Page 16 of Brace and Chase

“Why would I do anything you ask after your warm greeting yesterday?” he asks, but he’s already putting his head against his cubby and closing his eyes again.

“I can’t fucking hear myself think with all the fucking noise,” I tell him quietly. It’s only when I’m bending over to keep talking to him that I catch myself. I’m not supposed to talk to him. I’m not supposed to give a flying fuck about anything he does. And I’m blowing it with my accent. “Just stay the fuck away from me,” I mutter as darkly as I can with the thickest accent I can manage.

Then I turn on my heels and go to the back of the locker room where I can get some damn peace.

“You okay?” Bear asks me quietly when I stand next to him.

I simply grunt and get back to jumping. I even close myeyes so I won’t be distracted by anything. I want to smash something, I want to throw a fucking fit at having to share my team with Heart and how much he’s affecting me. How much his presencechangesme.

And then Laney comes in and a hush falls over the room. Looks like I’ll need to get in the zone some other way today. I frown at the carpet while I hear Laney pumping us up to start the season as winners.

“And lastly, we’re gonna try something different today.” That gets my attention and I look up to see what he’s going to say. We never try anything different. We haven’t needed to try anything different since he became our head coach three seasons ago. We’ve won the Cup two out of those three seasons for fuck’s sake.

“Mater, like we discussed, you’re gonna be pairing up with Bates on the second line.” I turn to see Mater nodding at our coach and feel betrayal flood my whole body. “Santa and Sweetheart are on line one, all right? All right,” he cheers and claps, like there’s anything to cheer and clapfor.

There isn’t. There fucking isn’t anything good about any of this.

“Suit up.” The yell is somewhat of a tradition around here, something Laney has been saying not only for those three years, but for every year he was here as a player too. He was the captain when I was called up from the farm team fourteen years ago. He welcomed me into this team, into this locker room, and he told us to suit up before every single game.

Now it feels like an empty tradition, though.

I barely feel Bear’s clap on my shoulder, then I walk back to my cubby as if through a fog. I put on my skates, grab my helmet and my mouthguard, and follow everyone to the tunnel on autopilot.

Normally I’d be shouting, bullshitting with my teammates and just shooting the shit basically. Up until the spot where the tunnel opens up I can be my true self, and then I get my game face on and I take everything seriously.

Not this time. This time I can’t focus on my teammates, I can’t focus on the walls, I can’t focus on any sounds or smells.

But then, as the light of the arena gets brighter, a face appears in front of me, and suddenly I see red.

“Dude, are you okay?” he shouts in my face.

And I snap.

I take his shoulders and turn him around until his back hits the cement wallhard. Then I follow it up by putting my forearm right up against his windpipe.

“Stay. The fuck. Away. From me,” I growl at him, letting every single thing I’m feeling power my movements and show in my face. I shove hard against him, probably choking him a bit, and then march toward the ice like a bull.

Finally, no one is in my way.

I skate for all I’m worth, blocking out everybody except the men on the ice. I don’t go over to the net to stretch with Bear. I don’t fistbump Benny or give Picard a pat on the shoulder. I just skate for five minutes around and arounduntil I hear the whistle, and then I step out and march back to the locker room.

It’s not until I see Laney leaning against the door, looking at me like he’s two seconds away from murdering me, that I realize what I did.

Where I did it.

How I did it.

“Get in my office,now,” he shouts angrily at me when I’m only a step away.

That’s a tone he’s never taken with me.

It hasn’t been necessary for one, but when you’ve known someone for so long, it’s not easy to reprimand them in a meaningful way. Well, Laney just achieved it flawlessly.

I hang my head and keep walking until I’m in his office. I decide to stay standing, not wanting to anger him any more by sitting down—which I know would piss him off.

“What the actualfuckdo you think you’re doing?” he asks before he’s even through the door. Then he slams it behind him and rounds on me. “Attacking one of your teammates is a stupid enough thing to do, Nikolay.”Oh shit, he called me by my first name.I’m in seriously deep shit now. “But you go ahead and do it right before going out for warmups?” he keeps shouting.

“I—”

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