Thud.The puck hit Valentine’s pad. A player went down on the other team, apparently all by himself. Incarsen was nowherein sight, but his little butt wriggle told me plenty. I signalled the ref and got a sub out.
"You're on. Get that last goal with Knox. He looks up to you.” I took Leon back, and slapped his shoulder pads. “You played a good game."
“Will do.” Hux left the box.
“Thanks, Coach,” Leon leaned back, stretching his legs, waiting for play to restart.
“You see it?”
Leon shrugged. “I mean, who knows? He’s a sneaky devil.”
“Who?” I stared hard at him.
“Uh, no one.” The chimera beside me chewed his lip and looked away.
Fucking Incarsen. This was how we lost players to penalties, like the one Hux set up minutes before. A purpose, but a penalty all the same. We couldn’t be giving them away for—
Play resumed, and my throat went raw. Mere seconds later the puck slammed into the goal at our end. Leon was on his feet screaming. Obscenarities, cheering? I had no idea. I swore the man blew out my eardrum.
“Christ, I’ll have to put you on the cheer team with the bunnies if you do that again,” I grumped.
“Sorry. Forgot you weren’t getting laid.”
I stiffened, and reorganised the team in my head.
“Sorry, Coach.”
“All good.” I dropped Leon from the team in my head.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
I grinned without looking at him. He was safe, as long as he didn’t come out with anything like that again. We were six goals up and less than twenty seconds left on the clock. I counted it out, then we hit overtime.
Twenty minutes without sudden death it was over. The Chimeras survived another week in the playoffs and my head sprouted a few extra grey hairs.
Fists pounded my shoulders and I let them. The boys deserved every second, every shout.
“Go on, do the press,” I muttered to Hux after he’d showered and we’d had our talk. “We can kiss and make up after, yeah?”
He frowned at me. “Call her. We’ll survive.”
I shook my head, my press smile in place, the one both Sia and Cora coached me on long ago. “I’m here until it’s done.”
Hux’s eyes never left me. “Then we stay here until I hear her voice.”
My smile faded. “She’s asleep. Like I told her to be.”
“Yeah?’ He reached into my pocket and stole my motherfucking phone. “Dialing.”
“Jesus fucking—” I ground my teeth together. “You have a death wish.”
“Call me out on it Monday after you get your dick wet.”
It was a mark of our relationship that we were friends outside the arena and that right now, we weren’t coach and player.
“You think you can take me after that?” I snarled, stepping into his space, though I’d never raise a hand against the man I trusted more than anything.
“Ward?” Sia’s faint voice silenced us both.
