Page 94 of Cherry Picking

He goes down awkwardly and stays there, unmoving. His back was to me, and he never saw it coming. There’s no version of that hit a single man in this building will defend.

The whistle comes late because the ref is as stunned by the violence as I am. Their bench pours over the boards. Two of them get hands on me and scream at me to drop the gloves, and a fight is the only clean way out of this.

I keep them on. Refusing is its own kind of cowardice, but I do it anyway.

Five and a game. I’m done for the night. The kid eventually gets up on his own and skates off slowly with a trainer’s hand on his back.

I head for the tunnel, and the walk from the penalty box feels miles longer than the one at home. I sit in the visitors’ dressing room while the game finishes without me. I hear it all through the cinder block—the crowd roaring twice more, then the final horn.

I have my elbows on my knees and my jersey half-peeled off, and I’m still sitting in that exact spot when the guys file in after a 5–1 loss.

Nobody says a word to me. Hartwell puts a heavy hand on my shoulder as he passes, but he doesn’t stop walking.

Bellan finds me at my stall after the last of the media have cleared out. “Talk.”

“Nothing to say.”

“Try,” he says, crouching until we’re eye to eye. “Because I just watched a twenty-two-year-old kid go into the wall from behind for no reason a single person in this building could name. Including you.”

I look at the floor.

“The Detroit game. A guy runs his mouth about your brother, you drop him, and I go to bat for you. I told the league you were provoked.” He lets the silence sit. “That man came to find you. He had his gloves off before you did.”

“I know.”

“You want to fight somebody, fight somebody. Find a man who’s looking at you.” He shakes his head once. “Who provoked you tonight, Briggs?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody.” He nods slowly. “So this is you. You brought your mess in here, and it landed on a kid who’s played nine games.”

“I’ll take whatever discipline they give me.”

He stands. “My problem is I’ve got a room full of men who watched you do that, and every one of them answers for it the next time we see New York. Get your head fixed, or get comfortable sitting out. I can’t dress a hand grenade for the playoff push.”

I shower with the water scalding and have no memory of putting on the suit.

Back at the hotel, my phone is a graveyard of forty-one notifications. My name is in another headline, sandwiched between the words ejected and late brother, because those two things occupy the same space in my life now. They probably always will.

There’s one message from Evie.

Evie

I saw the hit. are you okay?

Briggs

I’m alright. long night. talk tomorrow

Tonight, I actually mean it.

CHAPTER 27

BRIGGS

The overnight flight drops me back into the swirling noise of Harry Reid just past six in the morning. The league hands down a three-game suspension while I’m still walking through the terminal, and Ted stays on the line with me the whole way to the rental counter, calling it a victory because it wasn’t five.

Three games means that for the first time since October, I have nowhere to be. I aim the car toward Henderson while the sun drags itself up behind me.