CHAPTER FOUR POWER LINE #3
Tyler smiled through a split lip. “That I’ll follow.”
With eight minutes remaining, Brock blocked a shot off the inside of his knee. He finished the shift but limped toward the bench.
Tyler watched the trainer examine him.
“I’m fine,” Brock told both of them.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Tyler said.
“Still playing.”
Keller kept Brock on the power-play unit but moved him from the point to the crease, where he would skate less. The adjustment placed him exactly where Tyler needed him.
When Minnesota’s winger grabbed Tyler’s arm and earned the late penalty, Tyler rose from the ice already hearing the previous night’s film review in his head.
Weak-side defender cheats high.
Goaltender controls the post.
Read Brock’s hips.
During the timeout, Keller drew the same options. Tyler barely looked at the board. Brock stood beside him, knee wrapped beneath his equipment.
“Can you hold the screen?” Tyler asked.
Brock’s pale eyes fixed on him. “Can you use it?”
The challenge steadied them both.
They climbed over the boards together.
Minnesota took a holding penalty. Milwaukee’s first unit climbed over the boards.
Tyler circled behind the net. Brock planted himself above the crease, battling two defenders. The goaltender could see nothing around his body.
The puck moved from the point to the wall and down to Tyler.
He attacked Brock’s shadow.
This time, their contact lasted only as long as the play required. Tyler used the screen, emerged on the far side, and fired before the goaltender found him.
The puck struck the post, hit the goaltender’s skate, and crossed the line.
Game-winning goal.
Tyler raised both arms.
Brock turned from the crease. Through the celebration, their eyes met.
Until sunrise.
The look Tyler gave him contained a full night of promised revenge.
The final horn made the goal official. Milwaukee crowded around its goaltender while fans howled beneath white arena lights. Tyler found Brock at the edge of the celebration and struck one glove against the defenseman’s chest.
“Knee,” Tyler said.
“Later.”
“Now.”
Brock allowed the trainer to examine him only after Tyler followed them into the medical room. The diagnosis was a deep bruise, no structural damage, ice and reduced load for forty-eight hours.
“No wrestling,” the trainer added.
Tyler became very interested in a poster about concussion symptoms.
Brock coughed into his fist. “Understood.”
In the locker room, the wolf chain went to Tyler again. He wore it over his base layer rather than bare skin, unwilling to reveal the marks Brock had left the previous night. Teammates complained that Hayes was collecting all the jewelry.
“Score important goals,” Tyler advised.
Across the room, Brock packed his bag without putting weight on the injured leg. Tyler watched until Brock noticed.
One assist, Brock signaled by raising a finger.
One request, Tyler acknowledged.
The reporters delayed them with questions about the new formation.
“Lawson makes a large screen,” Tyler said into the microphones.
“Hayes enjoys hiding behind me,” Brock answered from the next interview station.
The press laughed. Tyler turned his head.
Brock’s expression remained perfectly innocent.
On the drive home, Tyler kept one hand near Brock’s bruised knee without touching it.
“My request,” he said at last. “You tell me if it hurts tonight.”
Brock glanced over. “That what you’re spending the point on?”
“Yes.”
“It hurts.”
The blunt admission surprised them both.
Tyler rested his hand above the injury, careful and warm. “Then I adapt.”
Brock covered Tyler’s hand with his own. “Game winner gives you control.”
“Control includes taking care of what’s mine.”
Silence filled the truck.
Tyler heard the possessive word only after it had escaped. He expected Brock to tease him.
Brock only tightened his hand.
Back at the loft, Tyler placed the ledger on Brock’s bare chest while the older man lay across the bed.
“Power-play goal,” Tyler said.
“Counts as one.”
“Game winner.”
“I know.”
“And you assisted.”
“Request.”
Tyler opened the book to the current page. “What do you want?”
Brock took the pencil and wrote one line beneath the score.
NO WAITING.
Tyler read it twice.
Then he closed the ledger, set it on the floor, and climbed over the man who had made him wait for hours.
“Granted,” he said.
Revenge lasted until dawn.
It involved the gym mat, the cold glass of the shower, Brock’s bed, Tyler’s bed, and a final exhausted surrender on the living-room rug while the city brightened beyond the windows. No ice was used. Neither man was made to wait.
At sunrise, Tyler found the ledger beneath the bed and added a note below the result.
POWER LINE: EFFECTIVE.
Brock read it over his shoulder.
Outside, the river carried reflections of the arena lights through the sleeping city.
Inside, two men who had built careers on knowing when to move and when to hold position remained tangled together, neither willing to name the new formation taking shape between them before the next whistle demanded an answer.
“Professional assessment?”
Tyler leaned back against his chest. “Mostly.”
“And the rest?”
Tyler turned within Brock’s arms.
“A promise,” he said, and kissed him before either captain could ask what it meant.