Page 14 of Caught Offside

He drove home with the windows cracked open just enough to keep him awake and the radio off. His hands gripped the wheel because his body needed something to hold on to.

Somewhere south of the state line, he started doing the thing he did when someone got their hooks in him, which was to lay out all the reasons it was a bad idea. Patrick lived two states away and kept himself shut tighter than anyone Asher had ever met. He played a sport that swapped men like trading cards, and he could be in Calgary by the deadline with nothing either of them could do about it. And Asher had a spring training to get to and a career that still hadn’t decided whether it wanted him.

None of those were the real reason, though, and he knew it because the real reason never changed. Asher Tucker was very good at the first part. The charm, the chase, the easy two-in-the-morning back-and-forth. It was the second part he couldn’t do, the part where somebody stuck around long enough to leave. He’d always handled that the way Pops had handed it to him without ever meaning to, by being the one who walked first. Walk before it counts, and it never gets the chance to gut you.

The problem was that this already counted. He’d driven three hours to watch a man he’d met one time teach ten-year-olds to skate, and it had counted before he was out of the parking lot. So the smart move, the safe one, the one every version of him from the last ten years was making on that dark stretch of interstate, was to let it cool. Answer slower. Let spring training and a thousand miles do the quiet work of ending it. Leave first, the way he always did.

His phone buzzed at a red light in Kenosha.

You left your coffee mug dirty in the sink.

Asher grinned at the windshield and typed back one-handed.

That’s because I’m coming back for it.

Under a minute later:

Good to know.

CHAPTER FIVE

The shoulder caught him below the ribs.

Patrick saw the defenseman coming. He’d read the play cleanly, stepped up to close the gap at the blue line, and his positioning was perfect. He’d just passed the puck to Loman when he was slammed into the boards, a clean check that left his arm pinned the wrong way. The glass shuddered behind his head. His helmet cracked against it a split-second after his shoulder took the impact, and the world went white for exactly as long as it took his lungs to remember how to work.

He stayed down with his glove braced against the boards, cataloging how bad off he was. Ribs, left side. Shoulder, same side. Head, fine. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek and the taste of copper sat on his tongue.

“Fonty.” Dev was there, stick tapping his shinpad. “You good?”

Patrick pushed himself up. The arena noise came back in layers—the horn still echoing from the goal they’d scored after his pass, the crowd going wild, somewhere nearby one of his teammates scrapping with the asshole who’d hit him. They were up three to one with eight minutes left in the third, and his ribs were screaming, but his legs were steady, which was the only thing that mattered right now.

“Good,” he said, and skated to the bench for a line change. “Just need to catch my breath. Fucker got me good.”

Barlow gave him the look he gave every player who stayed down longer than a second. Patrick sat on the bench and breathed through his nose while waiting for the trainer to make his way over from the far end.

“Ribs?” the trainer asked, crouching in front of him.

“Yeah. Left side.”

“Scale of one to ten.”

“Four.” It was a six, possibly a seven when he inhaled too deeply. “I’m finishing the game.”

The trainer pressed a hand against his side, and Patrick held still, which took more effort than it should have. “Sit one shift. If you’re moving okay after that, you can go back out.”

He sat one shift and went back out. The last six minutes were a defensive clinic with the Syndicate collapsing into a tight box, and Patrick ate two more shots off his shinpads because his ribs wouldn’t let him extend to block the way he usually did. They won, and the celebration was agony. Lifting his arm above his shoulder sent piercing pain through his side.

In the tunnel, Pruitt was still buzzing from his second-period goal. “The way that asshole hit you, I was worried you were dead or some shit.”

“I’m not dead, Pru.”

“You look dead though. Like a sexy corpse. Very dignified.”

“I’m flattered,” Patrick deadpanned. “But I’m not sure your wife would appreciate you hitting on me.”

“Fuck that, man. Why is it gay if guys appreciate their buddies’ looks, but chicks can do it and no one thinks twice?”

“First of all, you better have meant gay as in same-sex attraction, not a slur.” Patrick smacked Pru upside the back of the head. Locker rooms had come a long way since he was in juniors, but there was still too damned much homophobic bullshit. Guys didn’t think twice about saying shit, even knowing Patrick was gay. “And second, they’re women, not chicks. Grow the fuck up.”