Page 56 of Cheap Shot

In his bedroom, he closed the curtains, stripped off his work clothes, and face-planted on the bed. He checked to be sure the alarm on his phone was set, then pulled the covers halfway over his body. It wasn’t going to be a good nap, he could already tellthat. He could still feel the restless agitation in his body, that twitchy energy that would have him flopping around like a damn fish.

An hour and a half later, when the alarm went off, he sat up groggily and silenced it.

The nap had gone exactly the way he’d expected. He’d tossed and turned for a long while, only to drop off just long enough to fall deeply asleep and be woken up before he was ready.

He heaved himself out of bed with a sigh and went to eat his pre-game meal. While he waited for it to heat, he messaged Sebastian.You up for getting fucked after the game tonight?

He got a,Yes,in response as he ate his meal, which at least told him Sebastian was on board even if he didn’t sound very enthusiastic about it.

Luke glanced at the clock. Ehh, maybe he was just busy.

After his meal, Luke dressed in his gameday suit and listened to an audiobook on the way to the arena.

He’d never been much of a reader growing up, but a former teammate had hooked him up with some audiobooks about the history of the Old West and he’d fallen down a rabbit hole there. He’d read about mining towns and Vegas and gunslingers. Outlaws and cowboys and, lately, some books from Native writers, which reminded him of some of the stories he’d heard from Paiute guys he’d known.

Sometimes Luke missed where he’d grown up on the outskirts of Vegas, the dry dustiness of the Nevada landscape more to his taste than the heavy humidity of living right on the ocean.

But Boston was home now.

And every time his thoughts turned to leaving, to being traded to a new team and getting set up in a new city, it felt … it fucking feltwrong.

Even if the air was thick enough to make a man choke in the summers, a simple walk down the block leaving him with sweat sticking to his skin and running down his back, he didn’t want to leave.

Fuck. Why wouldn’t they just offer him a goddamn two-year contract?

Because you’re getting old, he reminded himself.Because who knows how long you might be useful to them.

Gavin might care about Luke, might treat him like a human instead of a pure asset, but he was still a businessman. Gavin still knew that if he valued sentimentality over profit every time,he’dbe the one out on his ass.

Luke’s mood wasn’t made any better by the time he battled heavy Boston traffic and tried to park in his usual spot at the arena. A worker apologized as he rolled down his window, gesturing to the light above it.

“Sorry, Mr. Crawford. This light’s on the fritz. We would have waited but it’s been sparking and …”

Luke nodded, thanked the guy through gritted teeth, and parked in a different spot, annoyed by his routine already feeling off-kilter. It got worse when he went to eat his pre-game snack about an hour before puck drop and realized the pickles were the wrong kind.

It turned out the supplier sent a box of bread and butter pickles which were just disgusting as far as Luke was concerned. Some intern had run out to the store to get dill slices like he liked but they were stuck in traffic and weren’t going to make it in time.

So he nodded tersely and ate his plain peanut butter sandwich instead of the peanut butter and pickle one he’d had before every fucking game since he was twelve.

He barked at Tanner when he asked how his day had gone and growled at one of the rookies who knocked over his sticks before warmups and was generally in a foul mood as he tried to get back in his usual routine.

When they trooped off the ice after, Connor lifted an eyebrow and asked, “What crawled up your ass and died today?” and when Luke just shrugged, Connor told him to get it together.

Luke tried but it was just one of those fuckinggames. One where it all felt off from the start. And either it was like that for everyone else on the ice tonight or his foul mood was rubbing off on everyone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sebastian cheered when the Vegas Jackrabbits scored the first goal, but it didn’t take long for him to see that the Harriers were just off their game tonight. Their backchecking was shit, their gap control was shit, their zone time was shit …

Sebastian watched with raised eyebrows as they ended up with a too many men on the ice penalty and Crawford absolutely fucking whiffed on a pass to Tom Bass during the penalty kill and Vegas scored.

The game just got worse from there and even from across the ice, Sebastian could see Hoyt shouting at the team on the bench.

Presumably, he chewed them out during the first intermission too but it didn’t seem to help.

The Harriers’ play was sloppy and Vegas took every advantage during the second period, bringing the score to 3–0. Jesse Webber was still out on IR with a groin strain though he’d been skating with the team the other day and would be back soon.

After having met Arkady Romaschenko, Sebastian almost felt bad for the goalie when he got pulled. Sebastian had never heard of the third string guy who got put in net and he googled him to find out that he was a kid from the AHL who’d had precious little NHL time.