughed if he didn’t think that would invoke more trouble from the Bakersfield players.

The Orcas’ goalie, Lewis-Nyawo, got overconfident in the third and let two pucks into the net early in the period. He shook it off as goalies did, and Jamie gave him an easy “You got this” the next time he swung around behind the net. The Orcas were still up by two, although now the gap between scores was significantly smaller.

Still, they kept their heads. When one of Bakersfield’s left-wingers told McNicoll that he played about as well as six-year-olds in a house league, McNicoll grinned and scored within the next twenty seconds, shooting the puck right between that left-winger’s legs.

It was fucking beautiful.

McNicoll didn’t even gloat about it. Well, not too much.

Just like Jamie didn’t gloat—too much—after blocking a shot by a forward who’d called him an uncoordinated monkey who should head back to Charlotte. Not exactly sophisticated as insults went, but by this point, Jamie figured their stockpile was running low and they had to bring in the backups.

When the buzzer sounded at the end of the third period, every Orca gathered on the ice for a mass hug and back slaps. One would think they’d won the Calder Cup already, not simply made it into the playoffs.

The mood was high in the locker room, and it got even more so when Coach Shore walked in with a breezy, “Fuck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” Then Coach Stanton wheeled a cake in on a cart and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

As much as handbaskets could go to hell in a locker room. Mostly, it involved smearing cake onto teammates’ faces and dancing to Shakira’s “She-Wolf.” Hearing a bunch of hockey players intoxicated on sugar and adrenalin bray like a wolf was an experience Jamie never thought he’d get.

The cake itself was epic, a massive sheet of marble cake with chocolate mousse between its layers and a heap of icing. It wasn’t until Jamie was swapping his discarded icing with Andreen’s chocolate mousse that he remembered to check his phone.

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