Page 4 of Falling Offsides

Number thirty-nine moves past me like a goddamn avalanche.

Auguste Broussard.

Big. Brutal. Beautiful… in that grim, dangerous way some men just are.

Bringing my camera up, I track him on the ice as he skates backwards, flipping the puck up with a sharp, fluid flick of his stick.

Once. Twice…

His arms bulge bigger beneath his compression shirt. His jaw cuts sharper with his razor focus on the goal and the backup goalie poised in front of it.

My god, his eyes are cut to slits. Mean. Fierce.

He fires and?—

Crack!

I don’t know what happens. My camera falls to the ice before I can catch it. My heart thunders in my head…

The world goes sideways.

TWO

AUGUSTE

Blood.

I know the smell of it over any other. The way it burns up my nostrils, prickles down my throat… even when it’s not mine.

It doesn’t bother me.

Well, not normally. Not until now.

The girl is laying limp on the ice. The gash on her head is pouring down her temple and into her hair like a waterfall.

“Fuck, man! She’s bleeding,” Jayden mutters beside me, looking down on her with me and Spinny, our second goalie.

Shit!

“Shit, how bad is it?” Dylan pushes between us, crouching next to me. “My God, you knocked her clean out, Bruce.”

“Coach Nilsson is going to kill you,” Coach Hollinger grinds out between clenched teeth as he crouches above her head.

I look at him confused—Why would Coach kill me over a stray puck?

“She shouldn’t have been there,” I grumble back, shucking off my glove to check her heartbeat on her wrist. “And anyway, she’s not fucking dead.”

“But you will be when he finds out you cracked his daughter’s head open on our first day back.”

I freeze. “Wait. What? Come again.”

“Oh fuck, Bruce, you’re so fucking dead. You better start praying for a Lazarus effect or something,” Morrow says as the girl finally stirs since I caught her and laid her down on the ice.

Fuck.Fuck…

Open your eyes and be okay.

I’m not a praying man, but I think this girl is making me one.

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