Page 40 of Game Misconduct

Or he wanted to believe that.

He was gonna fight Danny, but whether Danny fought back, that was another question.

He was so fucking jittery leading up to the game that Bee actually took him by the shoulders before they left the apartment and dug her fingers in. “Michael—what is goingonwith you?”

He squirmed out of her hold, guilt twisting his stomach along with nerves. It was harder and harder not to tell her the truth. Finally, he said, “I’m going to fight Garcia tonight.”

“You don’thaveto. Isn’t that what all of this extra work has been for?”

“That’s not really related.”

“Oh, it’s not?”

“I have to fighthim.”

Bee looked at him levelly and he wondered whether she knew. She was kind of socially awkward and more than a little oblivious, but shegotpeople sometimes, like the same level of weird, intense study she brought to the game translated well to figuring out shit she shouldn’t have been able to guess. It was Russian roulette whether she’d completely miss the entire thing or see right the fuck through you.

“You don’t have to fight him.”

“I want to, though,” he said, which was as close as he could get to telling her.

“Are you going to have a grudge against him for that first game for the rest of yourcareer?” She didn’t sound angry with him, just worried, which was how she always sounded recently.

“It’s not even like that anymore,” he said, trying to reassure her.

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking at him like he was crazy. “And how isn’t it? Every time you’re on the ice together, you fight him.”

It’s foreplay, he thought, but what he said was, “Uh, it’s just, it just is.”

She was unconvinced, but let it go, because they were going to be late if they didn’t get out the door immediately.

At the arena, he was knocked off-balance by the fact that Coach had listed him above Parsons on the daily lines. Parsons stared at the board, a frown twisting his mouth, but didn’t say anything to Mike. That was just fine with him. He didn’t know what he was going to say, anyway.Sorry you fucked my game the last two years and I’m finally fixing itwouldn’t have soothed any ruffled feathers even though it was the fucking truth.

It was a dirty, physical game right from the start. The Hornets were still smarting from the last loss to the Cons, and they were both battling for number one in the division. Singer and Lévesque looked grim as players who didn’t usually take penalties started racking them up for stupid, sloppy things. Hooking, slashing, roughing. Bee almost dropped gloves with Landry for the second time in their careers when he slammed into her slightly too late, but the linesmen separated them and shipped him off to the bin before she could manage it.

The first few shifts Mike skated, Danny wasn’t even on the ice, so he kept his head down and tried to play as clean as he could. Landry was unusually silent, considering Mike’s memories of him jawing at Bee after Garcia had knocked Mike down on the ice, but he put it out of his head and focused on grinding the game out. The score was still 0–0 at the end of the first period, and despite the bullshit, he knew they were playing damn well.

On the bench, he looked sideways to the visitors’ side. Sometimes Danny watched him. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes and a beard that had grown out to fill in his chin and jaw like another shadow, and Mike had the sudden, intense urge to slap him in the fucking face and tuck him into bed. He shook his head to clear that particular idiot thought away and tried to keep his attention on Coach’s instructions.

He didn’t get the chance until the second period, when he saw Danny going over the boards at the same time Mike was already out.

“Are we gonna do this, huh?” he demanded.

Danny just looked at him, flat and emotionless, before he turned away and skated off and Mike felt the insane desire to apologize again, right there on the ice. He was really fucking losing it. Instead of doing that, he skated after Danny and did the only other thing he could think of to do, which was to annoy him into fighting. Mike was normally pretty good at being a pest, at annoying Danny, but today it wasn’t really working. Everything he tried, Danny just turned the other way.

So Mike did the only thing he could, which was to take a run at the Hornets’ captain. Lévesque seemed stunned that someone had actually knocked him down, even though he’d been playing the puck. Almost no one tried to hit him anymore, because Danny and the rest of the team would destroy them. The Pittsburgh fans in the crowd saw it and screamed, and Danny saw it and immediately pushed his way through the scrum and shot Mike a look that was halfare you really doing this, you fucking asshole, and half smolder.

Mike could live with that.

The gloves dropped and they circled each other, and Mike said, “Hi,” a little more brightly than he probably should have given the circumstances. He was so fucking happy, honestly, and he wasn’t even going to think about that and the whys behind it right now.

Danny threw the first punch and said, as Mike dodged, “You aresuchan asshole.”

“Yeah, but it worked, didn’t it?”

Mike had Danny’s jersey in his hands now, which meant Danny could reach his, and they were doing the slow circle around the ice, testing strength, before the blows fell again. It was a particular kind of balance, holding a guy’s jersey and trying to skate, to grapple for a hold, and then to punch. The balance you needed to throw a hit was almost opposite from skating. Mike was used to it by now.

Danny might’ve been bigger and stronger, but Mike was still pretty damn capable for his size, and he’d learned where to take advantage of Danny’s bad knee. It wasn’t as unbalanced a fight as it had been before. He still got punched in the face, of course, because Danny’s arms were just longer, and he was still bleeding as it went on, but he gave as good as he got, and he stayed stubbornly on his feet.

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