“The tension is killing me!” his mother squealed. “Not that I understand much about the game.”
Nate, being Nate, just shrugged.
Lauren couldn’t sit still any longer. She popped up out of her seat and stalked over to the food table where Georgia hovered. As Lauren watched, she grabbed a cheese puff and took an eager bite. “I can’t take it,” she said, chewing. “We have to win.”
“I know.” Lauren nabbed a cheese puff, too, and took a bite. “Let’s eat our feelings.”
Georgia laughed. “Glass of wine? I’m on my second.”
“Sure,” Lauren said, feeling reckless. All her old habits were already thrown to the wind. What was one more? And she would probably be giving up wine soon.
Not to mention hockey.
She let Georgia pour her a glass of sauvignon blanc, and then the two of them watched as closely as they dared while the game ground onward.
If she keeled over from stress tonight, her obituary might as well read: Death by game III in the second round.
Down on the ice, a fight broke out between Brooklyn’s Crikey and the other team’s scrapper. The fans stood up at their seats and cheered. Lauren held her breath until Crikey shoved the other man down to the ice, and the refs broke it up. But the players kept chirping at each other even as the linesmen hustled them back to their teammates.
“Looks testy down there,” Georgia said, chewing her lip.
“It does. That won’t be the last fight of the night. I think we’ll see one each period, and a record number of penalty minutes, too.”
“See, I always forget that you grew up in a hockey household like I did.”
Lauren used her best bitch voice, but tonight it was meant to be ironic. “Well, I obviously haven’t treated you to enough of my insightful commentary.”
Georgia grinned. “You should watch more games up here with me, even after Becca is back. There’s always room for one more.”
“I’ll do that,” she said before realizing it was never going to happen. The invitation was nice, but she knew she couldn’t follow through. These weeks with the team were cathartic. They were helping her to let go of some of her own grief about times gone by. But if she stuck around she’d just end up staring at the goalie’s well-padded backside all night, trying not to imagine how things might have been different.
That wouldn’t be healthy. Not even a little.
The game ground onward. It was 1–1 near the end of the second period, and she and Georgia were practically dancing a nervous jig. Lauren was on her second glass of wine and Georgia had finished all the cheese puffs.
The door to Nate’s box burst open and Rebecca marched in. “What’s the score?” she demanded.
“One to one,” Lauren and Georgia said in unison.
Nate turned around in his seat, his face unreadable.
“Don’t start,” Becca said immediately. “It’s not that late and I can’t sleep if the game’s on.”
He turned around again, his focus back on the ice.
Becca grabbed Georgia’s wineglass and sipped from it.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to . . .”
“Shh!” Becca silenced her. “It’s one sip. Don’t alert my jailer.”
Georgia fetched a soda for Becca and then fixed her with a stare. “How’s it going, anyway? I haven’t heard much from you since the party in Bal Harbour. Are you still staying at Nate’s?”
“Nope.” Becca took a long sip of the soda, and Lauren could swear her eyes looked a little shifty. “Back in my own apartment.”
“Okay . . .” Georgia waited for more information, but none was forthcoming.
She was spared from further grilling because Tampa got the puck away from Trevi and turned toward Brooklyn’s defensive zone.
“Baby, no!” Georgia yelped.
Everyone in the box tensed as Tampa rushed the net.
They fired on Mike, who deflected a shot off his stick. But the rebound was tight, and he had to dive for a second one.
Nate’s box held its collective breath while Brooklyn tried to clear it. Tampa took aim again and two players charged the net—Skews and his left wing. When the winger shot, Mike slapped the puck away.
And then Skews plowed right into the goalie.
“Oh, Jesus,” Nate said, losing his calm expression for once. “Don’t you dare start a . . .”
He didn’t even get the words out before Mike threw off his gloves and lunged for the other man.
? ? ?
Mike hadn’t really lost his cool in a long damn time. But when the asshole he was now famous for benching so recklessly ran into him, he just snapped.
Later, he wouldn’t even remember dropping his gloves or skating out of the crease. There was just the guy’s stupid smirk, and the pounding desire inside Mike’s chest to knock it off his face.
There was no skill to his attack, it was all just adrenaline and instinct. He grabbed Skews’s sweater and swung. The punch connected, but not well. And once his opponent shook off his surprise, he was swinging, too.
Mike ducked and then switched hands, punching the other man in the face mask, which flew off. The next thirty seconds were a blur of fists and grunts. His face stung and his right hand was killing him. Maybe the fight lasted sixty seconds, but it felt like an eternity before Skews finally lost his footing and fell, bringing Mike down on top of him.
The refs jumped in to pull them apart, and Mike was left panting, his pulse wild.
He hadn’t been in a fight in three years. And wouldn’t this be fun to explain to his child?
There was blood dripping off his face. He knew he looked bad when Henry—the trainer—skidded out on his street shoes to take a look at the damage.
Fuck.
“I’m fine,” he insisted even before Henry reached him.
The guy pressed a cotton pad to his cheekbone and winced. “You can’t play when you’re bleeding everywhere.”
“There’s four minutes left in the period,” Mike said, skating backward. “You can have me then.”
Henry fussed a minute longer. But then he stepped carefully off the ice, and play resumed.
Mercifully, the last four were played at the other end of the ice. Somehow the fight had lit a fire under his guys. They skated like demons, which led to an ugly goal by Trevi in front of the net with less than thirty seconds left in the period.
Yaaas! They had the lead!
The doctor and the trainer clucked over him like hens during the intermission. They used some kind of nasty medical glue to seal up his face.
“I don’t want to be able to see the bandage out of my peripheral vision,” he said as they worked on him. “It’ll distract me.”
“Shoulda thought about that before you decked him,” Coach Worthington said.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“We need your ass in that net,” Coach pressed. “You let ’im get to ya. I told you not to, and you didn’t listen.”
This was entirely true. “I’m fine,” he insisted anyway. “I won’t let him get to me again.”