Page 75 of Hooked
When the ice girls came out, Honor was with them—and Madison was the girl who'd gone missing. Honor gave me an uncertain smile as she skated past, as if to say, “Welp! Here I am!”
I couldn't be happier to see her.
Play resumed, and I watched from the bench as our second line, led by Vinny, picked up right where our first line left off. Vinny cycled the puck with his linemates, grinding out the Bears defense, until they managed to send a cross-ice pass to the d-man on the point. The d-man wound up and blasted at the puck—and Vinny, standing in front of the goalie, managed to get his stick on the airborn puck just enough to deflect it past the goaltender.
The goal horn blared. 4-2, and now the crowd was starting to show some signs of life.
“One more, boys. One more.”
Cunningham looked like a scared puppy out there on the ice. My teammates knew where he was at every second, and were justwaitingfor the moment to catch him with a big hit. But Cunningham, like I've said, is a slippery snake of a player. And every time he got the puck, he got rid of it in a hurry, long before any of our guys were close enough to hit him.
But Cunningham's allergic reaction to the puck put his team in a bad spot. The Bears needed him to step up, play a solid game, and lead the offense—not act all skittish and afraid. His cowardice had them skating around like headless chickens.
And it was our third line, led by Iggy, that crashed the net and whacked in a rebound to make the game 4-3.
The goal horn sounded, the crowd went nuts, the Bears took their timeout, and I tried to rally the team for the last time, with ten minutes left in the game.
“One moregoal, boys, and we're tied. Focus. They're scrambling. We got this. Fuck 'em.”
But when play resumed, the Bears play had calmed—their coach must've ripped into them and told them to wake up before they blew their lead.
We fought hard. Every skater that jumped over those boards and joined the play skated with purpose, with determination and swagger. I wassurewe'd tie the game.
But as the seconds ticked off the clock, and the minutes rolled by … and we still hadn't found the back of the net … it was our turn to worry. As we started to nervously grip our sticks tighter, the Bears loosened up and played with confidence. Even Cunningham.
Fuck,I grumbled under my breath during the last timeout, and the ice girls took the ice for the last time. Even the ice girls looked nervous.
But, as the girls circled the rink, Cunningham hopped over the boards.
“The hell is he doing?” Vinny asked me.
Cunningham stood and waited. When Honor went by, he pushed off and skated next to her. My blood boiled and my fists clenched as I saw him mutter something to her. And then his hand went to her side.
I almost jumped over the bench to skate him down the second I saw that—but the boys grabbed me and didn't let me go.
Turns out, I didn't have to dole out justice—because Honor did something a little crazy. She gave Cunningham a stiff-arm to the sternum and, digging her skate blades into the ice, gave him a mighty shove. Cunningham didn't even have to sell it—she truly knocked him right off his skates, and he crashed to the ice on his tailbone. He writhed on the ice, rubbing his rear.
The crowdlovedit, and so did the boys. Iggy slapped at my back. “Holy shit! That's yourgirl,Rockwell!”
But the boys from Boston didn'tlove it so much. Their coach screamed at the refs from the bench, demanding a penalty against us because “those ice girls just attacked our star player!”
I hopped over the boards and skated over to the Boston bench to have a chat with my old teammates.
“Maybe if he hadn'tgrabbedher bare side with his grubby mitts, she wouldn't have pushed back. You guys saw it, don't lie. You know that's wrong. Can't go around grabbing ladies like that.”
My old teammates didn't have the courage to look me in the eye, and so I knew they agreed.
“Speaking of grabbing ladies? I'll tell you boys something else. You better watch that one,” I pointed across the ice at Cunningham as he slowly rose to his skates, “when he's around your girlfriends and your wives.”
“The hell are you talking about, Rocky?” one of the Bears asked me.
“He never told you guys why we had that big fight, then? Huh! Imagine that! I guess you guys wouldn't trust him if you knew he was the type of teammate who'd fuck your fiance while you're skating an optional practice.” I turned and skated off as Cunningham labored back over to the bench.
I heard his teammate yell, “Cunningham! You fucked Rocky's fiance?Jesus Christ!”
That was the final blow for Boston. Finding out their captain would stab his best friend in the back sucked the wind right out of their sails. The Bears took the ice, bent-over at the waist and shaking their heads.
With a minute left, I raced into the offensive zone with the puck, dangled past the Boston defense, and lifted a short-side shot over the goalie's glove to score the tying goal.
