Page 122 of Best Man
Well hey, if anything happens to my nuts, at least I’ve already passed on my genes,he reasoned as he left the locker room.
Niko hurried down the tunnel to the ice surface. The crowd sitting near the tunnel noticed him first. They went up in a wild cheer that began to spread as more and more fans noticed him.
As he neared the bench, Niko glanced at the scoreboard and breathed a sigh of relief that the Falcons hadn’t inflicted any more damage. The Devils were still down three goals with sixteen minutes to go.
He shimmied down the bench, behind the backs of his unaware teammates, whose shoulders sagged as they watched the action on the ice.
Niko went up to Coach Quinn first. “Thank you, Coach,” he said quietly. “I really appreciate it.”
“You can thank me by dragging us back into this game,” Coach said, and pounded him on the back as he walked past.
The whistle blew, stopping play. A second later, the red light above the penalty box turned on, signaling that the television broadcast was taking a two-minute commercial break. The cameras turned to Niko, plastering his image on the jumbotron. Now the entire arena saw him, and the crowd went wild.
“The fuck are they so happy about?” Reavo muttered as Niko slithered past.
Niko took his spot next to his linemates, Dane and Hathaway. “Let’s turn it up, boys!” heshouted.
Everyone on the bench whipped their heads around in surprise, standing or leaning to get a better view.
“Niko?!”
“He’s back!”
“Three goals isnothing,” he said and spat on the ice. “We can do that. Easy. You know why? Because we are a good fucking hockey team. Thebest.That’s why we are here. Tonight, boys, we are going to come back to win this game. And we will becomelegends.”
His teammates looked around with shifty eyes, inspired yet confused.
“Uh …”
Jax finally asked the obvious question on everyone else’s minds: “Dude, Niko, what about your baby?!”
“A healthy baby girl, eight and a half pounds,” he said, breaking into an ear to ear smile.
“Holy hell! She did it!”
The boys mobbed Niko, pushing and shoving and clapping him on the back. The crowd, witnessing the scene on the jumbotron, cheered happily, too—they must’ve understood that this little celebration meant his baby was born. Or maybe they were just simply happy to see their players smiling again?
“Congrats, man!”
“What’s her name?”
“Yana Alexandra,” he said. “She’s beautiful, just like her mother.”
“Well, obviously! Because we know she didn’t get it fromyou!” Parisi joked, and the boys broke into a hearty laugh. At least they hadsomethingto smile about—now they just had to turn that good energy into goals.
“Time to get serious,” Coach Q said, clapping his hands twice to get the boys back on task. “We don’t need to score three goals, boys, so get the scoreboard out of your head right fuckin’ now. We need one goal, boys,one,” he said, holding up a single finger. “Go out there and make the first happen, and we’ll build from there.” He turned to the goalie. “Vaughnsy. We need to take some big chances out there to even this game—are you locked in?”
Vaughn coolly lifted his goalie mask and rinsed his flushed and sweaty face with a blast from his water bottle. Niko hadn’t seen how the Falcons scored their goals, but one look at Vaughnsy’s burning eyes told him all he needed to know: he waspissed. Pissed at the team for allowing the defensive breakdowns that led to the goals against, but even more pissed at himself for not making the impossible saves anyway.
No onehated to lose more than their goalie.
“The door’s fuckin’ shut,” Vaughn answered in an angry growl, confirming what Niko already knew: the goalie was in the zone, and the Falcons weren’t going to score on him again tonight. The rest of the team knew it, too, and Niko could see their confidence beginning to grow.
The red light above the penalty box went away, spelling the end of the TV timeout. Without another word, Vaughn pulled his mask down and skated off to his net.
“First line, you’re up,” Coach Q roared at his team. “Get it done.”
The first line—Niko, Dane, and Hathaway—hopped over the boards to take the ice.
