Page 27 of Scoring Position

On the bench, Lefty nudged him. “You think they make failing an eye exam a requirement for the job?”

He huffed and tried to get his head back straight. “I think having your head up your ass is a requirement.”

Lefty cackled and slapped him on the back, and they shuffled down the bench as Ryan’s line came off the ice.

Maybe that would have been the end of it. Nico didn’t feel good about it, but Lefty was right. That shit happened all the time, and at one time he would’ve had no problem letting it go. It sucked that he was coming off a solid game where he was hoping to repeat his success, but that was life. Chop wood, carry water.

So he still felt okay.

Until the same asshole tried the holding thing asecondtime and Nico retaliated by spearing him in the ribs.

That, the refs caught, and Nico spent two minutes in the penalty box, stewing. At the refs, sure, but also at himself. He knew better. That asshole wasknownfor doing dumb shit to get players to take retaliatory penalties. He was basically Ryan in a different-color jersey.

His self-flagellation didn’t end in the box, and he skated out as mad at himself as when he went in.

Back on the bench, he chugged some Gatorade and scowled at the ice. He needed to do better, to be better. How could he have—

“Dude, unclench.”

Nico whipped around to glare at Ryan. “What?”

“I’m just saying, you look like you’re holding in a fart. Unclench.”

Nico stared. What the fuck? Why was Ryan—bathroom humor? Ryan knew he was struggling, trying, and he—fart jokes? Maybe he needed to rethink this friendship.

Next to Ryan, Granger sniggered. Nico glared.

“See, this is what I’m talking about. If you keep scowling at everyone, people are going to wonder why you can’t relax.” He patted Nico’s thigh. For a brief moment, Nico wished he could feel the warmth of Ryan’s hand through the layers of padding.

The refs whistled to stop the play. Coach said, “Kirschbaum, your line! Go, go!”

Nico turned back to the game and went over the boards.

Ryan was such an asshole. No one could possibly be in that good a mood all the time for no reason. The man was a freak of nature.

Fuming, Nico bent at the faceoff dot, won, followed Lefty up the ice, passed to Mucker, watched him take a shot, and then hammered home the rebound. It wasn’t pretty—but it was a goal.

Mucker and Lefty tackled him against the boards. When Nico returned to the bench for a fist-bump, he might have hit Ryan’s hand a little harder than necessary. Maybe.

Ryan grinned back at him.

Later, when Nico found himself next to him on the bench, Ryan leaned over and said, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

“You are so annoying.” Why was Ryan like this?

“Yup!” Ryan winked and hit the ice for his shift.

IT DIDN’Ttake a genius to see that Nico didn’t play his best when he was angry with himself. Ryan figured redirecting that anger towardhimcouldn’t hurt… and after Nico scored the first time, Ryan was curious to try it again.

He turned to Nico after a missed pass and said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” in his worst impression ever.

Nico stopped glaring at the ice and glared at Ryan instead. In the middle of his next shift, he stripped the opposing captain of the puck on a breakaway that had the whole team leaning over the boards. Anaheim’s goalie robbed him—but damn. That kind of hockey made Ryan hot.

So…. Ryan annoyed Nico and then he played good hockey. Twice. And while his stats professors would roll their eyes and say that two data points did not make a trend, and it was foolish to draw conclusions based on so little evidence, Ryan was getting to know Nico. Anger did not fuel good hockey in the kid. But anger at Ryan might? Weird.

They lost, but the locker room after the game wasn’t a morgue. Not that Vorhees didn’t do his best to undermine their effort, but a 3–2 loss with an almost tie-up late in the third wasn’t the worst loss the team had suffered.

Several hours later, after the second time he’d jolted awake in terror for no reason, Ryan glared at the hotel ceiling. He should have known that a good mood after the game would not translate into a restful sleep in a hotel.

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