Page 92 of Replay

I didn’t get any sleep before I had to get to the arena. I was quiet during warm-ups. Thinking too much about the trade. It wasn’t final yet or they wouldn’t have let me play tonight, but Allen was good. He knew things before other people did. He wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t think it was happening.

“You okay, Ducky?” Cooper stood in front of me. I was sitting in my stall, staring at the floor, waiting for the game to start.

I looked up at him. “Oh, sure.”

“Problems with your girl?”

I shook my head. Not like he was thinking.

He tapped my pads with his stick. “Well, let’s win this one. One step closer, right?”

I forced a grin. “Yep.”

Except for me, it was one step closer to leaving.

We headed onto the ice, lights down, the spots on us as we spilled out, the crowd cheering. When they announced the starting lineup, I listened to the cheers for Josh Middleton with my eyes closed, soaking it in, for what was probably the last time.

The fans in Toronto had been great. I’d give them a game to remember for when I was gone.

I skated to the line, waiting for the puck drop.

As soon as Deek had the puck, I raced forward and sideways, giving him a target for a pass. One of their defensemen headed for me, but I caught the puck and slipped past him, over the blue line, using my speed to miss the check he’d planned to hit me with. A pass to Oppy, and we’d scored on the first play of the game.

My teammates applauded us, but I didn’t feel the excitement I normally did when I played well. So next shift, I pushed a little harder. Got a little too eager and was called for offsides. Still, I got a goal before they’d had a chance to even the score. That wasn’t enough though.

Back on the bench, waiting for the tap to get back on the ice, Deek nudged me. “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? We’re killing them.”

“No one is supposed to literally be killed. You just seem…more aggressive than usual.”

Yeah, I’d checked one of the other forwards a little harder than normal. But this was a big game, important in ways Deek didn’t know. “Just want to make sure we get the win.”

Three minutes before the end of the first period, we were up three nothing. All three goals were when I was on the ice, and I had an assist and a goal. Maybe I could get a hat trick. That would be a way to go out. Hell, maybe it would convince management that I was worth keeping.

I jumped over the boards for what would probably be our last shift this period. The forward I’d hit chirped at me while we waited for the face-off.

“Kind of pushy there for a shrimp.”

“Yeah, this shrimp is making you look like shit, asshole.”

The puck dropped and I started moving.

After, I couldn’t remember what happened in those next two minutes. I played them, and later watched the replays, but the next thing I was aware of after the puck drop was lying on the ice, my knee shooting pain up and down my leg.

I’d hurt before. Been bruised, broken a bone or two growing up, but this was different. The injury in the preseason had been minor, and I knew this wasn’t. I curled up, trying to protect the joint that was sending throbbing waves of agony through my body. Someone was speaking to me, asking me something, but all I could focus on was the pain.

There was a stretcher. No, I couldn’t be carried. I was a hockey player, and I’d get off on my own. But I couldn’t stand, couldn’t push up from the ice. I could do nothing but endure the agony and wait for something to stop it.

The jostling to get me on the stretcher was too much. Suddenly everything blacked out, and there was no pain, no crowd, nothing at all.

The next time I was conscious was in the hospital. I felt an IV stuck in my hand, but if it was a painkiller, it wasn’t working. I blinked my eyes open to see what was going on. I was in a room by myself, and Coach was there. The game must be over. Who’d won? But before I could ask, pain shot up from my knee.

That part I remembered.

“Middleton. Josh. You’ve torn your knee, and you need surgery.” Coach’s bedside manner could use some work. His words sounded far away. “The doctor here is going to explain, okay?”

I slowly turned my head and noticed a woman in a white jacket standing near Coach. Had she been there all along?

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