It was a difficult balance—concentrating on what you needed to do, and managing the games your mind wanted to play on you.
Trey strode around the corner. “Who’s got bail money for me in case I kill that douche tonight?” he asked, leaning on his stick.
“Nobody’s killing anyone.” I glared at him, wondering if I had the strength to babysit him after all.
“Did you hear the bullshit he’s been spewing to the press?” His face screwed up, showing his obvious disgust.
“Who? Ivan?” one of the guys asked.
Trey turned toward him, shaking his head. “Of course. Who else?” His hands flew up in anger. “He said we’ve just gotten lucky and that we’re a bunch of no talent hacks. And that the only reason we are on this team in the first place is because nobody else wanted us.”
Ivan had a point—about the fact that our teams gave us up to the highest bidder. I was a thirty-five-year-old forward with a knee injury. Although my stats are impressive, you couldn’t deny the other stats—that I was a thirty-five year old forward. With a bum knee and not as many years left in the tank as a brand-new, twenty-something superstar.
The difference between me and most of the guys here was that I’d asked my coach to trade me. I was totally and completely on board with beginning a new start up. Marcel and Angelique had been talking about doing this for years. So, when they finally signed the deal, I couldn’t wait to come on board.
A lot of the other guys had been blindsided and hurt that their teams had given them up.
Such was the life of hockey.
You only had today. We all knew that. A trade could come at any time. As could an unrenewed contract.
“Who cares what he says? Don’t let him get into your brain, man. He’s just trying to mess with us because he’s jealous of what we’ve done,” I explained to him, hoping to get through. From the angry look on his face, I knew nothing would penetrate that thick skull of his right now, though.
“Screw that. He’s going down.” Then Trey stomped off out the door.
“It’s not worth it!”I yelled at Trey as I tried to get in front of him. He was so focused on whatever Ivan had said to him it was like I didn’t even exist.
He saw nothing else besides his rage for that idiot.
“Can’t take it? Ya big pussy,” Ivan shouted at him as he threw his stick down and shook off his gloves.
“Ah, Christ,” I mumbled to myself, knowing that he’d just literally thrown down to Trey. Now he’d have to fight the moron.
“Pussy? Since you’re a douche, you must like me a whole lot, then,” Trey said, chucking his stick on the ice and ridding himself of his gloves in one swift move.
I skated backward, trying to get out of the way. Nothing was going to save his ass now. All I could do was wait and maybe drag him out once the refs intervened.
Most of the fans were standing, cheering on either Trey or Ivan. They knew it would be a bloody one. Between these two it always was.
The idiots continued screaming obscenities at each other, circling, waiting for the other to make the first move.
This time it was Trey.
He swung and connected to Ivan’s jaw, hard. A spray of blood shot from his mouth as his head was knocked to the side.
Then Ivan lost his ever-loving mind.
His fist smashed against Trey’s eye, even though he’d tried to duck away. Trey’s head snapped back, and I winced at the force of it.
Now Trey was incensed. He came back at Ivan, angrier than before. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the look on their faces, it wasn’t good.
They continued like that, pummeling the crap out of one another.
I felt a hard shove at my back causing me to fall to my knees. I got my legs under me and spun around. “What the fuck, Smythe?” I yelled at the asshole from the other team who was standing there smiling at me.
“Call off your goon, Moreau,” he said to me like nothing had just happened.
The fans shouted even louder, the noise nearly deafening.