Page 8 of Zero Pucks

I’d never play hockey the way I used to, but being able to propel myself around the ice, using my stick as a guide so I didn’t ram into the walls, was everything. It was how I calmed myself down, which was something I desperately needed after the hell weekend in Vegas.

Two weeks had passed, but I still wasn’t over it, and I was pretty sure half my team, most of the kids I coached, my roommate, and my other best friend were plotting a Julius Caesar–style murder against me if I didn’t stop obsessing.

Et tu, ya fuckin’ Brutuses?

They were supposed to have my back, goddamn it. But it was kind of hard to get over my brother getting ready to marry my ex, waking up in a strange hotel room with no idea how I got there, and having to ride a goddamn luggage cart back to my room because my legs were missing.

Not to mention the creepy fuckin’ anonymous note attached to them as they sat at my front door. I supposed the only saving grace was the fact that no one had any idea how expensive these things were and were too creeped out to steal them and sell them on the black market.

If there was an actual black market for stolen prosthetics.

I made a note to look into it.

Then another note to make sure Ford or Boden wiped my search history if I ever turned up dead.

“Yo! Who’s on the ice?”

I swiveled around, using my stick to keep me balanced. I’d never been much of a figure skater, and it was worse now that I had no control of my feet. Turning my head, I squinted to see who was skating toward me. It only took a second before a familiar dark head of hair appeared in my sightline.

“Jonah!” I called out. He was the goalie on the blind hockey team that used the same rink we did for their practice. He was also my assistant coach for the peewees. “Get the fuck off my ice, bro. I booked it.”

“Make me,” he said with a grin. He skated forward until his stick touched mine with a soft tap. Goalies were the only players on the team required to be fully blind, but it was easy to forget sometimes that Jonah’s freaky anime eyes were prosthetics. He met my gaze more often than most of the guys on my sled team did. “When did you get back?”

Shit. I hadn’t seen anyone apart from Ford, Boden, and my team at the last practice since the disaster trip. And I knew it was hot gossip. We lived in a small town where shit rarely ever happened, so right now, I was the most interesting guy in the world.

And it didn’t help that we were like a damn knitting circle with the way rumors spread around from team to team.

Plus, I’d been bitching to anyone within earshot, so I guess most of that was my fault.

“Uh. A little bit ago.” There. Nice and vague.

“Bad, huh?”

I had no chill. “I hated every second. My brother’s a jackass, his friends are still trying to live their frat bro glory days, my ex is still a bitch, andapparently, I got blackout drunk and woke up in a hooker’s hotel room.”

He didn’t move, like the ice had frozen him to the spot. Then, after a breath, he burst into laughter. Doubled over, he gripped his stick to keep him upright. “What the fuck, dude?” His head tipped up to face me. “No, seriously. What the fuck? This is like movie levels of nonsense. You killed a hooker and lost your liver, or?—”

“Oh my God, no. Shut up.” I skated a half circle around him, and he followed the sounds of my blades on the ice. “I didn’t kill anyone, and I still have all my organs. But, uh…I might have woken up alone with no memory of what happened, and both my legs were missing.”

He burst into laughter again, and it took him a good minute to be able to speak. “Shit. Really?”

“Yep. I found them, so it’s all good. But I had to get carted around like some 1930s carnivàle half-man on a luggage cart because I was, like, seven floors above my room.”

His face turned red with how hard he was trying to keep his composure. “Sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

He burst into another fit of giggles. “Where’d you find your legs? Lost and found?”

“Bro, get this shit. They were leaning up against my hotel door with a Post-it note stuck to the side. No name or anything. Just…here’s your legs. Have a great day.”

Jonah grimaced. “Okay, that’s a little creepy.”

“Right? God, it could have been anybody.”

He felt around with his stick again until it tapped mine, and then he jerked his head and took off in sprints. I followed suit. “What if it was a celebrity?” he said as he zoomed circles around me. “Holy shit, isn’t Britney Spears doing a Vegas show right now?”

“Uh. No?” Was she? Jesus, I hoped I hadn’t run into her that night. The last thing I needed was some celebrity talking about the legless guy they rescued from a self-imposed spiral. But God, I guess itcouldhave been anyone.

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