Page 83 of Hockey Bois
With a deep sigh, Gail chose to take a drink instead of answering. She licked her lips afterward and weighed out her words before saying, “You’ve broken my defensive partner.”
It took a moment for Nick to process what she was implying, and then he burst out with an indignant “Me!?”
Gail put up a hand to shut him up. It annoyed him that it worked. “You’ve broken Jens, andyouare also playing like shit. Surprisingly aggressive, but you play like shit when it counts. Fix it.”
He considered arguing that he wasnotplaying poorly and that he certainly had no effect on Brady’s playing, but then thought better of it. “I literally don’t know how,” he said honestly.
Gail rolled her eyes. “Is this an issue of fucking each other or not fucking each other?”
“Oh myGod.”
“So not fucking. Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and I really don’t want to know details. What can I do to help?”
“Kill me?”
She glared at him.
He floundered for a more productive suggestion. “I don’t know. Talk to Brady?”
“I’ve already tried talking to Jens, but that’s never going to work. He shuts down whenever I eventryto talk about you. You, you’re more of a functioning human being in terms of people skills, so it’s gotta be you.”
“Ireallydon’t know what to do.”
“Start by not calling him Brady?”
“It’s his name! We call you Gail! Why can’t I call him Brady?”
“The man literally fell on his ass mid-game. Twice. Both times right after you called him that. He’s a hot mess, and that’s not helping. Besides, you guys call me Gail because you’re not allowed to call me anything else.”
“It’s not my fault he’s a mess,” Nick grumbled, only half believing it.
“It’s notnotyour fault, though. You know damn well none of us call him that, and I think if we’re being honest here, we know that ifIcalled him that, it wouldn’t throw him off.You’rethe one he’s close to on the team—” She saw him about to argue, and she gave him a scathing look so he wouldn’t interrupt. “Shut up. It’s true.You’rethe only one on the team with the power to fuck him up that badly. I repeat: all you said was his actual name and he couldn’t function. So maybestopdoing that?”
“Fine,” Nick said through clenched teeth. “He can be Jensie from Hockey to his heart’s content.”
She blinked three times in quick succession, then moved on without asking what exactly the significance of “Jensie from Hockey” was.
“Great. That’s step one; figure out step two. You’ve got three games to get your shit together.”
“…or?”
“Or I talk to Benns about it.”
Nick shuddered. He knew full well Benns would put in a solid effort to play counselor, and he really,reallydid not want to deal with that.
“…yeah, please don’t do that.”
“Then fix it,” she said, jabbing her finger into his chest after each word. She took another drink from her beer as she stood up, then threw some cash on the bar. “I hope it works out, but seriously, we all need things to work, period. Because you two not talking? Not working for anyone except the other teams.”
Nick stared at his untouched beer.
“Good luck,” Gail said gently, her hand brushing his shoulder as she walked by. “For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you guys.”
If only that would be enough.
He’d tried to make things better today, he really had, and somehow made them worse. How was he supposed to fix anything if this was how it ended up?
The Jagr Bombs were royally screwed.
