Page 13 of Body Check

The director’s pale face glows with excitement as he flashes me two thumbs-up like I’m a toddler learning how to shit in the toilet for the first time.

Go, me.

I angle my body to face the camera fully. “I’m on the frontline, in the right-wing slot.”

The director nods eagerly, then rolls his hand in akeep goinggesture.He flips me the peace sign, which I guess is his reminder for “two facts.”

Unblinking, I meet the camera lens head-on. “Two random facts about me . . . when I’m home alone at night, there’s nothing I like more than to play a littleMy Heart Will Go Onfrom Celine Dion while I soak in a bubble bath of champagne.” The director’s grin falters, and I press onward, completely straight-faced. “I also recently adopted a pig named ‘Fact Number Two.’ Don’t know what happened to Number One.” I grin. “Might have turned out to be someone’s dinner.”

“Cut!”

I shove away from the boards, my skates gliding across the ice.

I should apologize for being a Class-A dick—if my Texan mom heard me just now, she’d waste no time in pinching my ear and giving it a hard twist. An apology isn’t what escapes when I ask the director, “Think y’all can work with what I gave you?”

I think I’ve been played.

No shit, tears are gathering in his eyes. Tears that he doesn’t bother to sop up with the sleeve of his cashmere sweater as he clamps a hand over his heart in fullPledge of Allegiancemode. “Yes.Oh, so much yes. Have you been to her show in Vegas? It’s amazing. My husband is obsessed. We’ve gone four times already this year and I swear to you, it feels like a religious awakening each and every time.”

My shit-eating grin, already dying a slow death, disintegrates completely when he tacks on, “I’m sure fans will besopleased to discover that you know the worth of Celine Dion. Just imagine the new types of fan-mail you’ll get after the pilot episode. Brilliant, Carter, just brilliant!”

He winks, tears magically gone, and I briefly deliberate on the ramifications of ramming my fist into his smirking face.

“You a fan of Celine now, Carter? Never would have pegged you for a romantic.”

At Andre Beaumont’s dry tone, I crane my neck to stare up at the Garden’s ceiling, hundreds of feet above the ice. Cupping my helmet between my hands, I lift it to my chest like a hockey version of a rosary bead, and mock-pray, “God, give me strength to not take this man’s hockey stick and shove it so far up his ass, he’ll be waddling for weeks.” A minute pause. “Amen.”

Beaumont’s shoulder collides with mine as he skates past. “Asshole.”

Shuffling my helmet to one hand, I flip him the bird with the other. “Could have said the same for you. And here I was thinkin’ that you’d still be in your post-honeymoon bliss, attitude checked at the door.”

The NHL’s top enforcer blinds me with a rare grin. “Boston feeds the darkness of my soul—I can’t stop the assholery the minute I come back, any more than you can stop being a prick twenty-four-seven.”

I don’t want to laugh but I do. It boils deep in my chest, and as the blades of my skates push against the ice to propel me forward, I mutter, “I’m honestly surprised you’re even down for any of this.”

Beaumont’s dark head swivels in my direction. “Getting Pucked, you mean?”

“Yeah.” After we unhinge the waist-high door in the boards, it’s a matter of trucking it through the tunnel to the locker rooms where we’re due to have a meeting with Coach Hall sans TV production. Thank fuck. “It wasn’t that long ago that you had your own showdown with the media. Can’t imagine why you’d voluntarily sign up for this shit after everything that happened.”

Hockey stick perched over his shoulder, Beaumont ambles down the tunnel like a Viking gearing up for battle instead of a hockey player off to face the people who sign our paychecks. “I didn’t want to, but Zoe . . .” He shrugs, switching the stick to the other shoulder. “Zoe made a good point—I’ll probably be out of the game by the time we have kids. Can’t play forever, eh? Anyway, she thinks doing something like this will be good for the little Beaumonts one day. They’ll be able to see this part of my life, and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have a son or a daughter who loves the sport as much as I do.”

Kids. Family.

My heart gives a dull thud, like a knock on my ribcage to remind myself that I’m not, in fact, dead. Since my divorce, I’ve certainly felt that way a time or two. Throat tight, I grind out, “Yeah, makes sense.”

All my teammates have their own reasons for signing theGetting Puckedcontracts, and I need to get my head out of my own ass before I screw it up for them.Do it for your boys. Don’t be a goddamn prick.

I swallow, hating the panic that twines down my spine like claws scraping into my flesh. All it would take is one wrong clip being shown on TV to change the trajectory of my plans for the season. One too nosey cameraman who digs a little too deep, and suddenly I won’t be known as the Badass of Hockey anymore but the player who—

Inhaling sharply, I breathe through the spike of anxiety and focus on palming the locker-room door open.

The guys are mostly changed out of their uniforms already, which the producers wanted us in for the sake of “TV authenticity,” whatever the hell that means. They nod as I pass them, some offering a two-fingered salute and others giving me a curt chin-nod.

These guys are my family, but as captain, I operate out of a strange focal point. They respect me. They’ll cover me on the ice and are always up for grabbing dinner or playing poker. But at the end of the day, they’ve got to own up to me. I’m the gateway to the big guns on the board, which means that while my teammates will do anything for me, the slight fracture in our relationship won’t ever be mended.

It’s the one thing I miss most about life before the “C” was stitched onto my jersey. When you’re Captain, there’s a whole lot of ass-kissing going around. Except for Beaumont and our assistant captain, Duke Harrison—they don’t give a fuck who I am, and, in return, they’re as close to brothers as I’ll ever have in the rink. Outside of it, too.

I plunk my helmet onto the top shelf in my stall, next to my gloves, then reach behind my neck to fist my jersey and pull it over my head. Slipping the material onto the metal hook, I focus on removing the rest of my uniform and pads instead of the low pulse of anxiety that’s yet to dissipate. No one spares me a second glance, and I’m sure that to my teammates I look the same as always: stone-faced, reserved, completely in control.

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