Chapter 4 #3
And save it he did, if he did say so himself.
Morris must have approved of what he’d seen at practice earlier because at the top of the second, with the score still nil-nil, he sent Jax out with Tom’s line.
After a period working with Mooney on his wing, it took Jax a moment to get used to top-line speeds again.
But within five minutes, he and Tom were racing down the ice toward the opposing goal, the puck going tape to tape as they ducked around the opposition.
The Arches backcheck sucked this season, relying too heavily on D-men who weren’t as quick as the Crow.
Jax shot him a neat between-the-legs pass, and all Tom had to do was tap it in from right beside the goal.
The horn blared; three sweaty guys in Sea Lion jerseys slammed into Jax and Tom.
On the bench, Morris nodded in stern approval as if this had been his idea.
They kept it up, and before the end of the period, Tom returned the favor, and Jax netted a sweet little goal over the opposing goalie’s shoulder.
Jubilation filled the locker room during intermission. They were up two-nothing, which didn’t mean much in hockey, but good energy in the room meant everything.
“Fuck, yeah!” East stood on the bench with the speakers in his hands, playing Nelly, which was lame as fuck, but also kind of great. “You going for the Gordie Howe, Jax?”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Jax said with a wink.
Next to him on the bench, Tom choked on his red Gatorade.
Jax clapped him on the shoulder. “Cap can do it.”
Everyone laughed.
Tom excelled at getting out of tight corners, and if they gave out awards for legal shoulder checks, he’d win every year, but a bruiser he was not.
Of course, Breezy yelled out, “Oooh, sick burn!”
The other young guys took their cue from him and added their own chirps.
Jax held his breath, waiting for their reticent, easily flustered captain to retreat into his shell.
But when he looked over at Tom, he was smiling with his whole face, his eyes shining, and his nose crinkled a little with laughter.
“All right, all right, settle down. We haven’t won this yet,” he said. Still, the corners of his mouth remained curled up.
East ignored him and kept the party going.
He turned up the music—from Nelly to 50 Cent—and shouted, “You listening, fellas? We keep it up, and we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!
” He hopped down off the bench. Maybe if he hadn’t just been yelling at the top of his lungs, or if Trout hadn’t been watching him closely, he’d have been able to hide the way he winced as he landed.
“Easton!” Coach Trout called. “That the knee?”
“I’m fine, Coach.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
Jax studied him. He seemed fine, but hockey players had been known to lie about these things. He glanced over to Tom, who watched East with concern written all over his face. God, he showed every feeling so clearly in his expression. It was truly miraculous he’d gotten this far in life.
His tells gave East away as well: he favored one leg. Jax only noticed because he watched closely as East circled the room, exchanging pats on the back and getting the guys excited.
Despite all the hype, they didn’t get off to a great start in the third period.
Jax took a face-off against the Arches first-line centerman and lost. It happened.
Even he wasn’t perfect. The guy had been talking his head off, all the usual shit guys said on the ice to get Jax off his game.
But he’d ended on, “Bet you begged them on your knees to trade you to Cali, huh? Only thing your big mouth is good for.”
To Jax’s own annoyance, he flinched and lost the face-off.
Jax had hardly processed the puck being gone when Tom barreled into the man, gloves off.
“Tom!” he yelled, but Tom was locked in.
He tried to drag Tom back by the jersey, but another one of the Arches got in on it, trying to start shit.
And then the D-men made it across the ice, and East bullied his way between Tom and the opposing center, taking Tom’s place in the fight.
The center shoved, East hit the ice with his bad knee on an awkward angle, and that was all she wrote.
The refs finally whistled.
Jax almost laughed. Of course, the refs did nothing to penalize the initial chip.
No one was miked up, so the audience couldn’t hear anything, and when a tree fell in the forest, no one cared if it was a homophobic shithead.
They didn’t whistle when Tom did the stupid thing and dropped his gloves either.
No, they waited until someone actually got injured, for maximum watchability.
East made it off the ice without a stretcher at least, supported by Tom on one side and Jax on the other. Coach Morris observed the whole thing with a thunderous expression.
“Congrats, Calabrese. You’re in the first PK unit.” Morris didn’t bother looking at Breezy as he promoted him, watching instead as East walked down the tunnel supported by Coach Trout and a physical therapist.
“Shit,” Breezy muttered. “Shit, shit.”
The good vibes were going down the drain, and they were going fast. Jax tried to nudge Tom into action, but he stared down at his feet while a referee debated whether he ought to get two minutes for charging or five minutes for fighting.
Jax got up and clapped his hands together. “Come on, guys. We’re up by two. All we gotta do is hold the lead for our man East! We can do it for him. Breezy, you can do it for him.”
Breezy still looked a little nauseous, but he nodded. “For East.”
Jax nudged their shoulders together. “Now, come on. You’re on the penalty kill. Get out there.”
Breezy hopped over the boards, a little shaky but gaining confidence as he went. Jax watched him for a moment before turning his attention to Tom, sitting in the penalty box. He was staring at Jax, but the second Jax caught his eye, he turned away.
Why had he dropped his gloves? He had to have known it wouldn’t end well.
Did he actually want the Gordie Howe hat trick?
Jax studied Tom briefly, a picture of misery, not a man proud of or pleased with his accomplishment.
So why had he done it? For a guy who never fought—a smart player with a two-goal lead—what could possibly make him do something so stupid?
Jax thought back, tried to remember if there’d been anything special, anything noteworthy.
The Arches center, now sporting a bloody nose but otherwise undeterred, grinned snidely at him across the ice and mimed a blow job.
Right. He’d been chirping Jax about his mouth. Distasteful, homophobic, and, unfortunately, not at all unusual. Jax shouldn’t have let it distract him, but it was a little too close to the truth.
It still didn’t explain what Tom had been thinking.
Unless… Jax checked Tom again, watching the same center with his lip curled in a sneer. Jax pursed his own lips. He didn’t like that expression on Tom’s face. It was made for laughter. What a shame he rarely showed it.
But why would he decide to break a career streak of no fighting because some idiot in Missouri thought Jax had blow-job lips? Jax had blow-job lips. In a nonwork context, he’d been known to remark on it himself.
The penalty ended. Jax vaulted over the boards with Tom and Vanderbilt. They won the face-off this time, but Jax couldn’t seem to get Tom to meet his gaze, to read him the way he had before.
In the end, they won the game 2–1. A decent showing, for all they could have done more in the third to make it a real blowout.
East waited for them in the locker room with his leg propped up on the bench.
He gave them a lazy salute and made sure to pat Breezy on the arm for a job well done.
Breezy sported a massive bruise on his thigh from a blocked puck but was so high on adrenaline he hardly seemed to notice.
He wanted to celebrate the win (or more likely, his appearance on the first PK unit without choking and fucking up).
Mooney and Howie were instantly down. The energy it took to play a full NHL season and party all the time…
Jax was only a few years older than those three, but he could already feel it waning.
Ordinarily, he would have manned up and joined them, but processing Tom’s odd behavior left him off-kilter.
“But you got a Gordie Howe!” Breezy wheedled, trying to get Tom enthused.
Tom smiled ruefully. “And I am not proud of it.”
“You were awesome, Crow!” Howie said.
This was categorically not true. Jax had watched the replays on the big screens in the arena.
Hockey fights were not dignified in the first place—two big, beefy guys standing on tiny little blades grabbing at all the excess cloth their gear provided.
One of many reasons Jax didn’t find other hockey players attractive: The shorts over pants and the dumb fighting were real boner killers.
“You guys should head out,” Tom told the younger crew, kindly ignoring Howie’s bald-faced lie. “You did great. Us old guys will man the hotel bar and ice Phil’s knee.”
It was about as close to official permission the guys would receive to get absolutely wasted on the road, especially since the schedule listed the next day as a rest day before they hit Carolina, Nashville, and then Philly.
When Morris popped in to announce the coaching staff had decided to waive curfew for the night, the deal was sealed.
Within minutes, Vanderbilt had picked out a bar that was “also part techno club” and sauntered out with an arm over Dmitriyev’s shoulders, proclaiming he deserved free shots for his near shutout.
Dmitriyev hadn’t been starting goalie for long, and he’d done exceptionally well tonight, so it relieved Jax that someone was in the mood to celebrate him.