“Tastes like love to me,” Murph wheezed. “You look like a giant breakfast mascot. Maybe you could do this on game days, you know, for the kids. Or you could get a sweet sponsorship deal!”
By now, half the team had emerged to witness the chaos.
Tyler started live commentary to complement his video. “And here we see the Swedish Viking extracting his revenge on the Irish Gremlin. Nature is beautiful, folks, absolutely majestic.”
Coach Rodriguez appeared at the end of the hallway in a hotel robe, coffee in hand. He took one look at the scene, with Erik still headlocking Murph, both of them now covered in maple syrup. He sighed and turned around without a word.
“That man deserves a raise,” I said to no one in particular.
“He deserves a medal,” Tyler agreed.
It took Erik forty-five minutes and anentire bottle of dish soap borrowed from housekeeping to get the syrup out. By the time we assembled for the team breakfast, he had shaved his head smooth and was radiating the kind of cold fury that only true Scandinavians could achieve.
Murph, to his credit, had the good sense to sit at the opposite end of the table.
“I want everyone to know,” Erik announced, stabbing his scrambled eggs with unnecessary violence, “that I am not angry.”
“So . . . this is Viking joy?” Tyler offered, earning more than a few snickers.
“I amnotangry. Vikings do not get angry. We plot. We plan. We prepare.”
“Plan what?” I asked, almost too afraid of the answer to finish the question.
Erik’s smile was terrifying. “Murphy will find out when he least expects it.”
From his end of the table, Murph raised his coffee cup in salute. “Looking forward to it, big guy. You okay if we rub your head for luck? Be a shame to waste a spit shine like that.”
Even the coaches, smart enough to sit at a distant table, doubled over at that.
“Your life will be interesting when I hide fish in your equipment bag.”
Murph raised both hands in surrender. “That’sbiological warfare, Erik. The Geneva Convention—”
“Does not apply to hockey pranks. I have checked.”
The table devolved into laughter and perpetual retelling of each man’s version of the antics. In barely a few minutes, even Erik’s death glare had softened into something approaching amusement. This was how it always went: attack, amusement, escalation, much more amusement, retaliation, near-bladder-emptying amusement . . . and then . . . the coach’s hammer ending whatever tit-for-tat had started with whatever prank-for-prank had started the whole thing at a time none of us could recall.
It was the endless prank war that had been raging since Murph’s rookie year, and half the team had been caught in the crossfire at various points.
Last season, I’d opened my locker to find it filled with packing peanuts. While immediate suspicionalwaysfell on Murph, I still wasn’t sure which of them was responsible for that one.
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to restore some semblance of order. “Can we focus? We’ve got a game tonight. Save the revenge plotting for after we win.”
“Always so responsible, Cap,” Murph said. “It’s exhausting.”
“You’re exhausting, Murph,” I said with a grin. “Besides, someone has to be the adult in this relationship.”
“I love it when you get all stern, Daddy. Can I have a spanking later?”
The table erupted at that.
“He’s got a point, Shaw. We’re professional athletes. We get paid to play a game.” Tyler shook his head and leaned back, grinning. “Adulthood wasn’t in our contract.”
“God, not you, too. Ty—”
“My contract says I have to show up and play hockey. It basically commands me to score goals. It says nothing about being mature.”
I wanted to throw something, but I couldn’t argue with his logic, mostly because I didn’t want to. The truth was I loved the banter, the chaos, and the way these guys could drive me insane and still be the people I trusted most in the world.
