Alex (Cold Fury Hockey, #1)(15)

Putting the small stick to the ground—which looks ridiculously minuscule in his large hands—he flips the orange ball gently to his son. At least I think that’s his son. Fact of the matter, I know virtually nothing about most of my teammates.

The little boy tries to raise his glove to catch the ball but it bounces just off the tip and ricochets off the brick wall behind him.

“Good try,” Sergei says in affirmation at the boy’s attempt. “You almost got it.”

My head swirls and I feel faint, a memory clawing its way up to my consciousness and I try desperately to tamp it down. It’s too strong, though, and it assaults me hard.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed,” my dad snarled as we pulled into the driveway. He took out a small flask from the inside of his jacket, angrily twisting the cap off and slugging back a huge gulp of liquor. Putting the flask away, he turned ice-blue eyes my way and glared at me. “Drills. Get suited up.”

“Dad…it’s late and I’m tired,” I complained. It was something I knew better than to say, but I was so tired I just didn’t have it in me to play any more tonight.

“Get your f*cking gear on and get your lazy ass in the driveway,” he screamed at me.

Sighing, I pushed open the car door and slouched my way into the house. I didn’t even bother going any farther than the mud room, where I reached into my equipment bag—which I had been carrying—and put on my pads, still wet with my sweat from the game I’d just played. I didn’t bother putting my jersey over them, but I did put my helmet on with full face guard. I needed that protection for sure.

My older brother, Cameron, stuck his head in the doorway of the mudroom and whispered, “Bad game?”

He was fifteen years old, and Dad didn’t mind him staying home alone while he took me to my hockey games; Cam never wanted to come watch.

“I guess,” I replied, even though I thought I’d had a pretty great game. Two goals and an assist. “Dad wants to do drills.”

Cameron just stared at me, his eyes sad. He watched me put on my helmet, grab my stick and head back outside. He didn’t say anything else, didn’t come outside to watch, didn’t offer words of encouragement. There was no way you could ever paint a good picture over what was about to happen.

When I stepped out onto our driveway, softly lit by the two lights flanking the garage door, my dad already had his stick in hand and the driveway lined with hockey pucks. He pointed to the position he wanted me to take and I went to stand in front of the garage.

“Why are we doing this?” he asked, his voice still tinged with anger.

“Because I messed up,” I answered woodenly.

“And how did you mess up?” he asked, toying with one of the pucks on the ground with the blade of his own stick.

“I didn’t make the sacrifice,” I said tiredly.

“You didn’t make the f*cking sacrifice,” he affirmed, his voice filled with disgust. It didn’t matter that his son scored two goals. Didn’t matter that his son got an assist. Didn’t matter that his son was the best player on the team. Didn’t even matter that we won the game. The only thing that mattered to him, at that moment, was that when one of my opponents shot a blistering slap shot at our goaltender, I dove out of the way so that my goalie could see the puck coming. I was standing directly in front of him, blocking his view.

It’s true. It never crossed my mind to let the puck hit me. It was aimed in the general direction of my right thigh and it would have hurt had it hit me. Fear of getting hit with the puck played no part in my split-second decision to throw my body out of the way, though. No, I wasn’t afraid of pain, because God knows I’d become almost immune to it. I was just thinking of our goalie, and hoping to give him a split second of reaction time to make the save.

I made a bad choice. The puck sailed past me, sailed right past our goalie’s glove because he couldn’t see it coming and right into the net. Had I just stayed still—let the puck hit me, I wouldn’t be standing out here getting ready to do drills.

“I think twenty should do it,” my dad said quietly. “You’re not to defend and you sure as f*ck better not move out of the way.”

Swallowing hard, I gripped my stick tight and tried to relax. My natural instinct was going to be to try to deflect the puck when it came my way. But that would have earned me further punishment.

Yes, punishment. My dad called it drills, but it was punishment. Fucking abuse was more like it.

He wound his stick back, legs crouched. Didn’t matter that he’d been drinking. My dad had played in the minor leagues and he knew how to make a slap shot. The blade made contact with the first puck with a resounding crack and it came hurtling my way, so fast I could hear the whistle of it against the air.

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, letting out just a small ooph when it caught me in my chest pads. It wasn’t exquisitely painful, because my dad didn’t have the strength he used to, but, more important, the drinking had made him a bit clumsy with his shot. But it still hurt like hell.

The next puck came on the heels of the first, and I took it in the right thigh. My dad raised his arms in victory and yelled, “He shoots, he scores!”

The f*cker was proud he hit his ten-year-old son in the right thigh—exactly where I would have taken the puck tonight had I just stood still.