Page 22 of Poetry On Ice
The clock ticks. The minute dial rolls over from eighteen minutes to nineteen. Our second-line center has the puck. He’s in the neutral zone, moving forward. He makes an unsuccessful shot at goal, and as soon as they can, the line hustles to the bench. McGuire and I are over the board like a flash. Luddy follows a couple of seconds later. He’s holding his own, but his legs must be heavy. There’s sweat pouring down his face and he’s breathing hard.
The opposite center has possession of the puck and heads for the goal with it. Or he tries to. Katz hits him hard, and before he can recover, Luddy scoops up the puck and moves it from side to side with a well-practiced flick of his wrist. McGuire calls out, and it’s a good call. He’s open. Luddy passes long. McGuire takes the puck like it’s his. Like he owns it. Like his dad bought it for him and said no one else could play with it.
I make tracks to keep up with him, but at the speed he’s moving, I doubt he even knows where I am. His eye is on goal. Both defensemen sense real and imminent danger. Their eyes widen, then narrow. Their right attacks. McGuire gets past him.
The home crowd is dead quiet. Vipers supporters are on their feet and screaming.
The second defenseman attempts to stop McGuire. He fails but manages to slow him. It’s a mess. The forwards have hauled ass back and the right defense has rallied and is almost on him again. There are five seconds left on the clock. There are Blackbirds everywhere. McGuire raises his stick. He has a decent shot. Not easy, but not impossible. The goalie has his eyes locked on McGuire, stance low, stick in one hand, the other open and ready to block.
Pass the puck,I think.Pass the fucking puck, Princess!
It’s almost as though he hears me. The tendon in his neck tenses and he lets out a rushed breath. At the last second, he feigns a shot on goal and passes the puck to me instead. It’s an astonishing pass. So fast and hard that all I have to do is angle my stick. The puck makes contact and bounces off it. It stays low on the ice, not spinning, not bobbing, moving like lightning, and not stopping until it makes its home in the back of the net.
It’s pandemonium. The Vipers’ song starts blaring and our fans are losing their minds. A last-second goal is always sure to get a major response, but a goal like that?
Once in a lifetime.
I’m off my feet almost immediately, crushed by a mammoth pair of arms and lifted into the air. It’s Luddy.His head is thrown back and he’s yelling his guts out. “Decker, you fucking beauty!”
Suddenly, everyone’s on the ice. Coaches, players, practice players, everyone. The hard tap of hands on my helmet jostles me, but I don’t hate it. Far from it. I love it. I breathe it in.
Elation.
Ecstasy.
Pure, unfiltered goodness that enters my bloodstream and warms me from the inside out.
This is it. This is the reason. This is why I play hockey. This is what makes it all worthwhile. The people. The early mornings, the late flights. The bruised ribs and battle scars. All of that fades now. It goes away, and all that’s left in its place is joy. And no ordinary joy either. This isn’t just happiness. That’s a light, flighty emotion. This is heavy and dense.
It’s powerful.
It’s victory. Winning. Being better than someone or something.
Fuck. I love it.
I feel McGuire’s eyes on me before I see them. He’s smiling but his nostrils are flared slightly. I can’t say why exactly, but it gives me a rush to see him like that. Torn. Jealous. Torn because a win is a win, and he likes winningtoo. Jealous because even though he tries to hide it from others, he’s just as much of an asshole as I am.
He wanted that goal scored under his own name as much as I did. Maybe more.
He looks at me expectantly, eyes fractionally bigger than usual. He looks almost constipated, and it takes everything I have not to piss myself laughing.
He’s not happy. His eyes flash and darken. An angry amber shadow mixes with streaks of olive and makes them look muddy.
“How ’bout thank you?” he asks, spitting each word in my direction with a little more rancor than the last.
My dick twitches from an unwelcome flashback of what happened after the last time he said that to me.
Fuck. Those lips and that tongue. The subtle taste of surprise, followed quickly by outrage. That hint of copper that stayed in my mouth until the next morning.
“Thanks for meeting the bare minimum requirement of your job description, McGuire,” I say in a mild tone designed to make people lose their temper.
His gaze flits over my shoulder, slightly to my left, and my stomach drops. I don’t even need to turn to know Coach is behind me and heard every word I just said.
Shit. He won’t like that. He won’t like it at all, especially as he was very clear at practice yesterday what heexpected from us and while we played a lot better than we’ve been playing, we were nowhere close to poetry. We came through at the last minute, but on the whole, McGuire and I were closer to a nursery rhyme than a sonnet.
When we get to the hotel, we shuffle around the lobby while waiting for our key cards. Even though our travel team has checked us in, it’s still a process getting this many people into the right rooms. It’s one of those things that grates on my nerves more and more as the season progresses. Lucky for everyone around me, we’re only a few weeks into the season and my mood has recently been lifted by a win.
“Decker, McGuire,” calls Warren, holding out a single card envelope. We move toward him, both a little confused. “You two are rooming together. Coach’s orders.”