“Hey, hey.” I nudged him back a little more. “Easy.”
He didn’t even look at me. His gaze was locked on the man he still clearly wanted to fight.
“Five minutes,” the ref told him. “Cool it, or you can take a misconduct, too.”
That seemed to get through, and Avery eased off a little. He was still pissed, but he pulled his attention away from Dodson. He acknowledged the ref with a nod.
There was blood on the ice, so the ice crew came out to quickly clean it up.
I turned to Avery again. “You good?”
He swallowed. “Yeah.” He flicked his gaze toward Dodson again, and—shit. Avery wasn’t just pissed—he wasshakingwith fury. His eyes flashed and he didn’t even seem to notice the blood on his face. “Motherfucker is going to eat his teeth if he does that again.”
I blinked. “I… Trews is okay. Just so you know.”
Avery’s gaze flicked to me again. Then he looked around, and he found Trews, who was skating alongside Astala, probably waiting for the ice crew to leave so we could resume playing.
Slowly, Avery relaxed. “Good.” His shoulders dropped. “Jesus, the way he went down…” He swallowed hard and shook his head.
I just nodded, still puzzled by his reaction. It wasn’t like the penalty had gone uncalled. And Trews hadn’t been hurt—sore, yes, but no worse for the wear. He’d been up on his skates before Avery and Dodson had dropped gloves.
“I should…” Avery tilted his head toward the box. With a reluctant grin, he said, “Give ’em hell while I’m in there, eh?”
I laughed. “You know we will.” I clapped his shoulder, and he headed for the box. Dodson got into the other one,and he seemed to have calmed down, too, at least enough that he didn’t start screaming at Avery through the glass divider. A second Los Angeles player joined him to serve his crosschecking penalty.
Well, now we had a power play. I was pretty sure we could make L.A. pay for that stupid crosscheck and put Avery back into a good mood.
We did, too. L.A. didn’t have a great penalty kill this year, and it only took thirty-three seconds for us to get past them and put a puck behind their goalie. That gave us a one-goal lead, too, which seemed to have Avery in better spirits when he finally left the box.
Even better, halfway through the third period, the score was 3-1 thanks to a certain rookie defenseman scoring his first ever professional goal.
“Nice one, kid!” I smacked Trews on the back. “Great place to get your first goal!”
He blinked, then looked around, and that starstruck expression from earlier came back.
Holy shit,his eyes said.I just scored my first goal… here.
He smiled like a kid on Christmas for the rest of the game.
CHAPTER 9
AVERY
Pulling up to Leif’s house was hard.
I’d been here so many times, driving through Sewickley Heights on autopilot. I’d slept here when we’d had too much to drink or been up too late. I’d helped Leif and Rachel landscape the yard and around their pool in the back.
Today, the garage door was open, and the sight of Leif’s red Porsche took my breath away. The part that made my chest hurt, though, was the vacant spacebesidethe car. There was a net in the corner that we’d often dragged out to play street hockey, and some sticks and balls tucked in behind them. Along the wall were his and Rachel’s snowboards.
But most of that area between his car and the wall was empty, as was the hook hanging just above the hockey net.
Leif’s motorcycle was gone. So was his helmet.
Holding the wheel tight, I stared at that void, my guts roiling as I tried not to think about things I wished I didn’t know.
I had no idea if Rachel had sold the motorcycle, or if itwas still where it had been parked when Leif had lost consciousness. In her shoes, I didn’t know if I’d want to grab on to everything he’d ever touched and never let go, or if I’d never want to see that bike again.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, my hands aching from the death grip I had on the steering wheel.
