Page 31 of Delay of Game

Zach looked pleadingly at Nate, like,can you believe this guy?

“I, uh, I’m sure he’s taking it seriously, Sally.”

Sally’s ice-blue eyes reflected no expression, but it was clear exactly what he thought regardless.

Zach took the face-off and won it. And the game was on.

It felt good to just play hockey again. The last day and a half Nate had been on fire with the kind of nervous energy that only a game could burn away, and it had been a thousand times worse because he’d been alone in his own head. There was sometimes barely time to think on the ice, and when there was, he had to direct all his attention to the game at hand.

On the bench you had to watch for when your line was up so you wouldn’t leave Mäkelä in the lurch on a change, and on the ice you had a hundred things to occupy you. Nate had always pushed himself hard, even though the shifts were short, and the pain was especially welcome today.

It didn’t hurt that their line was really firing on all cylinders, having one of those days where everything was clicking. Passes sauced cross-ice with no interference, and Bee scored about six minutes into the first period with a beautiful wrist shot above the Tampa goaltender’s left shoulder. Nate grabbed her up in a hug, even though she was almost as tall as he was, and Zach crashed into both of them a second later, almost knocking him off his feet.

It wasn’t that the game was easy. The Mariners had last change, and somehow the fourth line ended up on the ice against the first, and a bad turnover led to a 3-on-1 that Mäkelä couldn’t stop, no matter how desperately he dove for it.

Nate had to take an interview in between the periods, something he always hated doing. For a while the beats had actually stopped asking for him because he’d given such bad answers, and that had been a relief, but then his agent had told him to knock it the fuck off and it had all started up again.

“After losing three you’ve been on fire today,” Maria, one of the Cons’ media panelists, was saying. “Is there any internal pressure to really win this one?”

This was part of the reason he hated the interviews so much—the questions they were asked always led to stupid answers. What was he going to say?Nah, we’re ready to tank it for the number one draft pick next year and completely throw out all of the progress we’ve made?Instead Nate stammered something about how he always put a lot of internal pressure on himself, even more than he did on the team, but she was already moving on to the next question.

“And your chemistry with your line mates, especially with Zach Reed—how would you describe that?”

“I, uh, we, uh, you know, we’ve, uh, played for three seasons together now, you, um, you kind of get to know the guys, figure out where they’re gonna be—it’s, uh...”

“And you two are almost always together—you even bought houses around the corner from each other. Does that contribute at all?”

Nate could feel his face getting hot, the sweat beading even thicker on his forehead as he managed to grunt out one-syllable answers and a mumbled “I don’t know.”

Mercifully, she cut him off, because they only had so much time allotted, and he’d filled most of it withuh. He slunk away, his face a brilliant red that had nothing to do with the imprint of the helmet on his forehead.

“Real eloquent,” Zach whispered to him from where he’d been watching in the wings.

“Shut up, please.”

Zach’s entire face crinkled up into that horrible, infectious smile. “Dude, no, you gotta go with eithershut up, orbe quiet, please, commit to like...one attitude.”

“Shut up, please,”he managed, because he was already smiling back helplessly, and it didn’t help at all.

“Aww,” Zach said, patting him on the arm. “It’s okay. At least you didn’t say anything about getting the puck to the net.”

Nate thought about all of the times he had said exactly that and sighed. “I hate interviews.”

“You did fine, I was just giving you a hard time.”

Nate’s mouth opened and closed. “I—yeah.”

Zach’s face was completely innocent. “C’mon, Cap, period’s gonna start soon. I’mready.”

It was a chippy game, the score seesawing back and forth fast enough to give anyone whiplash. He knew plus/minus was a stupid stat, but he wastankingit today. It didn’t matter: in the end, thanks to Netty’s hard work during the third in the neutral zone, Zach was able to slip through some open ice as the lines were changing to score the game-winning goal and get them the two points right before regulation ran out.

Nate barely realized what he was doing but opened his arms as he saw Zach skating right at him. The weight of his body crashed into Nate’s, and he swung him around, on reflex.

“Nice fuckingwork.”

Zach didn’t say anything at first, just pulled back far enough so that Nate could see him grinning. “See? I was taking it seriously.”

“Never doubted you for a minute.”

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