Page 79 of Flagrant Foul
From this angle, I don’t see his punch land.
On the ice, I didn’t see it either, but I heard the crunch of the impact. Fist into face. Knuckle into bone.
On the screen, I see a beautiful face light up with the bare bones of a lethal smile. A smile, that without any other angles, without any other video evidence, tells me that Teddy O’Reilly put Capaldi flat on his ass.
There’s a long, tense pause when the video ends. None of us moves as we wait to find out if Coach is going to make us watch it again, or if he’s ready to start lecturing us now.
He doesn’t hit play again, and he also doesn’t start yelling. Instead, he pinches the bridge of his nose hard and says, “Now, what have we learned from this mess?”
No one answers, but a few guys look to me, and I can tell from the severity of Coach’s expression that it isn’t a rhetorical question. Someone needs to answer, and I think that, as captain, it should be me.
“We learned that no one touches the goalie and gets away with it, Coach.”
Coach drops his forehead into his hand and makes a pained sound. A few of the guys around me snort as they attempt to stifle their laughter. Coach looks up at me eventually and shakes his head slowly from side to side. I can tell he’s fighting a smile, though, and not because he’s always had a soft spot for me—because we played better tonight. Before the snafu that saw every man on the ice receiving a ten-minute penalty, we played well. Really, really well.
Coach sighs heavily and motions to the door. “Get out of here, the lot of you.”
I feel light as I head to the locker room. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I’m evolving. Maybe I’ve run out of shits to give because, honestly, no part of me regrets what happened on the ice tonight. I don’t regret it almost as much as I know I’m not going to regret what I’m going to do to Teddy when we get home.
42
Teddy “T-Dog” O’Reilly
“Doyouthinkit’shealthy to be delirious?” I ask Mae.
She pinches her lips together and looks into the distance. “Yes,” she says when she’s mulled it over. “I think so.”
“Good because that’s what I am, completely delirious. I’m so happy I can’t feel my hands. Or my hair. And unless I concentrate really hard, I can’t feel my eyebrows either.”
“Hmm.” Her own brows draw down slightly. I get the feeling that she’s fine with me not feeling my hands or hair, but the absence of my eyebrows gives her pause.
“Should I be worried? You know, should I be panicking that Sev and I haven’t really spoken about anything important, like ourfeelingsor what we’re going to do when Nate comes to town?” I sigh dramatically. “It’s just so hard to find the time because we have a grueling schedule and, and because we spend all our free timeboning, so it’s hard to make a meaningful conversation happen, you know?”
“Oh, I know, dear. Managing one’s time can be so tricky.”
“I’m just worried we’re out of touch with reality. We’re ignoring a lot of very real, very important things, and I’m worried it could land us in deep shit later.”
“Well, you know what I always say, Theodore.”
I make a face. In truth, she’s said an awful lot since I met her, and very little of what she’s said hasn’t surprised me in some way or other. I have less than no idea what she’s on about right now.
“Give me a clue,” I suggest.
“Reality schmality,” she says firmly.
I have to hand it to Mae, real or hallucinated, she gives damn solid advice.
43
Sev Delorean
Teddy’sskinlookslikeit’s still warm from his shower. His cheeks are pink, hair damp. His hair is darker than usual when it’s wet, and in some ways, it makes him look younger than his years. He has it pushed back off his face, which draws my attention to his eyes and his brows. Acid blue smudges burrowed under perfectly arched brows.
His lips are pink too. They’re pinker than usual from the way I kissed him when he opened his eyes this morning. Like he was oxygen and I was suffocating without him.
Seeing him like this, face shiny and fresh out of the shower, lips bitten, makes me feel weak.
I guess there’s some distant part of me that thought if I let myself have him, I’d get him out of my system. Not a big part, not even an especially hopeful part, but a tiny, faraway part that thought that by banging it out a few times with him, I’d somehow reset myself. That if I hadhim, I’d see he’s just a regular guy. Just a normal human being with good points and bad points like everyone else.
