Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
I think about the seven minutes left in this game and the fact that my line is about to go back out there and Adam’s will probably meet us on ice, putting us in the same twenty feet of space again whether either of us wants it.
“Donovan.”
I’m over the boards before Coach Monahan finishes saying my name.
The shift starts clean. I pick up my defensive assignment, move through my coverage reads, do the work. This is the part that never fails me—when the game is happening and my body knows what to do. The noise in my head goes quiet because there’s no room for it. Fifty-three minutes of knowing Adam Belleau was on this ice and I’ve played sound, controlled, professional hockey.
Just shy of six minutes left now. I can do it.
I don’t see Adam take the ice but suddenly, we end up in the corner together. We battle hard for the puck that’s rattled into the boards, both of us holding opposite angles. His shoulder hits mine, my hip drives into his, and we’re scrabbling for possession with fury. I try to muscle the puck back along the boards and his stick comes in and ties it up, locking together. We both lean our full weight in, neither giving ground.
Normal.
This is normal hockey.
“Get the fuck off me, you motherfucking snitch,” Adam snarls in frustration.
My chest feels heavy and my blood freezes in my veins.
Those are the first words he’s spoken to me in almost ten years.
Motherfucking snitch.
He’s the only person in the world who could say those particular words and have them mean what they mean, a truth that has been between us for a decade finally said out loud in a place where I can’t walk away from it.
And while I am indeed a snitch by his definition, the fact that he’s choosing now to lay this on my doorstep causes rage to sweep through me. It’s hot, blinding, and there’s no controlling it.
Fucking ten years and he chooses now to open the door to our past.
I shove him hard.
Not a hockey shove. Not a body check or a positioning move or any of the hundred types of physical contact that are part of this game. I shove him the way you shove someone you want to look at you, both hands on his chest, hard enough that he stumbles back two steps and his eyes come to mine for the first time all night.
He looks surprised.
Good.
He shoves me back and I smile around my mouth guard in joy that he’s willing to engage.
The refs are already whistling, and the crowd has picked up on two players who are no longer trying to get at the puck but at each other. We lock in, both of us breathing hard.
Then we lunge at the same time.
Gloves hit the ice simultaneously, which tells me he’s been waiting for this too, whether he’d admit it or not.
And then we’re into it and it’s nothing like the fight with Morrow in Portland. That fight was anger looking for a target. This is years of guilt, regret, blinding fury and betrayal—and I let it out through my hands. Violence is the truest language that has ever spoken about me when on the ice.
Adam’s good, but then again, he always was. We grew up fighting and scrapping in practice, and when we left the ice, we scrapped in the room. The kind of sparring that exists between people who trust each other completely. Adam played with me long enough that he knows my tendencies and I know his, and for the first ten seconds of fists flying, we’re perfectly matched.
But I’m bigger now.
And angrier.
All of the guilt and hurt I’ve felt has been transformed into rage and I’ve been carrying this misery for years without a rewarding outlet for it.
My knuckles catch Adam under his chin and his head rocks back. I latch onto his sweater and deliver one—two—three more hard punches and he starts to sag.
I should drop him, but I don’t. I try to haul him back up so I can hit him again. The refs and linesmen swarm in and attempt to pull us apart. Someone has my jersey from behind and someone else has my arm, preventing me from landing just one more solid punch.
Unfortunately, I’m ripped away, dissatisfied with the outcome, especially since Adam seems to have regained his feet. I cut open his chin and it’s freely bleeding. He’s heaving, sucking in oxygen and glaring at me as a trainer comes out on the ice with a towel for him.
I start to turn away, but Adam isn’t finished with me yet. “You fucking traitor,” he screams.
My entire body flinches but I don’t look back. I know the bench heard it. Pretty sure the officials did too. The crowd is roaring their approval as we’re both motioned to our respective penalty boxes.