Page 4 of Game Misconduct

She was the only person who called him Michael other than his parents and the only person he would ever let call him Michael, besides his parents, who did it entirely against his will no matter how many times he asked them not to.

“It looks worse than it is,” he tried to reassure her, but she’d already dropped the suitcase and crossed the room to grab his head and turn it to get a better look at the injury. He winced as her fingers brushed his cheek.

“How did you even...? Whathappened?”

“I fell down,” he told her, the age-old excuse that everyone could see through but no one would actually challenge.

She looked at him severely but asked only, “Who do I have to punch?” and he loved her for it.

He just loved her, period.

“Really, Bee, it was my fault. I was stupid.” His traitor brain helpfully supplied several mental images of exactly how stupid he had been, like he needed that right now.

“I don’t think I believe you, Michael, but...”

“Thanks, Bee. Now tell me all the important shit.”

“Important shit?”

“Yeah. You know. How wasFinland, how bad do reindeer smell, are Mäkelä’s parents as weird as he is,that shit.”

Bee laughed, and although he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hear the end of it, she let it drop, and that was all he could ask for.

The problem was that he couldn’t let it go. And it wasn’t like he could afford the distractions. He really was fighting for a spot on the team this year. Last year he’d doneokay. He’d averaged about eleven minutes a game, which wasn’t awful for playing third pair or spending some time in the press box, but it wasn’t great by any metric. His advanced stats had been so abysmal he’d had them tacked to his bedroom wall for motivation. He’d won more fights than he’d lost, and he’d done his job during those fights. Namely: the dirty hits aimed at Zach Reed, the Cons’ star forward and alternate captain; Nate Singer, the Cons’ captain; and Bee had decreased.

But Mike wasn’t a standout; he’d only had three goals and four primary assists, a few more secondaries, and he wasn’t lighting any fires under anyone’s ass. He’d had some time on PK but not much. He’d never even gotten a glimpse of the power play. There were always going to be younger kids coming up, and although they weren’t generational players or even necessarily top-six guys, there were enough solid players in the farm system that he was replaceable. He was a grinder, sure, but even the skill players worked their asses off.

Everyone wanted the same thing, he just had to want it more.

If wanting guaranteed success, Mike would win the Defenseman of the Year award every season. As it was, he finished every day of training camp with his body aching, sweat dripping down his face, and Netty elbowing him in the back cheerfully and chirping him in his heavy accent.

Bee was home about half of the time. The other half she stayed over at Mäkelä’s, which was an adjustment all on its own. It was fucking sad how much Mike had come to rely on her, even if he tried not to let her know, even if some of the guys who liked to live dangerously and had stupid, outdated ideas about things chirped Mäkelä constantly about his competition when they thought Bee wasn’t around to hear it.

It wasn’t even a satisfaction when they put out the roster and his spot was secure. He had a two-way contract, so they could send him down anytime they wanted to save the cap space and it wasn’t like there was any danger of anyone picking him up off waivers. That was Mike’s problem, really: no matter what measure of success he reached, he was never happy with it, feeling the edge like he was watching the pebbles tip off into the air before his weight launched him after them. For him, life had never been like it had for his siblings, who’d worked hard, but were, like,anotherprofessor, the founder of a stupidly successful tech startup that did something Mike didn’t even fully understand, the head of a nonprofit that coordinated research and education on climate change.Theydidn’t have to worry about slipping. Things came easily to them in a way they never did for Mike, and no one in his family would ever let him forget it, even when he did his best to avoid talking to them as much as he could get away with it.

It was in this self-loathing fog that he found himself watching Pittsburgh’s first preseason game against the New York Liberty. He wasn’t like Bee, who watched a truly staggering amount of hockey games in her spare time. Mike was content to rely on the team’s pre-scouts and leave it at that.

This was just poking a bruise.

He had one eye on the TV, the other scrolling through different apps. If he mostly only looked up when number 21 was on the ice, that was his own business. It was weird, watching Garcia skate from the TV angles. Watching him skate when Mike wasn’t on the ice waiting to fight him, he noticed a few things he’d never noticed before. Garcia skated slower than almost anyone else out there, that he favored his left side even though he shot right, that he always seemed to be where he needed to be to interrupt a play, but that he never pinched too far.

Mike frowned.

Garcia was barely on social media. His Snap was private. His Twitter was mostly bland RTs for shit like #bellletstalk and the Hockey Diversity Alliance; the last personal thing he’d posted was his broken teeth after he fought Mike last year. His Instagram wasn’t much better. He’d shared his bloody mouth there, too, but there were two newer posts. One was in the gym, benching a pretty obscene amount of weight, muscles straining, every one of them standing out in sharp relief. Mike snorted, because bench was like one of the least useful lifts for hockey, and it was obviously just to show off.

In the other, Garcia balanced an admittedly adorable toddler on his knee, a girl with his big dark eyes and thick curly hair, wearing a child-sized Hornets jersey.Mi sobrina favorita, the caption read. He was smiling in the picture, a soft half smile, and he looked completely different from any other time Mike had seen him.

On TV, Garcia was fighting one of the Liberty’s d-men, a guy closer to his size than Mike could ever hope to be. And Garcia was destroying him. It was barely a contest even though Garcia’s heart didn’t seem to be in it. He punched slow and steady, like he was bored. The Lib gave it his best but it was like swatting at the side of a mountain for all the good it did.

Mike looked down at his phone again. He took a deep breath. He shouldn’t do it. There was no reason to do it. There was nothing to even hope for from doing it. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, no matter how hard he tried, on the nights he was home all alone with his thoughts. He clicked the little triangle,veryfucking careful not to accidentally hit Follow, and typed in the message box,

you look slow as shit old man

you fighting in your sleep or what

It was a terrible fucking idea, but he sent it before he could second-guess himself, and after that, it was too late.

Maybe if he was lucky, Garcia wouldn’t even see it.