Page 38 of Absolutely Pucked
Pressingthe long stick against the ice, I braced myself as I used my hips to propel myself forward. I had never skated before I lost my leg, so learning to skate upright on my prosthetic was easier because I didn’t have to unlearn any skills from before the accident.
Still, I didn’t really understand how anyone wanted to do it this way. There was nothing like sitting my ass in a perfectly molded sled bucket and feeling the burn in my arms as I used the picks to hurl myself across the ice.
And there was nothing more exhilarating and terrifying than slamming my sled into someone else, sending them crashing into the boards. Checking was a whole different thing with us, and I loved it. I wasn’t typically an angry man, but it was the best relief when something was pissing me off or making me feel upside down.
And that was happening a lot lately.
“You’re being weird,” Jonah said as he skated alongside me, using his own stick as a guide. He was wearing his Legends sweater and a pair of basketball shorts, showing off ice burns and bruises all over his knees and shins.
“How the fuck am I being weird?” I demanded.
“You stopped answering my texts?—”
“I told your ass to stop texting me at two in the morning…”
“You’ve been quiet today?—”
“God forbid I want some peace,” I snapped, then realized he was right. I was being weird, and I had a good reason for it. Killian had turned my entire world upside down, and I didn’t know how to make it right again.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I glanced around the rink, but luckily, no one was hovering nearby to listen in. Jonah had fully taken over coaching the kids, and while Tucker had decided to retain a couple of his private lesson kids, he was stepping back from all of his responsibilities while he finished up his training to take over the coaching job.
“I just have a lot of shit going on, okay? It’s…a lot.”
“Is it the whole Montreal thing?” Jonah asked as his stick tapped the wall, and he adjusted his stance. I followed behind at a slower pace, my hip already aching from using it to stay balanced.
“What—oh, no. That trip Micah wants me to go on?”
“Yeah, because if that’s the bug up your ass, you can relax. He told me to tell you that Ben wants him to go with Hugo.”
My eyes widened as Jonah flipped around and began to skate backward. I held my breath seconds before he crashed into the wall, and he picked himself up and started again. “MyHugo?”
“Bro, you’re not fucking your coach, are you? Please do not be that cliché.”
“Fuck you, and no. He’s not my type.” Hugo was hot as fuck, but the silver-fox thing didn’t do it for me. Besides, Hugo was…different. Closed off in ways I would never understand, and I didn’t have the time or patience to dig into that well. Or whatever the saying was. “No. It’s other stuff. Work stuff.”
Jonah’s nose wrinkled as he led us both over to the net and used his stick to find the bucket of pucks. They were the ones his team used—big and full of metal bolts so it could be heard across the ice. “Run drills with me.”
“Can I get my sled?” I begged him. “I’m going to fall on my face if I try to run drills on my feet.”
“Your ass just let me hit the wall,” Jonah said with a sniff, and then his shoulders sagged. “But yes. I actually need some practice in. Can you shoot some pucks at me?”
“Yeah, but you gotta put a mask on. I’m not going to be responsible for broken bones or concussions, and I don’t want to ruin that pretty face.”
He grinned widely, showing off an empty space where a molar had been. I didn’t bother asking. We all had plenty of falsies sitting in our jaws. “Meet me back in ten.”
The two of us headed for the exit, and I collapsed on the team bench, sitting back to roll my pant leg up so I could take my prosthetic off. I groaned at the relief, thenset my long stick aside and reached for my sled, which I’d parked right at the entrance to the ice.
It felt like coming home, sitting myself in the seat that had been made for me. My foot nestled at the front, hooking my shoe under the metal to keep myself steady, and I grabbed my helmet and sticks before pushing out and doing a few laps.
Jonah was going to take a while to get into his whole kit, which allowed me to push myself in long, sweeping circles until my arms started to burn. It wasn’t enough to take the edge off what I was feeling, especially because all I could think about was Killian and whether or not he’d gotten the job.
I hadn’t been brave enough to check my phone, which was absurd since I was the one who insisted he take my number and text me as soon as he knew something. But for some reason—as much as he would probably deserve a lifetime of rejections—I didn’t want to be the source of any more of his pain.
There was obviously more to the story between him and his ex, and I had a feeling a mountain of information that Tucker didn’t know. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for the truth avalanche I had a feeling was heading this way.
“Tell me your ass is still here,” came Jonah’s voice, breaking through my thoughts.
I came to a halt near the wall where he was stepping onto the ice, giving him a face full of snow. “My ass and the rest of me are still here.”
