Page 94 of Grizz

Something in me snaps, like a tendon overstretched.

I feel the cheap shot on my legs again.I feel the skipped puck.I feel the scoreboard.I feel number 15’s mouth near my ear, spitting that word.

I look straight into the camera.“The league lets some fuckwad take cheap shots at me all game,” I say, voice flat and deadly.“That makes it hard to do my job out there.It’s a complete fuckin’ joke.”

The reporter’s eyes widen and her smile dies.

For a second the whole world pauses because everyone knows what happens next.

She clears her throat too loudly.“All right—Grizz McAvoy, thanks for your time,” she says, rushing.“Back to you in the booth—”

The red light goes off and the second it does, I turn away like the interview never happened.

I’m already moving toward the tunnel when a hand clamps around my arm.

Daisy.

Her fingers are firm, nails pressing through my sleeve.She pulls me just enough to stop me.

“What was that, Grizz?”she demands.

I whip my head around.“It was a bullshit question,” I bite back.“She was trying to provoke me.”

Daisy’s eyes flash.“And you handed her exactly what she wanted.”

“It’s the truth,” I spit.

Her grip tightens.“It’s a nationally televised game.You can’t say that on live TV.”

“Why not?”My voice rises, and I don’t care that players and staff are filing past us, that the bench area is still full of movement and noise.“Why not call it what it is?Why does he get to whack me behind the knees and skate away grinning while I’m supposed to—what—smile for the camera?”

Daisy’s nostrils flare.She drags in a breath, and when she speaks again, it’s like she’s fighting to keep her tone even.“This isn’t just about you, Grizz,” she says.“It’s about more than you.”

The words hit me like a fist to the sternum because they’refamiliar.

I was fourteen, sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s pickup truck, still in my sweaty gear under my coat because he refused to wait while I changed.The car smelled like cold coffee and tobacco and the leather of his gloves… and an exhausted kid.The windshield was smeared with salt and the radio was off.

We’d lost and my heart was hammering—a mixture of worthlessness and fear.

It all ran through my head like a bad movie on a loop—my missed assignment on the back-check, the way the other team’s forward slipped behind me, the puck sliding in like it was inevitable.I could still hear the final horn in my head, definitive as a judge’s gavel after a guilty verdict.

My dad’s hands were a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and a muscle ticked by his temple, a sure sign that it was going to be bad.

He didn’t speak at first, a tactic he often employed to amp my fear.He let the silence work on me, let it tighten around my throat like a rope.The streetlights smeared by in orange streaks.

And then the explosion came.“What the fuck was that?”His voice filled the truck, rattled the windows.“You just watched him go right by you.You didn’t move your feet.You didn’t take the body.You didn’t do a fucking thing.”

“I—” I started, throat dry.

He slammed his palm against the steering wheel.“Don’t.Don’t ‘I’ me.Not tonight.”

I stared at my knees, at my hockey bag wedged by my feet, at my still-damp gloves.“I tried,” I whispered.

My father laughed, an ugly sound filled with so much disdain, I shrank further into the seat.“Tried.Jesus Christ.”His eyes flicked to me, cold.“This isn’t just about you, Grizz.It’s about more than you and you’re too fucking stupid to realize it.”

My stomach hollowed as he jabbed a finger toward the windshield like he could point at my future.“It’s about your name.It’s about what I’ve invested.It’s about what people think when they watch you play.You embarrass yourself, you embarrass me.You get that?You’re not out there for fun.”

I swallowed hard and my eyes burned.