Page 26 of Scoring Position

In the locker room, someone was blasting upbeat hip-hop music over the energy of a pumped-up team. Grinning, Nico stripped off his gear and listened to the noise.

“All right, listen up, children!” Greenie stood in front of his bench, still wearing half his gear. “It is my dubious honor to choose one of you as being deserving of this here fine apparel.” He held up the 1960s racecar helmet the Fuel players had been using to mark the MVP since their very first game. “And since rules dictate that I have to give it to someone else and cannot use it to recognize my own awesome—”

“Hoser!”

“Quit pumping your own tires!”

“—I will now pass along this helmet to one of you!” Greenie waved his hands in big, sweeping gestures.

“Get on with it,” Ryan yelled. “I’m getting old here!”

“Older but not taller or wiser,” Greenie agreed. “I don’t think any of you will argue with me when I say that a three-point night has to take the crown.” He waddled over to Nico and placed the helmet on his head. It was gross and smelled funny—musty and sweaty, with a hint of gasoline—but at least the face was fully open. “Looks good, kid,” he said and bopped the top of the helmet.

Nico couldn’t stop smiling, even when he had to do media.

“Nico, it seems like this is the breakthrough game you’ve been waiting for. Is there something specific that you did to help you get to this point?”

His mind flashed immediately to that night a few days ago, Ryan’s hand warm on his thigh. That was when it started. But he knew he still had a lot of hard games ahead. He’d gone into this one in light spirits. Odds were he’d get stuck in his head again at some point and backslide.

After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, he thought. But he’d come across like a huge douchebag if he attributed his success to a book instead of a person, and he couldn’t admit to seeing Barb where his father might learn about it.

Then again, he couldn’t imagine mentioning Ryan without inviting all kinds of speculation. It would’ve been fine if Ryan were straight, but… no. He didn’t want to deal with his dad’s predictable reaction to anything that drew attention to Nico’s sexuality.

He could, however, give his team in general the credit they deserved. For ages they put up with Nico treating them like they didn’t matter, and they welcomed him back without question or apology.

“Ah, I got a lot of support from my teammates.” That was safe to say; his dad couldn’t take issue with that. “They really reached out and helped me get through my slump. I know I have more work to do”—the most hockey-player response of all time—“but getting results feels good. I’m glad they didn’t give up on me.”

He meant to look at the reporter who’d asked the question. Instead, his eyes met hers and then slid over her left shoulder, where Ryan was pulling on a clean T-shirt for his cooldown routine.

He caught Nico looking and winked.

Nico cleared his throat and hoped he was still bright red from exertion and not flushing anew with embarrassment. “Uh, any more questions?”

Despite the win, the team didn’t go out to celebrate, since they had to play Anaheim the next day. Nico didn’t have a road roommate now that Lucas had been traded, but he wouldn’t have had the energy to watch a movie or anything anyway. He simply stripped and fell into bed.

The disadvantage of not having a road roommate was that when he overslept his alarm, he didn’t have a backup to keep him from being late to team breakfast. He skidded into the room in socked feet with pillow creases still on his face, hoping he’d beat Vorhees.

No such luck. Coach was down at the end of the table, as usual. He made a point of checking his watch when Nico came in. “Kirschbaum, you’re late.”

And now he was also even more embarrassed. Nico sighed internally. It was his own fault. It had been irresponsible of him to sleep in. “Sorry, Coach. My phone died.”

He expected to get slapped with a punishment—Coach could healthy-scratch him, but that would look weird to anyone who’d seen last night’s game highlights—but before he could, Misha piped up. “Late for breakfast. Hundred-dollar fine, Kolya. Pay up.”

Coach opened his mouth as though he were about to add something, but he must’ve been in a good mood, because he shrugged and went back to his breakfast.

Nico looked gratefully at Misha. “I’ll Venmo you.”

Honestly, Misha was probably the softest-touch kangaroo-court fine master in the NHL. Nico wasn’t going to get into it with him. A hundred bucks was a cheap price to pay to avoid further repercussions.

He got a plate and sat next to Grange, at the only empty seat at the table. They didn’t usually talk much—Nico always got the feeling Grange thought Nico was supposed to be his replacement when he retired, sothatwas awkward. But this morning Grange elbowed him and said, “Nice game last night. Going for the hattie tonight?”

Nico flushed in pleasure at the attention and dug into his omelet. “I wish,” he said wistfully.

Grange surprised him by laughing. “It’ll come.”

The encouragement stayed with Nico until puck drop and even after, until late in the first, when history repeated itself. Only this time it wasn’t Nico’s fault he got caught out of position. He knew where he needed to be and he intended to get there. Except his stick got “stuck”—by which Nico meant an opponent grabbed it. Naturally the refs missed the whole thing and couldn’t be convinced to look at the video replay, but at least that only led to a missed scoring opportunity and not a goal against them.

Nico was still pissed.

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