Page 114 of Unrivaled

Bishop climbed onto the exercise bike next to him. “You want to give me a real answer?”

Max gave him a sideways glance. “I’m saving that for media.”

Snorting, Bishop slipped his AirPods in and let Max stew in peace.

After a few minutes on the bike and another ten of two-touch, Max felt more like himself. It helped that the Fish were a young, energetic group and only took themselves as seriously as they needed to and that Baller had shown up with his walking boot and was offering advice from the sidelines.

“Don’t forget to make a lot of stick jokes. Oh—you could mention how you’re going to try to keep his stick tied up.”

Max feigned a long-suffering expression and turned to Bishop. “What’s he even doing here?”

“Hey! I’m moral support.”

“Lockhart.” Their PR person poked their head out into the hallway. “You’re up.”

Bishop crossed himself. “Go with God, my son.”

Max replied with a much ruder gesture.

It was easier sitting in the hot seat only having to think about Grady’s reaction and not the team’s.

The first question came from Piranhas beat reporter, Craig MacLeod. “Are you looking to start something tonight to get the team fired up?”

“I think the team’s plenty fired up already, and it turns out I play better when I’m on the ice instead of in the box, so… no, I’m not going looking for trouble. But it usually finds me anyway.”

He laughed.

“This is your first home game as a Piranha. What do you want to accomplish tonight?”

Max scratched at his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving. “That’s a good question. I think last game I finally started to find my groove on the team, started scoring goals again, sort of fit what I can do into the system the Piranhas play, which is different from what I’m used to. So I’m looking to continue that and hopefully give the fans a good show.”

“Max, how do you respond to Armstrong’s comment that you must have missed his face?”

Oh, an easy one. Max put on his most innocent expression. “Guess I’ll aim higher next time.”

That was the last question for the session. Their beleaguered PR person gave him a look once they’d ushered everyone else out. “We might have to revisit that ‘say what you want’ rule.”

In fairness to Max, he could’ve been talking about not spearing Grady in the dick instead of giving him a facial. He wasn’t, but the internet didn’t have to know that.

Half the arena booed when the Condors hit the ice for warm-ups, but they made enough noise to fill the space. Max laughed, invigorated all over again, and raised his stick in a salute when he took his own first lap on home ice. Half the arena booed him too, but the other half drowned them out.

Someone near the Condors’ bench had a poster of a bird with a fish in its talons. A few seats down, a fan had rendered a Piranha chowing down on a chicken leg. Max grinned at them and tossed them a puck.

Around center ice, someone was holding a sign that depicted a muscular arm wrapped in chains and secured with a heart-shaped lock. Clever. The legend read LOCK IT DOWN, MAX.

Kind of early, but Max would take the suggestion under advisement. He winked at the fan holding the sign and skated back to start the shootout drill.

“How’d you get popular so fast?” one of his new teammates asked, mouth twisted with barely contained humor.

I sucked Grady Armstrong’s dick.“Must be my sparkling personality,” Max told him, and snagged a puck for his shot on net. It went bar-down. Perfect.

Max wouldn’t shoot again for a minute, so he looped up to center ice to peek at the Condors.

Grady was stretching near the center line, and he glanced up as Max snowed to a stop next to him. “Really?”

“Gotta give the fans something new to talk about,” Max told him cheerfully.

With a dead-eyed expression, Grady wiped ice shavings off his eyebrow and flicked them at Max. “Aim higher, huh?”

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