Page 44 of Puck Tease
I pushed myself up from the seat, the plastic creaking under my weight. “Excuse me,” I mumbled to the rosary-clutching mom, who barely registered my departure.
I navigated the steep stairs, feeling the invisible pinpricks of a thousand eyes. I wore street clothes tonight, not a jersey. Jax had forbidden it. “Street clothes,” he’d decreed that morning, pacing the cramped hotel room like a caged animal, the carpet wearing a path under his restless strides. “I don’t want you marked today. I need to focus.”
The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth. That plan had imploded with even greater spectacularity than he had.
I slipped past the ushers at the section entrance, their gazes sliding right over me. I didn't need directions. My feet knew the way, a memory carved into muscle and bone from countless games, countless desperate summons.
I descended into the echoing, concrete bowels of the arena. The air grew colder, heavier, shedding the frenetic energy of the stands. The roar of the crowd, once deafening, receded into a distant, dull thumping bass line overhead, like a heartbeat from a different world. I walked past the cavernous zamboni tunnel, its ice-resurfacing machine gleaming under stark lights, past the media scrum already setting up their tripods and microphones, a vulture flock gathering for the post-game autopsies.
The door to the Spartan locker room area loomed. Earl, the security guard, a man whose shoulders spanned the width of a small car and whose Christmas tips from Jax were rumored to fund his entire year, saw me coming. His eyes held a weary understanding. He didn't ask for a pass. He simply shifted his massive frame, the fabric of his uniform groaning, and pulled the heavy door open.
“He’s tearing the room apart, kid,” Earl muttered, his voice a low rumble. “Good luck.”
I stepped inside.
The main locker room was a silent, sterile expanse. The team was gone, vanished into the humid steam of the showers or the antiseptic quiet of the trainer’s room, tending to their physical and emotional wounds. A low, furious murmur seeped from the coaches’ office down the hall, a sound like caged beasts.
But another noise, sharper, more violent, pulled me deeper. A loud crash, then the metallic clang of something heavy striking concrete, echoed from the back.
I walked toward the equipment room. The door was ajar, a sliver of dim light escaping into the gloom.
I pushed it open.
The room was a suffocating maze, a nightmare of stacked shelving units overflowing with gear, helmets dangling like severed heads, skates hanging in rows. The air was a cloying, the place stank of fresh resin, sweat-soaked leather, and the sharp, metallic tang of newly sharpened steel. It was dim, lit by a single, sickly flickering fluorescent strip that cast long, dancing shadows.
Jax was there.
He stood by the skate sharpening machine, his back to me, a hulking figure in the oppressive half-light. He was still in full gear—jersey, pads, pants—minus his helmet and gloves. His Spartan dark green and white jersey was soaked through, plastered to his broad back, dark with sweat. His shoulders hitched and fell with ragged, furious breaths that tore at the silence.
At his feet, a scattering of stick tape rolls lay like fallen soldiers, alongside a knocked-over, dented bucket of pucks. The concrete floor was littered with discarded gear, bent water bottles, and a snapped composite stick. He had ravaged the place.
“Close the door,” he said, his voice a low snarl that vibrated through the floorboards and up my legs. There was a rawviolence in it that prickled the hairs on my arms. He didn’t turn around.
I closed the door. The latch clicked with a sharp, final sound, sealing us inside the chemical-laced darkness.
“Jax,” I started, forcing my voice into a calm, even tone that felt utterly alien. “The game isn’t—”
He spun around.
The speed of his movement was startling. His face was a mask of pure, unhinged fury. His eyes were wild, blown wide, like a cornered animal’s, rimmed with an angry red. Sweat dripped from his dark hair, carving paths down his face like grotesque tears. A crimson smear, the evidence of a high stick he hadn't bothered to get checked, stained his chin.
“Shut up,” he hissed, the word a razor blade cutting the air.
He stalked toward me, his movements heavy and deliberate. He was monumental in his pads, unnaturally wide and tall on his skates. The steel blades crunched against the rubber flooring, granting him another two inches of terrifying height. He loomed, a monstrous shadow from a slasher film, filling the small space.
“You’re in my head,” he accused, his voice a guttural growl, as he poked a stiff, gloved finger into my chest. The plastic of his glove pressed into my sternum, driving the air from my lungs. “Get out of my fucking head, Tom.”
I stumbled back, my heel catching on a stray hockey glove. My back slammed against a rack of spare jerseys, their slick, cold fabric rustling under the impact. “What are you talking about?” I gasped.
“I can’t focus!” He roared the words, his voice tearing at the dim light. He slammed his hand against the metal shelving unit next to my head. The entire rack rattled, a violent tremor shaking helmets and shin guards loose. “I look up at the stands, and I’m looking for you. I’m taking a faceoff, and I’m thinkingabout your mouth. I’m in the box, and I’m wondering if you’re wearing the plug.”
He crowded me further, pressing the hard plastic of his shoulder pads against my chest. The icy cold of the plastic contrasted with the heat radiating from his body. My breath hitched.
“You’re a distraction. You’re poison.”
“Then let me go,” I whispered, my voice barely a thread, my heart hammering against my ribs, a frantic trapped bird. “Tell me to leave.”
“I can’t!”
