Page 36

He says yes when I give him an order. He doesn't push. He doesn't come into the crease. He doesn't say my middle name. He's perfect.

And every morning, when it's done, he looks at me.

He stands at the top of the crease with his helmet under his arm and his hair wet, and he waits. He just stands there and looks at me like he's waiting for me to say equipment room.

I don't say it.

I say, "Tomorrow. Six."

And he says, "Yes," and goes.

Friday night, after the game, the shower in the team house is free for once. I stand under it with the water as hot as it'll go and my forehead against the tile, and I don't touch myself.

I don't.

I stand there with my cock hard and heavy between my legs, aching, and I think about anything else. Video. The power play. The Harrow rematch in February. Nico on the foam pad.

It doesn't work. It never works. I close my eyes and he's against the workbench in Doug's cage with his hands behind him and his head thrown back, his throat working, his cock dark and wet in my fist. Please, Dane. He looked at me like I was the only thing in the room. Like I was something he needed, and he'd stand there and shake and wait for me to give it to him for as long as I wanted.

Nobody's ever looked at me like that.

I turn the water to cold and stand there until my teeth chatter.

Sunday, Wes finds me in the weight room.

It's empty except for us. I'm doing single-leg work on the box. He's been on the bike for twenty minutes, not really pedaling, watching me in the mirror.

"Can I say something?"

"No."

He gets off the bike anyway.

Wes Abernathy is the biggest guy on our team. Six-four, two-thirty, and he's never been in a fight in his life that he didn't get into to protect somebody else. He was Nico's D partner for two years. He was on the ice in April. He was the first one in the corner, the first one down on his knees next to Nico, yelling for the trainer. He visited Nico in the hospital in Duluth every day for a week. He drove four hours each way.

So when he stands in front of me with his arms folded, I stop.

"You're taking it too far," he says.

"Taking what too far."

"Don't do that. The table. The water bottles. Making guys move seats on the bus, D. Petey cried after lunch Wednesday, did you know that? Not about Lindqvist. About himself. He said he felt like a piece of shit."

"Petey's eighteen. He'll live."

"That's not—" Wes takes a breath. "Look. I hated him. When I heard Halvorsen was bringing him in, I wanted to put him through the glass. I'm not saying I like the guy. I'm saying you've got the whole room doing something that's not hockey anymore, and I don't know what it is, and I don't think you do either."

I step down off the box.

"It's for Nico."

"Is it?"

"You were there, Wes." My voice comes out louder than I meant. It echoes in the empty room. "You were on the ice. You were in the corner. You held his head. Don't stand there and ask me if it's for Nico."

He doesn't flinch. He never flinches. That's what made him good next to Nico, who flinched at everything.

"I was there," he says. "So I know Nico. And Nico would hate this."