I wave at them and watch excited grins spread across their faces.
“Holy shit. Look at you interacting with kids.” Jasper’s jaw is practically on the ice. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that.”
“Fuck you.” I nail him with the butt of my hockey stick. “I’m nice to people.”
“There’s a difference,” Marcus clarifies. “You’re nice to them, but I don’t think I’ve seen you wave at kids before.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Well, things are different now that I have Caleb. I wouldn’t want people being a dick to him.”
“Okay, seriously. This whole nice guy thing is weird.” Jasper cringes. “I seriously don’t know if I can handle it.”
I smile at him—the fakest smile I’ve ever given him. “If the kids weren’t watching, I’d flip you off.”
Jasper smiles back at me. “There’s the Bode we all know and love.”
“Hey, I contain multitudes now.”
“Listen to you and the big words,” Jasper jokes. “I think you’re finally growing up.”
“Only took him his whole life.” Marcus skates off as the whistle blows and we’re beckoned back toward the locker room.
Fishing a few of the pucks off the ice, I toss them over the glass toward the kids.
“Thanks, Bode!”
Three happy faces stare back at me, waving. I wave as I head toward the visitors’ locker room. Once I’m there, I’m too hyped to care how stark the room is. That’s the way it is for visitors—but we don’t need it to be fancy.
We’re here to play a game.
“Alright, gentlemen. First game of the preseason.” Coach Andrews steps into the locker room in a finely pressed gray suit. The overhead lights are glaring off his bald head. His coke-bottle glasses make his brown eyes look bigger as he scans the room.
“We’ve been working hard and looking good in practice, but it means nothing if we can’t put together a solid game.”
“So much for a pep talk,” Noah mutters under his breath next to me.
“I like what I’m seeing. We’ve got a good team. One of the best I’ve worked with, and I’m not just saying that to blow smoke up your ass. I want you to go out there and leave it all on the ice. Not just tonight, but every game. I don’t want you to have regrets that you could have played harder when you look back.”
I nod, feeling the familiar buzz move through me. The energy of the arena is rocking, even from here. This is why I love hockey—the way we can put everything out of our heads and focus on the game.
Right now, in this moment, nothing else matters. Everything going on in my personal life is pushed to the side.
I can’t worry if Caleb is doing okay or when his next teeth are going to start coming in. I can’t think about my gorgeously sexy roommate.
The only thing that matters is the puck and starting this season on a high.
“New York is a good team. They have the crowd on their side. I want you to work as a team and go out there and show them what we’re made of. Even though we were one win away from the finals last year, we’re still the underdog tonight. Let’s go out there and prove them wrong!”
“Hell yeah!” someone shouts as Coach pulls us all toward the center of the locker room.
“Knights on three. One, two, three…”
“Knights!” we echo, grabbing our sticks and helmets and heading back toward the ice for the puck drop.
We’re announced to boos from the home crowd, as expected. There are a few clusters of red, proudly repping the Knights jerseys, but they are far outnumbered in the sea of dark green.
When the lights go down, the crowd erupts. A warrior’s song, like Vikings going into battle, announces the home team lineup. I recognize most of their team. A few new faces that got traded, but I’ve come to know a lot of these guys playing against them over the years.
Even had a few nights out with some. We leave everything on the ice. After? We can hang out and have a beer together.
