Page 37 of Jaded

Once my eyes find him, I can’t seem to pull them away.

He moves over the ice like a fish through water, like a bird through the sky, like he was made for the ice and belongs nowhere else.

Not that I’m going all Shakespearean about some faceless dude or anything. But seriously. He reads the play with uncanny instinct, cutting between bodies and sticks to gather a dropped pass or lost puck, sweeping back out to avoid wayward jabs and elbows.

Grace of a dancer, that guy.

And his hands are phenomenal. Even with the opposition literally aiming to kill, he manages to avoid deadly hits and imminent bodily harm with the simplest flicks of his wrist that curve the puck around sticks or through skates, that launch said puck directly onto the tape of his teammate.

What the hell’s he doing in this gladiator league?

He nets the first goal in a cool snap shot, then assists on the second with a mindblowingly precise corner pass that even his hack job of a teamie can’t mess up.

That one leaves the crowd bellowing, “Forty-Seven! Forty-Seven! Forty-Seven!” in support of his finesse.

When the guy next to me mutters, “Shit, it’s that guy!” I figure maybe he’s a fan favorite from previous encounters. The crowd loves him almost as much as they love the bloodshed.

Which for some reason gets his hack of a teammate riled up, and he whirls on Forty-Seven to throw a well-aimed punch.

Jesus, this game really is brutal. He’s hitting his own teammate! The crowd screams and hollers, presses up against the boards, so I too am pressed into the smoothed wood. So I have no choice but to watch Forty-Seven shove Sixty-Three off him.

“Fucking idiot!” he yells, but Sixty-Three doesn’t seem to hear him. Or care. Dude swings again. Forty-Seven slides neatly out of range, which just makes Sixty-Three madder and punchier.

He launches forward.

Forty-Seven’s fist collides with the idiot’s jaw in a punch so clean it swings the guy’s head around in a theatrical stage stunt.

The crowd nearly raises the roof in its excitement.

“Take him down, Forty-Seven!” the wiry guy next to me roars.

“Fight, fight, fight!” the crowd echoes.

“Forty-Seven gonna slaughter him,” the suit-clad bro beside me cackles. “Bloooood!”

Sixty-Three aims again—but yeah, no, the crowd was definitely right to back Forty-Seven on that. Duck, return cross, and Sixy-Three’s flat on his back, blood oozing from his nose, probably counting Tweety Birds overhead.

Problem is, while Forty-Seven’s occupied trying to keep his own teammate from killing him, the opposing team nets three quick goals that leave the crowd in an absolute frenzy.

“Bullshit!” the wiry guy next to me roars. “Forty-Seven should’ve won!”

“Kick ’em all off!” screams the dude on my other side, and then he’s throwing fists, and Wiry’s throwing fists. And I decide, holy moly, I’m really not tough enough for this.

I can’t even see the ice anymore, through all the bodies and fists I’m now working hard to avoid. I got a pretty face, y’know? Not letting any ruffians put their knuckles in it.

Not a whole lotta options for leaving, though. I’m jammed into the crowd, wedged in like a splinter. Elbows galore. Spittle showers everywhere. Death imminent, probably.

Sweet baby Moses, please send help. Jesus, I don’t ask you for much, but a little aid right now—

The telltale click of the gate opening draws my attention as the skaters tumble from the ice. The motion displaces the crowd, and all of a sudden, I glimpse the minutest momentary rift in the sea of bodies.

I don’t miss my opening.

I mean, I’m a pro hockey center. Openings are kind of my gig, right?

I slip between bodies to come up right behind one of the skaters—and what do you know?

The number on the back of the red-flecked jersey is a big, black forty-seven.

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