Page 91 of Zero Pucks

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs.

I took it gratefully, happy to be off my legs for a bit. I studied him as he paced, then eventually sat in his tall chair. Part of me wondered if one of the reasons Boden hated him so much was how pretty he was.

He was older, yeah, but goddamn, the man looked like he’d been carved from marble. He wasn’t my type, but I could easily see him giving several men a sexuality crisis with those piercing blue eyes and the way his mouth was always set in a soft, half-smile.

“Coach?” I said after a long beat of silence.

He blew out a puff of air. “Hugo is fine if you prefer it.”

I didn’t give a shit either way, so I just shrugged. “Something on your mind?”

“Boden—”

“Bro, listen,” I said, holding up a hand and leaning over my thighs. “I’m not his keeper, okay? I know he might look young, but he’s a grown-ass man.”

“I know perfectly well how grown he is,” Hugo said, his tone crisp and a little irritated.

“Great. So this high school bullshit about your friend doing whatever and this, that, and the other thing?—”

“How long have you been wearing the A?” he interrupted, stopping my babbling.

I sat back, a little startled by the question. “Uh. Two…years? I think?”

“You’re a good assistant captain.”

Where the fuck was this going? “Thank you? I try. Well, maybe not as hard as Ford does, but you know, I give a shit about my guys.”

“Yes. I’ve seen it. I understand why my appointment has been met with resistance. It was one of the reasons I almost didn’t accept this job. I’m not a fool. I grew up with parents who had to fight for everything they earned, only to have it taken away by underqualified people over and over simply because people didn’t believe they were capable of doing their jobs.”

I really didn’t want to listen to the inspirational disability speech. I was all for it. On my better days, I could probably be called an advocate or whatever. But mostly, I just wanted to live my life. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to eat Hot Cheetos and sit on the couch all day and scratch my balls like every other douche bag hockey player on his off time.

I wanted to walk down the street without people doing a double take and asking me what happened and offering to pray over me.

I wanted to sit in my coach’s office and not listen to him give some speech about how he got it because he’d watched discrimination happen while he was growing up.

“But the fact remains, I’m here,” he went on after a moment of tense silence. “I don’t want to think this was a mistake, but I also can’t have insubordination on this team.”

“So…you want me to talk to him?”

“No. Like you said, he’s a grown adult who can make his own choices. But I’m not going anywhere.”

“Because Bodie’s dad paid you, right? To get him signed to a PPHL team.”

Hugo stared at me for a beat. “No.”

“Uh, that’s not what I heard.”

“Arnaud asked me if I could put in a good word. I told him that I would look into it, but only after I met his son. I’m not feeling very inclined to do that favor for him now. In fact, I’m here to ask you if you’d consider accepting the C.”

“What? Fuck no,” I blurted before the weight of his offer really hit me. I sat back, all the air rushing from my lungs. “Hugo, look, you can’t take that from him.”

Hugo folded his hands on the desk. “Can’t I?”

“He’s our fucking captain, dude. Helivesfor this team.”

“I’ve not seen the evidence of that. I’ve seen tape, and I’ve seen what he’s been capable of, but a good captain isn’t going to put his team at risk for what he considers a personal slight. If he’s willing to take down the ship for his dislike of a single person—a person who is good at his job—then that doesn’t make a very good leader. Does it?”

I would die for Boden. I would kill for Boden. But I couldn’t look Hugo in the eye and lie to him. Boden was an amazing captain, but he had almost thirty years’ worth of trauma directly related to able-bodied hockey players weighing him down.

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