Page 14 of Home Ice Advantage

“You know? The guy who broke the national team scandal last year? The one who’s been covering the Thomas charges? The one who wrote aboutyourhead trauma class-action lawsuit?”

“I,” Petey said, “am just vibing. I don’t read the news; it gives me a headache.”

“Well,” Eric said. “This one’s gonna give you a migraine.” He flipped through his phone again to pull the article up. He could feel his ears heating up as he thought about it, the fury on several levels: as a person, as a coach, as a guy who cared about the players on his team. “An anonymous player filed a lawsuit yesterday, alleging that during the Railers’ last Cup run, he was sexually assaulted by one of the team’s assistant coaches. And that the team knew, and that they covered it up so it wouldn’t disrupt the playoffs.”

Petey peered over his shoulder, and frowned, which was about as expressive a look of disapproval as he ever wore. “Jesus. That’s fucking awful, ain’t it?”

By that time, Sullivan had come back into the office. He’d already been on the ice that morning, skating before anyone else had gotten there. Eric had scowled at him from the upper levels, annoyed that Sullivan still had all of the power and grace of his playing days, like he hadn’t lost a step on his stride even though it had been over five years since his retirement.

“Did you guys see the news?” Sullivan asked.

“Roney was just showing me,” Petey said. “Because I don’t read the news.”

“Probably for the best. Fucking awful,” Sullivan said, frowning. “I’m just—Jesus. Even to file anonymously, that poor guy’s going to go through so much shit on top of what he’s already gone through. And Terrance was coaching them at the time already...”

Richard Terrance had a league-wide reputation, well-earned, as one of the winningest coaches of all time. He was a fucking legend. He’d brought two Cups home to Long Island, and he’d managed one of the rarest feats in the coaching world: longevity. Despite the team’s decline in fortunes, the general manager of the Railers had kept him employed. When he eventually did retire there was no question that he was a Hall of Fame candidate.

“If any of the boys have questions, I think we should say something,” Sullivan was going on, frowning off into the distance. “That if any of them have issues, they should feel comfortable coming to us. You know?”

Eric rubbed a finger against the bridge of his nose, exasperated again, because Sullivan wasright. It was fucking annoying when he was right, even about this. “None of us are anything like that, though.”

“I’m not saying—but just, you know. A general statement. I think it’s important. Jesus, I gave the same speech to my peewee kids. Fucked up you can’t even trust adults to handle this better,” Sullivan said, frowning at the printed depth chart.

Eric felt the urge to play devil’s advocate, to say maybe Terrance didn’t know. He knew enough about the American legal system to know that a complaint was just allegations, that they still had to be proved in court. And he also knew enough about hockey players to know that no one was going to put themselves through this particular wringer if it wasn’t true.

The complaint had been detailed. And the complaint had alleged that Terrance had known.

Instead, Eric said, “We can all say something. I don’t know how long this is going to go on. I can’t imagine the Railers’ ownership settling something like this.”

“Hell of a note to start the season,” Petey said, shaking his head.

“Can’t control what’s going on in the rest of the league,” Sullivan said, “can only control how we handle our guys.”

Eric frowned at his phone again. He thought about how he had been at the age the kid had alleged the assault had occurred. He thought about himself, desperate to make the team, willing to do almost anything to achieve the dreams that had dangled just out of reach for so long. He thought about himself, queer and not even with a foot out of the closet like he was now, and how vulnerable that had been. He thought about himself now, in his forties, responsible for the kids he had been all of those years ago.

He thought about someone abusing that trust, and he felt, again, a rush of fury and the regret that he couldn’t just go on the ice and beat the shit out of someone. It wasn’t fair.

Sullivan was looking at him again. “Aronson? You good?”

“Yes, Coach,” he said, flexing his fingers into fists and open again. He stood and, together, the three of them went out to talk to the boys.

Ryan’s first game of the regular season wasn’t as difficult as he was expecting it to have been. The preseason really had prepared him for what to expect, and it didn’t hurt that the Scorpions, frankly, sucked. Granted, the Beacons weren’t far behind in the fancy stats race to the bottom, solely based on the roster, but playing the Scorpions you’d never guess that the Beacons were anything except a team full of hot-shit, young-gun talents fully prepared to take the league by storm.

At a certain point, he gave Williams, Cook and Sinclair a little break, and didn’t ice them as much in the dying moments of the third. There wasn’t any point in running up the score when you were already winning 6-1. Cook already had two goals on the season, and the announcers were practically orgasming over the fact that after having ten goals last year before ending up in the minors, he was now on pace for 164. It obviously wasn’t sustainable, but it sure as hell was a fun stat.

“You’re really gonna turtlenow?” Aronson demanded. He leaned forward into Ryan’s space, looming over him. There wasn’t much of a difference in their height with Ryan standing on the bench to be able to actually see what was going on.

“It’s not turtling,” Ryan said, somehow very aware of how big Aronson was, how little space they had crammed together on the bench. For some reason, it made him feel a bit breathless. “It’s the first game of the season, and it’s sportsmanship.”

“That wasn’t like you as a player,” Aronson said. They had to yell so they could be heard over the noise of the game and crowd and the players on the bench. “The Ryan Sullivan I played against would’ve gone for the throat. He would’ve gotten that last point if he had to break his own damn legs to do it.”

“I’mnota player anymore. I’m a coach.”

“This is going to come back to bite you in the ass, Sullivan.”

Ryan exhaled again. As was becoming more common than he’d like, he had to take a deep breath and count to ten. He thought about saying something likewell, you’d fucking know about biting, wouldn’t you?But he was going to be the bigger person. If not literally. “Not curb-stomping the Arizona fucking Scorpions in the season opener is not going to come back to bite me in the ass, Aronson.”

Aronson shrugged and turned away from him, and Ryan hoped that wasn’t caught on the jumbotron. He hadn’t been expecting, when he accepted the job, that the hardest part wasn’t going to be managing the bench or dealing with the players or even schmoozing with donors and season-ticket holders but getting along with his assistant coaches. Well. Assistant coach. Petey was, as ever, a fucking delight, and so was Heidi.

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