Page 89 of Dirty Puck

I coasted to a stop by the rail. “How’s my form?” I called.

Bree lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve looked better.”

“Ouch. Brutal.”

She laughed, adding, “And need to give the kids a show. Are you a goalie or at afternoon tea?”

I grinned, flicking my pinky in the air, and skated off.

We did laps with donors, signed helmets, gave their kids piggyback rides on the ice, and posed for photos. Bishop lifted a toddler in full goalie gear over his head to show me.

“You’ve got some competition.”

“Maybe in a few years.”

Jaycee chased LJ down the boards while wearing hot-pink skates. Lexi skated with her kids while holding Jones’s hand.

Bree kept Benny back because Claudia wanted to take the ice. She helped my mom down to the rink. We cleared a lane and did the grunt work of lowering Mom onto a sled seat with double blades on each side for stability. I pushed her around twice to the cheers of the crowd. She laughed the entire time, wind rushing past her face.

“You think I could play wing?” she shouted.

I couldn’t answer. I was too busy keeping my emotions in check.

For the game, we split the teams by jersey color—players mixed with donors, coaches, and a few brave wives.

Grant Bishop laced up and gave a deadpan warning to his team: “If I pull my groin, I’m making someone else finish bedtime at my house for the next year.”

Jaycee skated out in full gear, her ponytail through the back of her helmet, ready tokill. She checked Bishop into the boards within five minutes.

Claudia called it “spiritual.”

Reece’s Rules for the Charity Game:

No actual checking.

Try not to hit the kids.

Don’t let Claudia outskate you.

I broke all three.

To make sure she didn’t get hurt, I went over some important instructions with Claudia, but that woman didn’t need my help.

“I’m old. That means I’ve lived a lot of life.”

Apparently, part of that life, she’d lived on skates because it threw me, seeing her break down the ice weaving between players like a damn heatseeking missile. She passed to a kid named Carson, who’d been grinning since the skate had started. Carson scored, the crowd wentnuts, and Claudia fist-pumped so hard, she lost her balance and started to fall. Antonov swooped in to save the day.

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