Page 125 of Bad Teammate
Vaughnsy, always the cool but quiet guy, was the last to give me a hug. “Hey, congrats, Reavo. That was slick, man.”
“Thanks, goalie,” I said.
“Quick question, though,” he said, his eyebrow lifting with a touch of concern. “Youdidtell Niko you were going to propose to his sister, right?”
“Uh.” I stared at him, my eyes shifting from side to side. “No. Why? Do you think I should have? Think he’ll be cool with it when he gets out of rehab and finds out we’re engaged?”
Oh man,you should’ve seen the look of utter horror on Vaughnsy’s face.
I slapped his shoulder with a great big laugh, and the rest of the room burst into laughter, too.
“OfcourseI fuckin’ told him,” I said.
Niko was, after all, a key player in my proposal.If not for him, I wouldn’t have been able to get all of Katerina’s friends to fly in from Russia. Niko really did all the grunt work on that one.
“Speaking of Niko,” Mikey began, “isn’t he supposed to get out of rehab today?”
As if on cue, the locker room door swung open behind me. A man shouted in broken English, with a thick Russian accent, “I am back, baby!”
The boys broke into pandemonium, shouting swear words, stamping their feet, falling all over each other to get a glimpse at our superstar.
“Holy fuck!”
“Is that really Niko?!”
It was the first time they’d seen Niko since the fight at practice—and he looked like a completely different person. He’d shaved off his scraggly facial hair, and finally tamed his crazy mop of hair, styling it into a neat and fashionable quiff. But after thirty days of sobriety, the biggest change of all was in Niko’s eyes—they were big, bright, clear, and as deep as the ocean.
Katerina was right: once Niko cleaned up, he was a total man-rocket.
Officially on the clock as Niko’s translator, Katerina followed her brother into the locker room. We greeted with a kiss and I put my arm around her.
Parisi found a second load of confetti poppers and quickly began tossing them around the room. One after another, the poppers cracked open, blowing a puff of confetti into the air. Niko loved it, arms spread wide, spinning around in the confetti and soaking in his moment.
“Wow,” Katerina said, giggling. “They’re really freaking out over Sasha’s new look.”
“Not as much aswefreaked out when we picked him up this morning,” I said.
She smirked. “True.”
Niko wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the ground, carrying me around the locker room, shouting, “WE BROTHERS NOW!”
That was precisely the moment the locker room door swung open again. Everyone froze in place—I was still suspended in the air, in Niko’s arms—as Coach Q stamped into the room. His eyes widened as he surveyed the room.
“What in the goddamn hell is all this mess?”
The room fell silent. Coach marched through the room, staring every last one of us down.
But the facade began to crack. Coach struggled to fight off a smile, and he waved his hand at us. “I’m kidding, ya fuckers,” he said, greeted to a chorus of jeers. “Congrats, Reavo. Welcome back, Niko.”
The room burst into a final round of applause.
“Okay, boys,” Coach said. “Let’s get back to work.” He picked up a marker and began to draw up breakout strategies on the whiteboard. “We’ve got a Cup to win.”
Epilogue
Katerina
Three Years Later
