Page 24 of Brace and Chase

I thought some kind of bridge had been mended between us after yesterday.Apparently not,I found out just now.

He’s still going to ignore me and be a baby about it. I want to talk things through, I want this elephant to disappear from our lives, but he won’t even talk to me unless it’s something aggressive.

I’m done with his bullshit.

It’s ruining the mood in the locker room—which is something I only realized yesterday.

After winning against my old rivals, the locker room was buzzing. I mean, no one was blasting music or dancing or anything like that, but it was a mood shift so evident that it couldn’t be denied.

I saw Picard talking to Nikolay and both of them were smiling, something I hadn’t seen since arriving here, and I saw all the other players acting like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

All of that leads me to the conclusion that that is how it usually goes with them.

So Brotnik’s mood has been fucking up the whole team.

I mean sure, we’ve been winning more than half the games, but not by much, and we haven’t been dominating the way I’ve seen them do from afar the last few years.

Yesterday, after Brotnik went at Quinn with singular focus, we did dominate. We shut them out at five-zero and I even got a fucking goal.

It was everything I thought coming here would be like, but today it all went back to being... mild.

My muscles coil with resentment as I skate back to one side of the ice and Brotnik goes to the other side.

“All right,” Laney says, as he skates over to where Nikolay left the puck and places it on center ice, right between us. “All you have to do is score a goal, Santa.”

I can’t know exactly what look Laney’s giving him since I can only see a quarter of his face, but the tone of his voice is hard enough to send a message. Even though I don’tknow what that message is either, I think I can imagine it pretty well.

“Just one?”Santaasks. Ugh, no. That sounds wrong in my head. It’s Nikolay.

“Should be easy, right?” Laney asks back in a mocking tone. Then he turns and skates out. I crouch, ready to start skating as fast as I can to win that puck. Damned if I’m letting Nikolay get one up on me.

The whistle blows again and we’re both off. It doesn’t take me long at all, and from doing this drill years ago—in fucking middle school—I know that the hardest part is this one.

Seeing another player come barreling straight at you and knowing that one of you will have to yield in a way. Accept the role of defense, or risk a painful crash.

Normally I have no issues yielding and defending, I love being a defenseman and always will be one, but not today.

Today I’m going to take that fucking puck and score a goal on the man everyone fears on the ice. Just because I’m not a surly asshole doesn’t mean people shouldn’t respect my game.

I see it in Nikolay’s eyes when he realizes I’m not going to stop or slow down, and I see the moment he makes his choice.

He slows and defends.

I grab the puck without slowing down and keep skating down the ice. The net is my only target, and then?—

Fucking asshole slams me with enough force to makeme lose my balance—so a lot of fucking force—and he takes the puck from me just as I’m regaining it. We charge to the other side of the ice but then I bat at his stick and take it from him.

It goes on like that for so long that I lose count of how many times we’ve changed possession of the puck.

We’re matched in speed, agility, skill... in fucking hunger for victory.

I realize as I take the hit from the puck to block it then take control of it, that this is probably what Laney wanted us to realize.

I don’t really need the reminder butNikolay sure as fuck does.

We’re just as good and just as old.

I’m not better than him, and he sure as fuck isn’t better than me. I hope he realizes this, and I hope it fucking kills his stupid pride.

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