And I behave for most of the third period, even finding an opportunity to lay Alex outthe right wayon a play.
Five minutes are left in the game, and my last shift is coming.
Coach will pull the first line soon since things are getting chippy, and our safety is his priority.
A stick finds my back, and I have one guess who the cross-check is from. I don’t move.
“Veronica said you had some side piece in your apartment this summer,” Alex says, bumping me with his hip and trying to move me out of position in front of his net.
“Fuck off,” I grunt, battling for my position with a shoulder push back.
Coop passes the puck to Wes who passes it to Big Ed. It travels to Grady next. The four have established positions at the top of the zone and are killing time with a game of keep-away.
“Is the chick here?” Alex asks. “Maybe I could find her after the game. I figure if Veronica was so starved, she probably is, too. What do you think, Parker? Do you think I should eat her out? You know, I like licking pussy.” A long wet tongue hits the side of my cheek, slowly dragging up near my temple before I register what’s happening.
Did he…lick me?
What. The. Fuck.
Red washes over my line of vision. A puck rebounds off the boards. Quickly, I pivot to chase it. Alex follows. I have an opening. I poke my stick out way too far. Alex trips over it and flies, landing headfirst into the boards. He collapses on the ice, blood pouring out of his nose.
Shit, I didn’t mean to draw blood.
One of his teammates slams me against the boards. An ugly, albeit toothless snarl is aimed in my direction. Fair.
Randy Collins, the owner of said snarl, pins my hands to the side.
“Just watch the face.” I sigh, resigned to receive a flurry of punches from two other New York players. Grady, Wes, and Coop enter the hubbub, followed by Big Ed, who was on the other end of the ice, and a little out of breath after three periods of shifts. He grabs fists full of sweaters, pulling the entire New York first line off me.
Alex picks himself up off the ice and swipes at his blood. He skates back to his team’s bench with a “gotcha” smirk on his face.
Fuck me. The sheer amount of blood from his nose doesn’t bode well.
How does the douche evenbleedoverdramatically?
Over the mayhem, the officials break up the primary fight. Grady evades the refs, dragging one of the New York players out of the huddle. They both drop their gloves for round two. A linesman escorts me to the box before collecting Grady and his dueling partner for roughing. At the same time, another announces my fate to the crowd.
“Number Forty-Seven. Major Penalty: Tripping with the Intent to Injure.”
That ruling has suspension written all over it.
Slumped over, I rub Alex’s saliva off my cheek, ignoring Grady’s death stare sitting next to me. The only positive of a major penalty is that I’m stuck in the box for the rest of the game and won’t have to deal with Coach’s chew-out until after. A whole three minutes later than a minor.
Maybe I should use this time to practice what I’ll say to the Department of Player Safety.
I doubthe asked to eat my friend out, licked me, and called me a pussy,will cut it.
ChapterSeven
Aulie Desfleurs
Play:Just One Look by Doris Troy
“For the love of Peter Noone, Emy. Will you put that thing away?” I grunt as Emy leans on the desk in my bedroom, skimming through the body issueagain.The heavy box in my arms slips, navigating around her, and I barely make it to the desk before it drops with a thud on the hard mahogany surface.
The ordeal is overly dramatic, so I play it off like I’m frustrated with her, contorting my face into a harsh scowl instead of acknowledging reality. I used to sort these boxes on my own, but recently, bending and picking things up has become torture. I’m almost twenty-four and in relatively good shape. This shouldn’t be so hard.
In the past few days, Gus, Emy, and my co-planner Bridget have helped me unload everything from storage, placing them into my bedroom to inventory before they’re moved to a white tent at the base of the fairground next week. As a result, my room looks less and less like a place to sleep—which is fine, I wasn’t anyway—and more like the backstage for a Joanna Baillie production.
