"We didn't create it," Beacon spoke up. "Skews did with his punk-ass mouth."
"Excellent point, sir." Coach put a hand to his chest. "My mistake. But your game better follow through. Capitalize on this disruption. Don't let 'em get their shit together before you get your shots off."
There were murmurs of agreement while everyone slugged back water and tried to stay loose. Beacon did some stretches, and then it was time to get back out there.
As everyone predicted, their opponents were downright pissy about the ejection. Things got chippy right away, and the game devolved into a hairy melee with a lot of artless potshots taken all around.
Beacon watched Leo Trevi get slashed in the back by a Tampa stick when the refs weren't looking.
"They're desperate," Beacon reminded the sweaty rookie as he skated by. "We like that."
"Right," Trevi said through clenched teeth.
It was a brutal period, but scoreless for Tampa. When the ref caught one of their opponents' illegal checks, Brooklyn got a power play and used it to score one more goal.
When the buzzer sounded, it was Brooklyn over Tampa, 2 – 0.
The minute he followed his team back into the locker room, Georgia Worthington scurried up to him. "The network has your face in the clip they spliced together about the Skews ejection. And the journalists are asking questions. I'm going to have them come into the dressing room to ask you what happened, okay? Because if I put you on the dais at the press conference, that makes the incident seem like some kind of Bruisers strategy."
"Huh. Okay." He stripped off his pads and tried to shake off his exhaustion. Georgia was a clever girl, and her instincts had never steered him wrong. Talking to reporters didn't sound like all that much fun, though.
"What do you plan to say about it?" Georgia pressed. "They'll want to know what made you prod the ref over Skews's behavior."
"I'll just say that I didn't want my daughter to think that hockey players were homophobic. And that we don't ever use that word." That made for a pretty good quote. He liked the sound of it. "If they press me, I'll say that Elsa and I have close friends who battle discrimination, and it bothers us."
"Or it saddens you," Georgia suggested. She was always massaging their language to make them sound more approachable.
He chuckled, grabbing his jersey and hauling it over his head. "Fine. I'm saddened."
Sure enough, he was saddened to find three sports writers and a cameraman waiting by his bench when he came back from the showers. "Is this where the party is?" he joked, grabbing his suit pants. "Give me sixty seconds and I'm all yours."
He ducked back into a more private area near the showers to change, so his ass wouldn't end up on television. Then he came back and put on a shirt while all three journalists asked their questions at once.
"Why did you ask the ref to consider a different penalty for Skews?" "Was it part of a strategy for Brooklyn?" "Are you involved with gay rights issues?"
"I heard the comment, and I didn't like it," he said slowly. He buttoned his cuffs and looked into the camera. "My child is a hockey fan. She was watching the game tonight. We talk about discrimination at home, so it, uh, saddened me to hear that word at the rink."
Georgia gave him a wink from behind the cameraman.
"If a player dropped a racial slur in a game, he'd be punished, right?" he continued. "This was exactly the same thing."
"It didn't hurt that Tampa lost one of their best players," suggested a male reporter who was scribbling on a notepad.
"I had no idea what the officials would decide," he said, trying not to sound pissed off. "I wasn't thinking about the outcome-only that his language wasn't something the league should condone."
Georgia gave him a thumbs-up. And she was smiling, so he decided to quit while he was ahead.
"That's all I really have to say about it. Thank you." He turned around and grabbed his tie off a hook. "I can hear my phone ringing," he added. "That's probably my little girl wanting to talk. So if you'll excuse me."
The reporters scattered as they often did when he played the single dad card. But his phone was ringing. He fished it out of his bag and took the call. "Elsa?"
"Daddy! You are amazing."
"Thanks, baby." At least one fan was happy with him tonight. Sitting down on the bench, he stuck a finger in his ear so he could hear better.
"You could totally read his lips, too. It was so nasty." She was talking really fast. "I was like, here we go again! And then they threw him out of the game! And then you won!"
He chuckled. "I didn't know that would happen-the ejection."
"Hans and I had an extra root beer to celebrate. I don't know if I can sleep now."
"Good try," he said. "Go to bed, sweetie."
"I love you, Daddy!"
"Back atcha, baby."
"Hans wants to say hi."
"Okay."
"Hallo, Beak," Hans said a moment later.
"How's it hangin', Hans?"
The German hipster laughed. "That was . . . something else. It was fun to see."
"Yeah. Crazy, right?"
"I don't know what to say. Thanks for taking a stand."
"You don't have to thank me. Lot of people would have said something. And now I'm going to be accused of doing it just to gain advantage on the ice. So that's gonna be fun."
"Ja?" Hans laughed. "Tell 'em you did it for your gay roommate."
"Uh-huh. Think of the headlines."
He laughed again. "Good night. I'll pry Elsa's phone out of her hands now."
"Good luck with that."
He hung up smiling.
EIGHTEEN
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
MAY 2016
When Lauren got back to Brooklyn, the first thing she did was to push back Nate's China trip into late June. Her old hockey-watching habits had kicked in hard, and she had a gut feeling the Brooklyn team would win this series and advance to the Eastern Conference Final.
And, weirdly, she wasn't sure she minded. Maybe she wouldn't admit it aloud, but it was fun watching her boys win again.
She'd caught herself thinking of them as her boys again, just like in the old days. For the past two years it had hurt too much to think of the team that way. But lately she felt more relaxed in their company. Now that she and Mike were on speaking terms, it wasn't hard for her to walk into the players' lounge in the headquarters on Hudson Avenue, handing out the media kits that Georgia's publicity office had prepared.
"Hey, Lauren," Castro rumbled as he took his copy from her hands. "Do I really have to read this thing?"
"It's a free country, hot stuff," she said, surprising herself with her own cheerful tone. She sounded like the Lauren of years past-the one who teased the players instead of snapping at them. "But if you don't show up to the right press conference after the game tonight, you'll have to answer to Georgia and Tommy."
She even gave Mike a smile as she handed him a copy. And she didn't let her eyes linger on his darker ones, or feel the heat of his heavy-lidded gaze on her.
Not much, anyway.
The players had spent the morning with the coaching coordinators or with Ari, the massage therapist. The Brooklyn HQ had the feel of a war bunker this week. It was all hands on deck. Meals were catered into the lounge so that nobody had to leave. The publicity office was overrun with calls, which meant support staff of all stripes were pitching in.
The thrum of play-offs fever had reached even Lauren's frigid heart. From Becca's desk, she helped out with whatever needed doing, while also keeping tabs on the e-mail chain regarding all the current projects in New York. She and her boss were burning the candle at both ends, looking out for the team's needs while chatting with their Manhattan colleagues all day.
She kept an eye on the sports headlines, too, even though it wasn't her job to worry about the Bruisers' news. There was plenty of chatter about the incident in Tampa. The league had fined Skews for his comments, and the player had issued a stuttering apology, asking for forgiveness from whoever he'd offended.
Twitter lit up with commentary. Much of it was supportive of the sanctions against Skews, but there was a lot of ugliness among hockey fans complaining about "PC bullshit" and favoritism.
There was some taunting to the tune of: Brooklyn can't win without getting our best players thrown out of the game.
Fans would say anything at all. Lauren was used to it. But around noon on game day she saw a blog post that made her skin crawl. "Tampa's Best Move Would Be to Take Out Mike Beacon."