Moving the puck back and forth behind the goal, Benji waited as new forwards hit the ice. He noticed that the Kings took that chance for a fresh line too. Clearly this was the time to go. Banking the puck against the boards, hard, it went center ice where he thought Erik would grab it, but he didn’t.
Jude Sinclair did.
“Fuck!” he yelled, coming out and rushing toward him to block him since Jayden had been at the blue line, waiting for Benji to come out. Jude was on a mission, though, and when he went to shoot, Benji dropped down, using his body as the puck came crashing into his chest guard.
Still knocked the breath out of him, though.
Luckily, Jayden had made it back, getting the rebound off of him and taking the puck up as Benji slowly got up, wheezing for breath. Skating toward the bench, he climbed over as the whistle blew. When he heard singing, he turned to see Jude, singing with his gaze on him.
“What the hell?” Sitting down as Jayden sat, Benji looked over at him. “Is your brother singing to me?”
Jayden rolled his eyes, gasping for breath as he took a long pull of water. “He’s an idiot. Sings to people on the ice.”
Jude scoffed at that since he was in earshot, still singing. Benji continued to look puzzled. “What’s he singing? Who sings on the ice?”
“He does. It’s insane, but I think he’s singing the Beach Boys.”
“The Beach Boys?”
“Yeah, he told me he was gonna sing ‘Don’t Hurt My Little Sister’ to you to throw you off your game.”
Benji’s face twisted as he looked out at the ice, Jude skating off as he moved his head to the beat in his mind. “Lucy wasn’t kidding when she said he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, was she?”
Jayden chuckled. “Nope, not even kinda.”
Benji ignored Jude and the game continued, the Assassins down by two. It had been a tough game. They had their backup goalie in, Dylan Alexander, and he was doing fine, but it was easy to see he was rusty from not playing for a while. Leaning on the boards, Benji watched as the Assassins fought into the Kings’ zone, shooting pucks left and right. When one of the Kings’ players cross-checked Jordie into the boards, the bench lost it in protest. Thankfully, the ref saw it and threw his hand up.
Power play.
“Paxton, Sinclair, go,” Coach yelled, and they jumped over, heading to the face-off circle.
When Jude skated by him, grinning like a fool while singing, Benji shook his head. Would Lucy be mad if he pummeled her brother? He wasn’t sure if he cared, because the dude was getting on his nerves. When the puck dropped, though, Jude stopped singing and tried to win it. But Anderson was fast, kicking it back to Benji, who sent it to Jayden, who shot wide. Going around the boards, Benji rushed to get the puck before it went over the line, getting there just in time to send it to Anderson, who sent it to Titov, who shot, but the goalie batted it away. Right onto Jayden’s stick. Instead of shooting, though, he whizzed it to Benji, who was ready for the one-timer, and when the red light flashed, he threw his arms up.
There was Lucy’s goal.
“Fuck yeah!”
As his boys wrapped him up in a hug, he somehow met Jude’s gaze. He was just grinning, nodding his head as he headed to his bench. Benji wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t feel comfortable about it.
But he didn’t have time to worry about Jude because as soon as the next line went out, the Kings scored again—in the end, winning the game. Benji hated losing, hell, everyone did, but it really sucked since it was the Kings, Jude’s team, that had kicked their asses.
Defeated, the Assassins headed back into the locker room. And when he sat, Coach came in with the usual get-your-shit-together speech. When he called Benji out, saying he wasn’t in the game, he was right. Between fucking Jude and the fact he was still thinking about what had happened in AA, he didn’t know what to do. He needed to figure it out. Because things were happening.