Page 73 of Hockey Bois
Wow. Was this Young Brady?
…what happened to make him Older Brady?
“Come buy me a drink,” “Aimes” said. “Catch up.”
“You buymea drink.”
“That’s not how you treat a lady.”
“You’re the one taking me away from my team. You can buy me a damn beer, or you can join us and drink one of ours.”
She pretended to consider a moment. “Deal. I buy you a beer and we talk, then I join yinz here for a beer and find out what your new team thinks of your sorry ass.”
“Please,” whimpered Lexi and Donno in unison, eyes wide as they took in this hockey Amazon.
“Fine. You guys mind if I disappear a bit?” Brady was already out of his seat. Not that Nick could say no anyway.
The team waved him off with a few parting chirps about abandoning them, fraternizing with the enemy, and owing them all a round later.
“Think he’s hitting that?” Mags asked. “Might explain why he’s been so damn happy all day.”
Nick had to breathe through his nose and bite the inside of his cheek to shut himself up.
“Nah.” Gail was barely paying attention, too busy typing on her phone. “He treats her the way he treats me, so I don’t think there’s anything sexy going on there. Besides…” She put down her phone, a wicked smile on her face as she caught Nick’s eye. “I don’t think she’s his type.”
Unable to hold her gaze, Nick turned away and hoped he looked like he had no clue what she was talking about… all while hoping he knewexactlywhat she was talking about.
“She’smytype,” Lexi said with a wistful sigh.
Donno nodded. “Same, bro.”
The conversation went back to the usual topics: their games, the Caps, and the upcoming Super Bowl. GG’s controversial opinion that Adam Oates was a good coach was enough to draw Nick’s attention away from Brady long enough to argue.
“He made Ovi relevant again!” GG said.
“You’re an idiot if you think he everwasn’trelevant,” Nick countered.
GG glared at him. “All the players liked the changes he made—”
“When he micromanaged everything including the curvature of their blades!?”
“He took them from the bottom of the league to the top.”
“Division,” Gail corrected. “No Presidents’ Trophy. Maybe the conference.”
“Never mind he did it in half a season!” GG continued. Nick got the feeling this was a well-practiced rant. “That’s impressive! The players looked like trash when the lockout ended, conditioning gone to shit. He did good.”
“He did well in that small, shortened season,” Nick conceded. He waited for GG’s smug smile before adding, “Aaand then he crashed and burned the next,fullseason. Didn’t make the playoffs, and let’s not forget that he almost broke Holtby.”
GG’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
“Can’t argue the Holtby thing,” Young Greg said sympathetically. “You ain’t ever winning this Oates argument. You wanna argue coaches, Trotz and good ol’ Bruce are a better comparison.”
“Howdareyou,” Gail growled, and the argument shifted again, and Nick’s distraction was gone.
Don’t look don’t look, you idiot, don’t—
His eyes wandered over to the bar proper, where Brady sat with his friend. Nick blinked in surprise when he saw them both looking his way, and before he could decide an appropriate way to respond, his face flushed bright red, and he whipped his head the other way in the hope that they wouldn’t notice.
