Page 36 of Brace and Chase

“Nine fucking million. Between the two of you, we’re wasting nine fucking milliondollarsjust this season. Is that a waste? Are we seriously about to drop the ball with the two best defensemen in the league? You’re letting little boys skate circles around youandyou’re fucking up your own team while you’re at it. What the fuck more do you need to just win some fucking games, huh?”

Barlow’s eyes bore into me and I know this time it’s not an option to stay silent.

“Nothing, sir,” I say with respect. He deserves that, just like we deserve this verbal beatdown.

Barlow chuckles sarcastically.

“Nothing, he says. Then why can’t you stop dicking around and justplay fucking hockey?!”

“No need to be so loud,” comes Gab’s voice from the doorway. I didn’t hear the door open, for obvious reasons. She walks in until she’s standing between Charlie and me, and looks from him to me then back around. “It seems we have some fussy babies on our hands.”

She turns to Laney and to Barlow—whose forehead is bulging with veins.

“You both have better things to do than this—as do I,” she adds with a narrow gaze my way.

I know it’s true. Her football team, the Rogues, are going to play the Conference Championship this Sunday and she’s got a lot of shit to get done before then.

“So let’s get one thing out of the way before we all get back to our important work. Heart and Brotnik, you’re both benched for the forseeable future. Until you can prove to the three of us that you’re capable of handling yourselves like adults, you’ll be treated like children.”

My whole body goes on alert. She can’t— no, but?—

“Don’t even bother,” she tells me, holding her hand up to my face. “From now on, until I decide you’ve become the best of friends, you’re going to be rooming together on roadies. You’re going to spend every available second together if you have any hopes of getting any more ice time this season. You’re going to sleep at each other’s places while you’re here, you’re going to eat every single meal together, go fucking grocery shopping together.”

She leans in, looming over me.

“You’re going to be joined at the hip and do absolutely fucking everything together. Shy of showering you won’t leave each other’ssight, am I clear?” She speaks softly, but her words are like bullets.

I can’t move, not even to look over and find out what Charlie’s reaction to all this is. All I can do is feel all the blood drain from my face and stare up into Gab’s lethal green-blue eyes.

“I don’t care how much of an inconvenience it is, Santa, because you’re fucking inconveniencingmeby acting liketwo immature little boys who need to be taught how to behave like fucking men. You two.” She straightens and looks at Charlie then. “Will have to figure it out together, because I don’t have the time for it. Or the inclination.”

She turns and nods at Barlow to exit before her.

“Who do we have that we can call up?” I hear her ask, her voice fading away as they walk down the hallway.

I don’t hear Barlow’s answer, not only because they’re too far away now, but because the ringing in my ears becomes too loud.

“I hope you’re fucking happy,” Laney spits. “You’re dismissed for the day. Get your shit together and figure out where you’re moving into. Tomorrow, you better be here an hour early so you can coach up whoever Barlow and Gab bring in to take your places.”

Whatever words I could’ve come up with to say in that moment die on my tongue when he too walks out without a backwards glance.

“I’ve never been benched,” I say, dazed and confused. Well no, I’m not confused, I know exactly what’s happening and why, but I feel... lost.

“Me either. Not even when I was on Atlanta’s farm team.” Charlie’s words don’t feel like an ice pick being buried in my ear in that moment. They’re just words, as if anyone else has said them. So... I’ve lost it, that’s the only explanation for it.

“I guess we have to figure out where we’re living.” Charlie snorts derisively. “What?” I demand.

“It’s so fucking stupid thatnowyou’re talking to me.”

“Talking to you is what got us into this mess,” I point out with a hiss.

“Whatever,” he huffs. “Where do you live.”

I say nothing for a moment, because I need to have an internal debate on whether I should tell him that I live in a hotel. I mean... it could be kind of a loophole to the conditions Gab laid down but... No. I’m not going to do that to her.

She has her reasons—good reasons—for having said everything she said, so now I’m going to follow her rules.

“Where I live is irrelevant,” I tell him, once more laying on the accent thick. It seemed to bother him before, and petty or not, I want him to be annoyed right now. I’ll work on the whole mending fences tomorrow. “We will be staying wherever it is you live.”

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