Page 6 of Game Misconduct

“Why are you looking at me?” he asked, when it seemed like she wasn’t going to stop on her own.

“You keep checking your phone.”

He clicked the side button and locked it. “Yeah?”

Bee’s eyebrows went up. They stared at each other, but he looked away first. “You never check your phone.”

“Huh? I check my phone all the time.”

Bee’s eyebrows hadn’t moved. “You never check your phone that often.”

He gave her the patented Michael Sato glare, but it lost something, considering he couldn’t even meet her eyes for longer than a minute, and she knew that he was more bark than bite, especially when it came to her. And hewaswaiting for a response to the last one, which was,can’t back it up? guess you’ve got other teeth you don’t need.

“I’m bored and I hate watching the Hornets play. Like in case you forgot, they’re kind of our divisional rivals.”

“They are, but...” Bee looked from the TV, where Garcia’s fight against the Libs’ d-man was playing, to Mike, phone tucked screen-down against his chest in self-defense. “You’ve been acting really oddly since I’ve been home.”

He groaned. “I’mfine, Mom.”

Bee said, “Hmm” in a way that did remind him disconcertingly of his mother. She went back to watching the game.

He waited until the clock ran down to two minutes left in the game before checking his phone again. Garcia hadn’t responded but Mike wasn’t really expecting him to. Garcia hadn’t for most of the preseason; there was no reason he’d do it now. The brief message was the aberration. Bee looked at him again and frowned.

Mike locked his phone, untangled his legs, and said, “I’m gonna hit the hay. Big day tomorrow, eh?”

“Eh,” Bee agreed, although she was still frowning at him in the glow of the television as he got up to go to his bedroom.

Mike felt off-balance the entire morning, like he had an electrical current running beneath his skin, and he could feel it whenever he stood still for too long. Morning skate went by too quickly, although apparently the fire under his ass impressed Coach, who clapped him on the back and said, “That’sthe kind of skating I like to see, Sato.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

Patrick Cote’s full attention was almost as uneasy as Bee’s. A lean man in his late forties, Cote had a, like, snooty bearing that seemed out of place on the ice, even though he had actually played professional hockey until he fucked up his knee. Hard to believe now, body wasted from years of just light weights in the gym, but he’d also been a fighter.

He knew what was up, in other words.

“And Sato.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“I don’t want to see any funny business out there tonight.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Coach.”

Coach looked at him with narrowed eyes, a small frown. “You know exactly what I mean. If you’re going to fight, you fight clean. I don’t want unnecessary penalties, I don’t want any injuries, and I don’t want a suspension before we even start the goddamn season.”

Mike felt that itchy shock, the sting of disappointment, under his skin again. Why did everyone expect the worst of him? It was insulting, first Bee, and now Coach. Worse than insulting. It hurt all two of his feelings.

He might’ve fought on the ice, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to argue with his boss, so he said, “Yes, Coach. I’ll keep it clean.”

“See that you do.” Coach was still frowning. “I know you had a rough first game, but that was last season, and at this point, Sato, it’s time to let bygones be bygones.”

“Umm,” Mike said. It wasn’t a bygone and he couldn’t let it be, but there was no explaining that to Coach. He couldn’t explain it to himself, even. Something about Garcia’s face just brought out the worst in him. Something about an entire season’s worth of petty grudge moments building up brought out the worst in him.

He tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible, but Coach must have seen something in it he didn’t like anyway because he shook his head and said, “Dismissed, Sato.” He sounded disappointed, but Mike didn’t have time to worry about that.

He stripped quickly in the locker room so he could shower, not really looking to get hassled by any of his teammates today. The room atmosphere was about as perfect as you could ask for, especially compared to the Grizzlies—Columbus’ minor-league feeder—where he’d spent a few seasons before getting traded to the Cons. In Philly, a lot of the players were friends. He was friends with some of them. They had that thing every hockey analyst talked about: chemistry. But sometimes the guys just liked to give each other shit, and sometimes it just made him feel even worse than he already did.

He wasn’t nervous exactly, but he knew something was going to happen, he just didn’t know what. Fighting was one thing, but this was something else.