CHAPTER TWELVE
ALEXIO
I hated admittingthat my jackass coach was right, but I became profoundly aware of the fact that the PPHL was getting less than when I couldn’t find their games anywhere on even the most obscure ESPN. They had fucking hobby horse riding but not blind professional hockey? It was a pile of shit.
Luckily, the PPHL divisions had their own YouTube channels with live games. They made me subscribe, but I supposed if my money was going to go anywhere, I didn’t mind it going there.
The Legends were on a seven-day roadie, and when I wasn’t on the rink for games or practice, I was glued to my laptop, watching Jonah in the net. He really had lived up to the little pet name that had tumbled past my lips when I was talking him off in the bus bathroom.
Sparky, because he was a fucking spark, though on the ice, he was a blazing inferno.
It was near impossible to see his face beyond his goalie mask, but his body language spoke volumes. He was angry. He was stressed. He was tired. And he was using that to fuel himself to get through the game, three of the seven won in a shutout.
But I had a feeling he was collapsing at the end of the night because if Tiago was right when he texted me, Jonah wasn’t taking care of himself. He wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours, and he wasn’t eating apart from choking down protein shakes and nibbling the corners off protein bars.
He was going to ruin himself, and as much as he did piss me off with that smart mouth of his, I didn’t want to see that happen. He played good fucking hockey. All of them did. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole for not believing it was possible before now.
I was just like everyone else—every single person who was the reason no one took them seriously. I didn’t think they could be good. I thought they could be okay in spite of their disability. I didn’t realize that they could probably match us on the ice, even without half the accommodations their players requested.
Tiago was a goddamn freight train. There was technically no checking allowed in PPHL hockey, but half the players spent most of their ice time in the fucking sin bin because they wouldn’t stop slamming into each other.
And watching Matty tap his stick on the ice and then Tiago pass him the puck was fucking beautiful. He caught it with an ease and a grace I never possessed. And watching as he wove through the other players, spinning left and right, keeping the puck on his stick, and taking the perfect shot on goal…
Fuck, we should be taking lessons from them this year.
And that was the idea I had rattling around in my head when I made my way to the arena for morning practice.
It was quieter than usual. There was a massive snowfall over the city, and that always seemed to keep everyone a little subdued. I made my way into the gym and found Vanya on the treadmill and froze when I noticed he was wearing a blindfold.
“Uh. Vanny?”
He didn’t turn his head. “Wait, wait. Let me guess…”
“Van—”
“I said wait. Is…Sven. No accent too different. Not Kossy…” He took a deep breath. “Zeki?”
“What are you doing?” I asked, throwing my neck towel around the handle of the elliptical and stepping on. I punched in my code, which adjusted the settings, and then I got to a gentle jog before looking over.
Vanya pulled the blindfold off his face, and I could see then it had a Legends logo on it with some screen-printed braille dots. He must have stolen that from their locker room. “Was trying to see if I could run like little Jonah.”
“He’s not that little,” I reminded him. He was shorter and thinner, but he wasn’t tiny.
Vanya snorted. “He is little to me. Everyone is little to me. Even you, Zeki.”
I flipped him off before increasing my speed. I needed to work up a sweat. I should have been watching tape for the last three days, and instead, I was watching the Legends’ old playoff games, jerking off after to the sight of a sweaty, grinning Jonah throwing his bucket across the ice and smacking a massive kiss to Tiago’s mouth when they won the cup.
“Why you so pissy this morning?”
“I’m not,” I grunted. I gulped down a few mouthfuls of Gatorade before turning to look at him. “You ever watch the Legends play?”
“Mm, yes. Been going to their home games for years. You watch too? Why you never call me and invite?”
“No, I—” I sounded like an ass. “I never had the time.”
He lifted a brow at me but didn’t call me on my bullshit.
“I was watching some of their old tape last night.” He didn’t need to know how many last nights I’d been glued to it. “I was thinking maybe—since we’re working on the rebuild—we should ask them if they want to train together a little.”
