Page 127 of Unbreakable
“127,” she said with a grin, those turquoise eyes made brighter by the ice under me.
“How are you doing, Mommy?”
“Glad to be here.” She widened her eyes at me. “You look good, Daddy.”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “After bedtime?”
Just then a puck clipped the glass next to me and Bella shrieked.
“Get back to work, ya bum. Go make us proud,” Jeanine said with a wink.
“Love yinz. See you after the game.”
“Cue it up, Jonesy!”
Colton shook out his hands, cracking his neck and holding up a small piece of paper. “I got the read tonight, boys. Let’s get out there and show ‘em how we do it.”
I cringed a little at his pump-up attempts, but they’d been getting progressively better the more he practiced. I didn’t want to shoot him down, and I’d told Leroy to pretend it was good until it was. Fake it till you make it, I guess.
“Fuckin’ go!” Leroy shouted at him.
“We’ve got Korowski.”
The team responded, as we always did, with a clap.
“We’ve got Pickles.”
clap
“We’ve got Leroy.”
clap
“We’ve got Crabs.”
Sebastian Lindberg, but Mr. Crabs was his most frequent nickname.
clap
“We’ve got me.”
clap
“And in the net, we’ve got our baby boy prince, Royce.”
clap
“Let’s hold the fuckin’ line, let’s fill the fuckin’ corners, and let’s bring this one home,” Colt finished.
And with a chorus of “let’s fuckin’ go,” we headed out into the hallway.
Speed wassomething I’d been working on in my training. I’d done more box jumps and knee-ups than I cared to remember, trying to increase the explosive power of my legs. Jeannie had even commented how my pants were tighter around my thighs now.
In this game, it was going to pay off. We were against the team with the fastest player in the show. Aging as I might have been, I was determined to keep up with the young pups who could skate at absurd speeds.
We were down 3-1 in the second, and my line with Leroy was going in. Beaudry, the stupid fast guy, was at center ice and headed for our zone. I tore after him, trying to swat the puckaway from him. I was on him like a mosquito, buzzing around him and getting in his way.
But dammit, this kid was good. Still, I managed to get my stick between his and the puck. We were flying, the speed carrying me too fast for me to get control in time.
