Page 40 of Delay of Game

Zach was fast enough.

But then, as he was heading toward the bench at the end of his shift, he saw Jones slam his stick into the back of Nate’s neck, the wince of pain that crumpled Nate’s face up. Before Zach could even really think about it, he had taken a few quick strides to get over there and break it up.

“Hey!” he said, grabbing Jones by the back of the jersey and yanking him away, “the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“What the fuck doyouthink you’re doing, Reed, you fucking pussy—”

Zach thought about saying something likehands off the captainbut what came out instead was, “Do you want to go?”

“You want to fightme?”

Instead of answering, Zach threw his gloves down on the ice and, after a moment, Jones followed.

He’d never fought before. He’d almost gotten into one last year, with Danny Garcia—funnily enough, also for a hit on Nate—before Mike had pulled him off. He tried to remember what Mike had taught him about fights. To keep your thumb out of your fist. That the most important thing was balance, and that if you could grab the other guy’s jersey you already had an advantage. He did manage to get his fingers into the neck of Jones’s jersey, but Jones was bigger, so all that ended up doing was putting Zach firmly into punching range. He got a few punches of his own in—the jarring ache of his knuckles against Jones’s jaw told him that much for sure—but he was at a disadvantage.

Jones’s fist slamming resoundingly into his lip and the salty tang of blood in his mouth made that much clear. Zach hung in there as best he could, but once there was a little puddle of red on the ice, rapidly freezing over, the refs split them up.

Even though he’d clearly, convincingly lost that fight, Zach accepted the stick taps from his teammates. In this case, it was the thought that counted, more so than the results.

He took the five-minute fighting major, knowing that it was probably only sheer luck that the ref had caught the cross-check before it happened so he didn’t get an instigator call. Some players liked to jaw in the penalty box, but Zach was still too furious to even think of something to say. It was a weird feeling: he wasn’t the kind of guy whogotangry. Even Jones saying shit like, “I knew you couldn’t fight, you hit like a girl,” didn’t really faze him now.

Jones slamming his stick against Nate’s neck, though...

The Arsenal brought it within a one goal game while he was still in the box, after a miscommunication between Mike and Gags led to the puck bouncing right onto the stick of one of Arsenal’s forwards, waiting on Mäkelä’s blindside. He hadn’t had a chance. The Cons managed to close it out, although it was a tense final period, scoreless.

In the locker room afterward, Nate touched Zach’s wrist briefly with two fingers. “Hey,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that for me. I was fine.”

“I know I didn’t, I—” Zach stopped. He couldn’t really explain to Nate why he’d done it. “I just wasn’t even thinking about it. Fuck, Cap. I’m sorry they scored on that one.”

“It’s okay,” Nate said mildly. “We still won. Not so sure about that fight for you, though.”

“I really sucked, huh?” Zach asked, grinning, then winced. The smile pulled at his split lip, and he raised his fingers to touch it. It was going to be fat as hell for a week at least, probably.

Nate stared at his hand, like he wanted to touch it too. “Let’s just say you have other skills.”

“You wanna tell me about them later?”

Nate’s face immediately flushed red, and he looked down. “Nothere,” he whispered.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s fine, I just—I just—yeah.”

Zach took pity on him and went back to stripping out of his nasty, soaking pads.

After the postgame routine of shower and cooldown and media availability and meal, everyone went home to go and change and sleep it off before heading out for the night. Nate and Zach went back to Zach’s place, because he had to feed Dolly and Hank, and then just ended up crashing there.

Zach’s house wasn’t as nicely decorated as Nate’s, mostly because he’d had to do it all on his own. Rachel had picked out, like, coordinating pillows for Nate’s couch. On the other hand, Zach had finally bought actual dining room furniture in lieu of the Ping-Pong table he’d been using after moving in. So he was moved in enough, and the bed was big enough for both of them.

It wasn’t a very long nap, but it was enough that both of them woke up with enough energy to get through a holiday night. By the time the team met up again, they ended up barhopping in Fishtown. Fishtown was the trendier version of his own neighborhood of Port Richmond, the old-school brick row homes mixed in with the kind of new construction that had ugly corrugated metal siding instead, or huge buildings made entirely of glass. It was one of Zach’s favorite neighborhoods in the entire city; there was always some new spot opening up to check out and it wasn’t too far from home. It was a pretty chill New Year’s as far as they went; everyone was tired from the game.

Zach took a second to check on Gags, who had really taken the fuckup with Mike pretty hard. He was alone in the corner, clutching his empty pint glass like if he squeezed it hard enough, he could somehow purge all of the shit in his body that had led him to make a mistake. Like it was something he could purge.

“You gotta just let those things go, Gags,” Zach said, and ordered them both another beer.

“Let it go?” Gags asked. “Reedsy, I could’velost us the game.”

“Well, yeah. But also, Mike was involved in that play. And also, Mäkelä didn’t make the save. It’s neverjustyour fault. Sure, you might fuck up, but there are five other guys on the ice besides you who fucked up too. And we all learn how to put it away and move on to the next one.”

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