Page 64 of The Love Penalty

“That guy is a prick, what the hell has he been telling you?”

“I can handle it, Robbie. Beat him with kindness, remember? Just focus on the game and win instead.”

Fuck. I know she’s right but my skin is buzzing with too much anger and I’m having a hard time controlling it.

With only a couple of minutes left on the clock, I come out of the box and intercept a pass, taking my shot at a breakaway, except before I can wind up and take the shot, I get hit in the face by someone’s stick. Olivia blows the whistle and skates up to me, checking for blood. I turn around and spit a mixture of blood and saliva at Mitchell’s feet. Fucker split my lip, he better get a double minor penalty for high sticking.

Olivia makes the call and sends Mitchell down the tunnel, but not before I hear what he tells her. “You’re a goddamn bitch, and you’re going to pay for this.”

“You talk to her like that again and you’ll be the one paying for it,” I say in a low voice.

During intermission, I am too fired up and I pace around the locker room, then decide to go and find Olivia. I need to talk to her.

She’s outside of the locker room, tucked into a dark corner looking as anxious as ever. As soon as I get to her, all my anger melts away, concern taking over. “What’s wrong, Olive?”

She stops fidgeting and she gives me a look of,I can’t say anything here. So I lead her to a more secluded area where no one will find us for now.

“I’m freaking out, Robbie. What if he does tell someone about us? He might not have proof, but enough people on his team see the way you protect me and stand up to him when he’s being an ass.”

“Yeah, but I would do that for any referee, because he doesn’t have a right to insult any of you. Even in the heat of the moment, you might make a bad call but that’s no excuse to be verbally assaulted.”

“But, what if this is messing with my head and my ability to make sound decisions? What if I’m biased now and I always call out his penalties because I know what to look for? What if no one takes me seriously anymore?” Her eyes are filled with tears and I take her face in my hands.

“Olive, of course everyone will take you seriously. Are you kidding me? Just because he made you doubt yourself and your abilities doesn’t mean he’s right.”

“But what if I’m not strong enough to deal with it all?” she whispers and her bottom lip wobbles.

“Love, you are the strongest person that I know. Just look at you and how much you’ve accomplished all on your own. You’ve never had a good support system behind you and yet you never gave up on your dream. You worked hard and proved people wrong when they said you couldn’t do it, that you weren’t tough enough.

“I need you to know how proud I am of you. You are level headed, fair and impartial, and you are not afraid to make the tough calls. You are exactly what this league needs. Someonewho won’t back down when threatened. I know you’ve never had anyone in your corner before, but I’ve got your back. Our friends do too.”

Olivia laughs and turns her head to kiss my palm. “That can’t exactly work out there on the ice. You having my back.”

“Of course it can. Fucking hell, if anyone even looks at you funny, I will board the hell out of them.”

“You can’t do that, Robbie,” she says, scolding me with a small smile on her face.

“Sure I can. I’m retiring, so it’s not like my career is in jeopardy. Besides, if I do, you can just send me to the penalty box. Call itthe love penalty.”

She laughs again and gives me a quick kiss before we have to head back to the lockers. “Thank you for the kind words.” I squeeze her hand and reassure her that she’s got this.

The second periodis a disaster of massive proportions. Mitchell continues to harass Olivia but she keeps to her word and ignores him. She’s playing it smart so that if he tries to escalate it and call her any names in front of the other officials, they would intervene. My shifts don’t line up with his as much since one of our guys got hurt last period and hasn’t come back to finish the game. Otherwise, I would absolutely keep my word and check him into the boards as hard as I can for even daring to speak to her.

The majority of the period is littered with penalties, the most recent one including Ash and Mitchell. When Mitchell tripped Ash, my little hothead friend dropped his gloves and started a fight. While I know this hurts the game, I’m glad he did it. Mitchell deserved that punch to the face, not just for what he did to Ash, but also for how he’s treating Olivia. When I skate up to the penalty box to give Ash his gloves and helmet, I make sure to skate by Mitchell’s box as well and give him a glare. The asshole glares right back and the look on his face is pure hatred.

Good. It’s a matter of time until he snaps and hopefully he does something that gets him suspended.

I head back to the bench and watch as our guys prepare to be on the power play and hopefully score a goal so we can take the lead. My head keeps a steady movement between following the puck, looking at the clock, and keeping an eye on Mitchell for when he comes out of the box.

We still haven’t scored.

Five.Ash continues to sit in the box. He’ll be in there for the rest of the period.

Four.I look over at Mitchell and see him standing up, getting ready to come out of the box. He glares at me, then moves his eyesight on Olivia.

Three.Olivia is over in my team’s defensive zone, where the Vortices are attempting to make a play.

Two.Jordan snatches the puck away and gets a breakaway..

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