Page 139 of Defensive Zone

As soon as the puck was on the other end of the ice and Nessie and Finn were at the bench, Max and Crow hopped over the boards and skated toward Gally as the forward line from Boston moved up the ice toward them.

Then a slashing penalty was called on Dom, and he was sent to the box for two minutes while Liam hit the ice for their power play.

Max gritted his back teeth. They had to kill this penalty and not give Boston an inch. Max hovered in front of Gally, mindful to stay out of Gally’s way so the goalie could track the puck.

Liam crowded in against Max and Max lightly nudged—okay, shoved—his stick into Liam’s shoulders.

“Get out of the blue, fucker,” Max growled.

“Don’t make me injure that pretty face of yours,” Liam fired back, his voice low.

And then, before Max could react, one of the other Boston players knocked Liam into Max and Max into Gally. Max heard the puck clang off the pipes and Gally was down. Max shoved Liam back, but there were too many guys on the goalie blue paint.

Expletives and elbows were flying and Max got clipped in the cheek by someone or someone’s stick, he wasn’t sure. It fucking stung like a bitch, but he shook his head and shoved back.

Finally, the linesmen got in and broke everyone up. Sully was holding his brother back from taking another swing, and Crow had his arm around one of Boston’s forwards, pulling him.

“Fuck, that’s going to be a shiner,” Crow said to Max.

Max touched his cheek. It was already starting to swell and felt warm.

“Your head okay?” the linesman asked him.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine,” he said, shaking it off.

The Boston forward who’d pushed Gally into the net and Crow ended up in the box. Cheesy skated over to the ref for an explanation and Max could see how riled up their captain was, but Crow was in the box for a high stick. At least it was even strength.

Five minutes later, with no additional goals, the Strikers took the win and tied the series.

Eight hours later, Max dragged himself into his house. He was dead on his feet, and it was just after seven in the morning. He’d slept on the plane, but he wanted his bed. By some miracle, no one was up when he walked into the house. He grabbed a bag of ice from the freezer and headed upstairs.

“You’re home,” Ava said, meeting him at the top of the stairs. “Shit, does that hurt?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be fine. Just need some sleep. We’ll talk this afternoon?”

“Of course. Go rest. Gabi’s getting the kids up now,” she said.

Max didn’t say anything and headed to his room.

At least she was still here.

“You’re going to talk to him today, right?” Ava asked while Gabi cleaned up breakfast. The kids were playing in the living room quietly because Max had gotten home an hour ago and had to be exhausted.

“Yes. When he wakes up, I’ll talk to him.”

“Good. I’m glad you decided not to throw this away,” Ava said.

“Ouch,” Gabi said to her best friend. Ava had given her a lot of shit over the last five days. Not that she didn’t deserve it. She’d gone back and forth a few times over the last few days, but she was done being an idiot, and done letting her mom get into her head. She’d almost flown out to Boston to tell him, but after how horribly he’d played in their first game out there, she knew that showing up would be more of a distraction. He didn’t need that right now.

So she’d waited, hoping he might reach out, but he hadn’t. Which had made her question everything again.

But deep down she knew Max and knew that they were right for each other. Whatever happened down the road, they could deal with it—hopefully together, if she hadn’t completely screwed everything up.

“Hi,” she said when Max walked into the kitchen a few hours later. He looked freshly showered, but exhausted. She noticed the bruise blooming on his cheek and reached out, but he took a step back.

The motion cut her deep.

“Does that hurt? Do you need ice?” she asked.

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