Then Baddy stiffened. “Oh, you son of abitch.”
“What?” Avery blinked at him innocently. “Something wrong?”
Eminem furrowed his brow. Then he groaned and sat back as he tossed one of his remaining cards into the center of the table. “Fuckyou, Calds.”
Avery smiled sweetly, tossing a five onto the pile, which currently consisted of two threes and a four. “What? Is something wrong?”
Mix muttered what I thought was some Russian profanity.
“Wait,” Laramie said. “What’s going on? I thought Calds forgot how to play.”
“No.” Eminem slapped down a ten. “He’s gonna shoot the damn moon.”
“Shoot the—what?” Laramie turned puzzled eyes on me. “I don’t know this game. What is he talking about?”
“If you lose all the tricks,” Baddy grumbled, throwingdown his second to last card. “You shoot the moon. Which means you take zero points and everyone else takes twenty-six.” He narrowed his eyes at Avery. “Fucking punk.”
Avery cackled, adding a Jack to the mix that ensured he “lost” this trick, too.
And on the final trick, he also lost.
His three opponents all groaned and swore, and Avery just snickered as he went for a sip from his water bottle.
I laughed along with him, but more than anything, I was relieved. Maybe I’d been worried about nothing. Yeah, Avery’d had a lot to drink, all things considered. Yet he’d remained sharp enough to not only play Hearts, but shoot the moon, something I’d rarely seen anyone do.
Okay, maybe we’d all been worried about nothing, then. Yeah, Avery’d had a lot to drink, but he was obviously still functional.
Clearly, he was fine.
Trews—Lance Trewin—was the rookie defenseman on the third D pair. He was competent and aggressive, exactly the kind of gritty, in-your-face player we needed on the blue line. He could be a real pest, too. One of those guys I was thrilled to have on my own team because he would piss me the hell off if we were on opposite sides.
Hewasstill a rookie, though, and sometimes that showed. When he realized he was on the ice with some of the living legends playing in the League right now, he’d get starstruck. Not enough to throw off his game, but he’d be setting up for a faceoff and have a momentary“oh my God, that’s so-and-so”flash across his face before he refocused.It was kind of cute, honestly, and made me nostalgic for my own rookie days.
Tonight, we were playing in Los Angeles, and as we came out for our morning skate, he stared up, awe written all over his face.
I skated up to him. “You good, kid?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” He swallowed hard, then pulled his gaze away from his surroundings and looked at me. “I used to come here to watch games when I was a kid. It’s… I mean, it’s already surreal to be playing in the League, but playinghere?” He whistled low.
I bumped him with my shoulder. “Guess you made it, huh?”
He turned that starstruck look on me. “What?”
“You made it.” I gestured around us. “You moved from there”—I pointed at the seats—“to here.” I pointed at the ice beneath our skates, and I smiled. “That means you made it, kid. This is the top.”
He stared at me, and then his smile got so big, he lit up the whole arena. “Holy shit.” He scanned our surroundings. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Yep.” I nudged his arm. “Now warm up before Coach sends us both to the minors.”
He laughed, and we both started skating to loosen up our legs.
Maybe pointing out that he’d made it into the big leagues hadn’t been such a hot idea, though. As practice went on, and throughout the day as we all went through our pregame routines, his nerves were visible from space. He was jittery and anxious; hockey players were notorious for not being able to sit still, but Trews was way too twitchy.
By the time we hit the ice for warmups, I was genuinely surprised he could still skate.
That wasn’t good. Especially not when he was playinghere. He’d hate himself if he shit the bed during his Los Angeles debut.
Time to pull his attention in a different direction.
