No-Fight Clause (Seabright Hockey #3)

Chapter 1

Patrick is too high in the zone before the puck reaches him.

I see it from the weak-side boards. His skates are pointed toward the blue line, his shoulders turned toward the pass, and the defenseman behind him has already started closing the distance. Patrick can beat most players to open ice. He cannot outrun the boards.

“Reverse,” I call.

He hears me. His head moves, but the puck arrives at the same time, hard around the wall and two feet behind where he wants it. He plants his outside edge to stop and reaches back with one hand on his stick.

The defenseman takes three strides.

There is space to pull up. There is time to change the angle and finish through Patrick’s shoulder instead of his numbers. The defenseman does neither.

The hit drives Patrick face-first into the glass.

The whole rink makes the same sound. Not the crowd. The boards.

An official’s arm is already up as Patrick drops to one knee. The puck rolls loose beneath him, and the whistle cuts through the players arriving from both directions.

Patrick’s right hand presses against the glass. His left skate finds an edge. He is moving.

I register all of it.

Then I cross the ice.

The defenseman backs away from the boards with both gloves still on. He looks at the official, then at Patrick, then at me. There is no surprise in his face by the time I reach him.

“He went after Patrick,” I say.

Nobody has asked me a question.

The official skates into my path with one arm extended. “D’Amico, back off.”

The defenseman says something I do not hear over the crowd. His mouth moves around Patrick’s name, and the grin he gives me is small enough that he can deny it later.

I shove the official’s arm aside.

Behind me, Patrick calls, “Mikey.”

I do not look.

The defenseman drops his gloves first, but I have already decided what comes next. Mine hit the ice almost beside his.

My left hand catches his jersey below the collar. He grabs mine. We turn once, skates cutting a tight circle through loose snow, and I plant hard enough to keep him from pulling me off balance.

The first punch catches the side of my helmet. The second misses.

Mine does not.

The crowd comes up around us, eighteen thousand people finding one voice because I have given them something easier than a close hockey game. Their sound hits my chest before the other player’s fist does. For one clean second, I know exactly what I am for.

I hold him upright with my left hand and drive my right into his cheek.

He catches me along the jaw. My teeth meet hard enough that pain flashes into my ear. I adjust my grip, shorten the next punch, and feel his weight shift backward.

An official gets between our shoulders.

“Enough. Separate.”

The defenseman loosens his hand.

I do not.

A second official catches my right arm. The first leans his weight between us, trying to break the jersey grip. The other player is being pulled away now, his skates turned toward his bench.

It should be over.

The crowd is still roaring. Patrick is still behind me. The defenseman is still upright.

I wrench my arm free.

My next punch reaches over the official’s shoulder and catches the defenseman near the mouth. The official swears. Somebody hooks both arms around my chest from behind while the other official drives me backward.

“D’Amico, you’re done.”

“He went after Patrick.”

The words come out against the pressure around my ribs. I plant one skate, then the other, trying to stay square to the defenseman while three people move us apart.

“He’s separated,” the official says. “Stop fighting me.”

I could.

The decision exists. I feel it the way I feel an open lane before the puck enters it.

I pull again.

The official behind me loses his grip on one arm. I get half a stride forward before another body blocks me. The defenseman is at his bench now. He wipes blood from his lip with the back of his hand and lifts his chin.

The linesman shoves me toward the penalty box door.

“Go.”

I look past him. Patrick is standing beside Irene near the boards, bent slightly at the waist while she talks to him. His helmet is off. He touches the bridge of his nose and looks at the blood on his glove.

He is on his feet.

The sight should lower something in me.

It does not.

I skate into the box with the crowd pounding approval through the glass.

The official at the scorer’s table has to repeat the penalties because the noise keeps swallowing him. Fighting. Instigator. Roughing for the punch over the official’s shoulder. Game misconduct for continuing after intervention.

Across the ice, the other player sits in his box with a towel pressed to his mouth. He gets a minor penalty for the hit and a fighting major. His team will lose him for a while.

The hit minor cancels the instigator minor on the clock. The extra roughing minor leaves our bench short-handed for the next stretch, and the game misconduct loses me for the rest of the night.

Patrick returns to the bench after Irene finishes checking him. He does not look toward the box.

Vincent does.

Our captain stands at the far end of the bench with one glove braced on the boards. He does not shake his head or slam his stick. He watches me through the scratched glass until I look away first.

The Breakers kill the first part of the penalty. Lucas tracks a shot through three bodies and kicks it into the corner. Vincent wins a battle below the goal line and clears the puck the length of the ice.

I follow the routes from the box because that is all I have left. Their weak-side winger rotates high. Our low forward chases too far. The passing lane opens through the seam before the puck moves.

“Inside,” I say, although nobody can hear me.

The pass comes across. Lucas pushes in time, but the shot changes direction off a skate and goes under his blocker.

The visiting bench rises.

Our penalty killers coast toward the faceoff circle, shoulders moving with the heavy breath of a unit that has been on the ice too long.

Patrick waits at the end of the bench because he cannot take a regular shift while Irene watches him.

Vincent says something to Gordon. Gordon answers without turning.

The crowd is quieter now.

I sit with my elbows on my knees. My right hand is swelling inside the space where my glove should be. The first two knuckles are split. Each breath catches where somebody’s arm drove into my ribs during the separation.

The pain is familiar enough to sort. Hand, jaw, ribs. Nothing that would have mattered if I were still playing.

I am not.

The box attendant opens the interior door when the official gives the signal for my removal. I walk down the tunnel in socks and skates, guards waiting on the rubber floor. The roar above follows the next rush instead of me.

A staff member takes me through the service corridor to the locker room. I sit in my stall and watch the rest of the game on the mounted television while an equipment worker collects the gloves I left on the ice.

One glove lands on the floor beneath my stall. The palm is worn almost through near the thumb.

“Good news,” the equipment worker says. “You’ve finally found a way to make those somebody else’s problem.”

He sets the second glove beside it and leaves before I can answer.

The joke deserves more than I have. I turn the battered gloves upright with my skate.

The Breakers get the game tied again. Vincent works the puck off the wall, pulls two defenders toward him, and sends it behind the net. Patrick takes one shift, quick and angry, but his timing is late after sitting. His pass misses the point man by a foot.

We spend the final minutes defending instead of pushing.

The winning goal comes after another failed clear. The shot itself is ordinary. The damage is already done by the time the puck leaves the stick. Tired legs, a lost lane, one extra second without possession.

Lucas turns toward the back of the net.

The horn sounds not long after.

I remain in my stall while the room fills around me. Nobody throws anything. That would be easier.

Players strip off wet gear and speak in the short practical language of a loss. Missed assignment. Bad change. Puck should have gone deep. A skate blade needs replacing. Someone asks for ice. Someone else asks whether Patrick is cleared.

Patrick sits two stalls away with his shoulder pads still on and his jersey pulled halfway over his head. He has a red mark along his cheek and a swelling knot near his hairline. His eyes are clear.

Irene stands in front of him.

“Headache?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Any change in vision?”

“No.”

“Do you understand that answering quickly does not improve the result?”

Patrick pauses. “Yes.”

“That was almost convincing.”

A couple of players make quiet sounds that might have become laughter on a better night. Patrick’s mouth shifts, but he does not commit to it.

Irene finishes the examination and tells him what symptoms require immediate reporting. Then she turns toward me.

“Training room.”

“I’m fine.”

“That was not a question.”

I follow because arguing with Irene only adds time to whatever she intends to do.

The training room is too bright after the rink. She points at the table, and I sit while she pulls on gloves. Patrick comes in behind us and takes the second table.

Irene starts with my hand. She rinses blood from the cuts, presses around each knuckle, and tells me to move my fingers one at a time.

“They move.”

“I have eyes.”

“Then this is going well.”

She looks up once. The line lands where I intended, but she does not help me with it.

My right hand does not close all the way. The swelling is already thick across the knuckles, and the middle finger sends a sharper pain into my wrist when I bend it.

Irene checks my jaw next, then my ribs. Her fingers find the place that hurts most.

I breathe through it.

“You have developed a fascinating habit,” she says. “You tell me nothing hurts while moving your entire body around the place that hurts.”

“Efficient.”

“For me, perhaps. Your ribs disagree.”