Page 136 of The Goalie in Room 1

He flipped me off. I laughed and reset as he came down the slot. I read his shoulder drop, a tell he’d had as long as I’d known him. The puck came at me, and I kicked the puck away with my pad and pushed back up.

My right leg followed a half-beat behind the rest of me.

I shifted my weight. Fine.

Aiden circled. Another shot. Butterfly. Recover. Reset.

The next one came low on my right, and I knew where it was going before the puck left his stick. My brain sent the command. My right skate dug in. My body pushed.

My left leg got there.

Barely.

The puck clipped the outside of my pad, bounced off, and slid across the ice.

“Fuck.”

Aiden gathered it off the boards while I straightened and rolled my shoulders. My right quad burned. Not my knee. My fucking leg. I flexed it once, and the muscles answered with a tremor.

Well, hello to you too.

Aiden came back down the ice, and I yelled, “Again.”

Aiden looked at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then shoot, dammit.”

He did. I stopped it. He shot again, and I stopped that one too. Then he cut across the slot. I tracked him, and he changed the angle at the last second.

I knew what he was doing.

Fuck, I knew exactly what he was doing.

My body had made this move ten thousand times. My right knee hadn’t. At least not the creepy cadaver shit they grafted into it.

I fell into position and pushed.

But it was too slow.

Too late.

The puck sailed past my blocker and buried itself in the net.

“Fuck!”

Aiden grinned and danced around the rink. The prick.

“Lucky fucking shot.”

“Keep telling yourself that, big brother.”

I pushed myself upright. My right thigh shook, but I ignored it.

Aiden didn’t.