Page 86 of Melting the Ice

“I’m just saying, don’t lose your shit, no matter what they throw at you,” Ramsey reminded him.

“I won’t.”

The TV coordinator lowered his arm, indicating the timeout was at an end, and they set up at the Sabretooths’ side for the face-off.

Ivan took the puck and passed it to Elliott, but he was getting swarmed as he tried to work towards the center of the ice, and Brody skated over to assist, trying to draw some of the attention off.

It worked a little too well, drawing their defenders over, one big burly guy whose build resembled Dean’s. He slammed Brody right into the boards, but he barely blinked. This guy had been a pain in his fucking side—literally—for the last two games.

But Brody wasn’t going to let a twinge of pain stop him. He pushed back and then took off again, not letting the guy slow him down for more than a few seconds.

His gaze narrowed, taking in where Mal and Elliott were trying to get the puck centered, Ramsey playing interference, and Brody skated in, too, still back enough in the zone where he could respond if Olympia’s players decided to make a push to their side of the ice.

Elliott went in, skating hard, and took a shot, the puck barely glancing off the goalie’s pad, and Mal was there for the rebound, trying to punch it in higher.

But he missed, the goalie grabbing it out of mid-air and passing it to one of his players.

Brody only had a moment to react.

But before he could skate after the guy, along with Ramsey, the big burly guy checked him into the boards again, and this time, he ground him in, trapping him with one huge arm.

Brody tried to wiggle out, hoping that any second the ref would at least be calling roughing, but nobody did.

Brody’s temper spiked as the guy shoved his gloved hand hard into his stomach, but they were close enough Brody guessed the ref hadn’t even seen it.

It was semi-dirty, and also not surprising.

But it still pissed him off.

“Cut the shit,” Brody told him, but the guy only kept grinning and kept coming, no matter how Brody tried to wiggle out of it.

Where was the fucking ref?

Finally, annoyed that if he wasted one more second, he’d be leaving Ramsey and the rest of the line to deal with the Sabretooths’ potent offense, he elbowed the guy hard, hoping it would be enough to release him.

It wasn’t. So he did it again. And again, and until finally he was able to skate off, but not before he heard the ref finally blow his whistle.

Brody’s stomach dropped as the ref pointed his direction and finally called the roughing.

“Shit, that wasn’t me,” Brody yelled. “I was just—”

But before he could, Ramsey was skating over, taking him by the arm and pulling him away from the ref. “You needed to trust we could handle that shit,” he muttered to Brody.

“I did—”

But before he keep arguing, Ramsey was skating away, leaving him to enter the penalty box on his own.

Fuck.

Sure enough, he saw Olympia’s power play team, famous throughout the conference—frankly they were fucking famous throughout the country, at this point—come over the boards onto the ice.

Ramsey had already been on for the last minute, and he was coming to the end of his time, but he saw him motion to Coach B to keep him in.

It was foolish and risky, but Coach nodded.

What else could they do?

The rest of the Evergreens’ team couldn’t hold them.

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