Page 11 of Dangle

Release.

No, I would not be punching Isaac’s fucking face, and not just because I wanted to get laid. I spent nearly half a periodin the box tonight after coach told me to quit being a fucking hothead.

My ass left the bench, pulled off the last of my gear, grabbed my shower caddy, and stalked out of the room. The whispers started the minute the room had my back. There was nothing I could do about it. There never was.

THREE

SLONE

“And that, folks, is that. Rainier State Lumberjacks win 4-1.”

“That’s a hard loss.”

“That it is, but with Captain Trey Malachek spending nearly ten minutes in the penalty box, the Maulers just never found their groove.”

“I know Petrov played fast and loose with the rules when he played, but you know Donald and Donnie Malachek can’t be happy with their prodigy’s showing today.”

“Nor the New York Wardens. Known for being rule followers, they have some of the lowest penalty minutes assessed across all thirty-two teams. They can’t be happy their numero uno draft pick is playing what can only be described as dirty hockey.”

My eyes widened in response to the commentator’s post-game analysis currently blaring through the arena’s PA system. “Wow! That’s fucking harsh,” I said, standing to police the area around our seats, refusing to be one of those people who left their trash for others to pick up.

Ewen scoffed as he cleaned up his mess as well. “And everyone wonders why the kid acts the way he does.”

“I’m confused?” I asked. Unlike Ewen and his brothers, Ollie and Will, I didn’t grow up playing hockey, even though I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Football was my sport. Always had been. Go Pack!

“You always are,” Ewen laughed, giving me a shove as we climbed the steps behind all the others in our section.

At the top of the stairs, Ewen dumped his trash, then tipped the attendant. He always did that, probably because he cleaned the rink after games as one of his first jobs.

I dropped my trash in a big commercial trash cart, smiling at the attendant before turning to Ewen. “Don’t push your personality traits off on me,” I told him.

He didn’t say anything, just pointed at me in agreement.

“I’m still confused.”

“About?” Ewen asked as we walked through the arena toward the exit.

Not wanting to discuss the kid in the lobby of his home arena where anyone could chime in, I bit my tongue. Frigid air laced with razor-sharp snow that was more ice than snow pelted our faces the moment we stepped through the arena doors into the dark winter night.

“Fuck, it’s cold!” I swore.

Ewen looked at me. “Where’s your fucking beanie?”

I fished it and my gloves out of a coat pocket, pulling them on. Hunching deeper into my coat to block the wind, I asked, “If the kid’s drafted, why’s New York sitting on him?”

Ewen’s groan told me what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. “You and your fucking fascination with the NFL. Quit confusing your inferior sport’s weirdness with the greatest sport ever played.”

My eyes rolled so hard they watered. Not the first time he’d said something like that to me. “Okay, Mr. Hockey Fan, tell mehow the draft for the ‘greatest sport ever played’ differs from the ‘best sport on earth.’”

A blast of cold air swept around us in a way that left you wondering where it came from and no way to escape it. Ewen took off across the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his parka, and I followed. We could talk when we got in the fucking truck.

His feet slipped, forcing a grunted curse from him as he rounded the bed of the pickup. I jumped in just as he slammed the door with one hand and pushed the ignition button with the other.

“Shut the door!”

Ignoring his surly attitude about the cold, I did just that, laughing at his idiot self. The man grew up here in the frozen north. We had spent years freezing our balls off or dealing with swamp ass, depending on where the Marines sent us, and he settled here, in the cold, which he hates, when the Marines medically discharged us.

“You gonna answer my question over there, princess?”