A hand that is attached to the biggest pest in the NHL. Yanis Zima. We just had to play them today out of all days.
“Fuck, Minaev, I’m seeing you from a whole new angle right now,” he says, glee pouring out of his stupid mouth, and when I raise my eyes, I catch what he’s holding. “A teddy bear! Aren’t you fucking cute.”
“Put it back and walk away, Zima,” I say, gritting my teeth as the blood starts to boil in my veins.
I’m more than used to this fucker’s antics and never care enough to take his stupid baits, but today I’m a second from snapping. A second from ruining the perfect imagine I’ve built around myself for this part of the world to see all because my life has been flipped upside down.
I’ve been fucking fine. I’ve been perfect, living with my demons in hiding, but no, she had to come into my life and destroy it all, suffocating me because there’s not enough air without her. Not enough light or warmth or that fucking poison I seem to need and all those demons are having a fucking field day for the past forty-eight hours.
My eyes zero in on the teddy bear still in Yanis’s hand, and I start to shake. He needs to let it go. Right. Fucking. Now.
“But I want to play a little bit, didn’t your mama teach you to share? Seeing as she knows how to do that so very well.”
I’m on my feet in an instant, my forearm pressed tight against his throat as I throw him against the wall. “Didn’t your mama teach you not to touch stuff that doesn’t belong to you? Oh, wait, she’s too busy fucking my father on the side like a cheap whore in hopes he leaves his wife for her, isn’t she?”
Yes, Zima and I go way back, and I know all kinds of stuff about him and his family seeing as they are from the same viper’s den as mine. I know it all, and I’ve kept my mouth shut, but this fucker never knew what’s good for him and lived as he pleased.
A vicious growl leaves Yanis as he thrashes against my arm, but there’s no way he’ll get away from me like this. We might look somewhat similar in general and have the same demons playing hide and seek inside us, but I’m both taller and bigger than him.
“I see you’re done pretending you’re a saint?” he asks, that asshole smirk he hides behind plastered on his face once again.
“And I see you’re still the same spoiled brat with mommy issues?”
“Fuck you, Minaev.” His brown eyes try to burn holes in me.
“Right back at you, Zima. Now put the toy back and leave me alone.”
He thrusts the bear at my chest, and I let him push me away. “I’d watch your back on the ice tonight,” Yanis says and walks away, stepping all over my stuff.
I clutch Lincoln to my chest, my nose falling to the toy as I inhale Emett’s scent. It still smells faintly like him and almost instantly, my body relaxes.
“Heyyy, there’s our goalie! Hill was about to send search and rescue for you and Quinn.”
“Har-har, hilarious, Zlatan.” I walk over to my spot and start changing right away, noting that Exton isn’t here yet either. If I’d have the mental capacity to worry about anything else today, I’d feel like shit for not checking up on him, but alas, Aurora stole it all along with my sanity.
“Hey, is that a teddy bear?” Abel reaches over to touch the toy, and a low growl leaves me before his finger can even graze the plush fabric. “Whoa, okay, got it! No touching your bear.” He raises his arms in surrender. “Is it some kind of special superstitious thing?”
“Yes, it’s some kind of superstitious thing, now piss off.”
A few of the guys throw wary looks my way because they’ve never heard me talk like this before.
Just as I’m starting to tape my stick Exton charges into the locker room looking like an angry bull on a mission. His eyes are red and swollen, his curly hair disheveled.
“Axe, mate, you are not that young to go at it for the whole night before the game.” Abel wiggles his eyebrows suggestively but in answer he gets a sneer and a low growl from Exton instead of a clap on a back for his stupid joke and he visibly takes a step back from our side of the room. “Okay, not in the joking mood, I see,” he says, then quietly mumbles, “The fuck is wrong with them today?”
Exton slumps onto the bench next to me and start to angrily tear his clothes off. “Do you have extra tape? I think I forgot mine,” he asks, and I hand him the roll I was just using.
“Hey.” I sit next to him. “What’s going on? Where’s your head at?” I realize it’s the blind leading the blind with this question, but hell, maybe I can at least help him since there’s no saving me today.
Not after that bloody night.
“At Terminal B,” Exton grumbles, continuing to tape his stick. I don’t need to be a genius to realize his mood has something to do with Electra, and if I’m correct, she must’ve left Iris Lake.
“Well, send an Uber for it, because we need it on that ice. You know who we’re up against today, Exton.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, sure,” I snort, but leave him to his delusions. After all, I share the same ones.
