Him (Him #1)(5)

Six summers in a row, the best hockey I played was against the sharp-eyed, steel-wristed Ryan Wesley. I spent my days trying to keep up with his quick reflexes and his flying-saucer slapshots.

When practice was over, he was even more of a challenge. Want to race to the top of the climbing wall? Ask Wes. Need a partner in crime to help you break into the camp freezer after hours? Wes is your man.

The town of Lake Placid probably heaved a sigh of relief each August when camp was through. Everyone could finally go back to living normal lives that didn’t include seeing Wes’s bare ass in the lake every morning for his daily skinny-dipping sesh.

Ladies and gentlemen: Ryan Wesley.

Coach drones on at the front of the room while Wes and his teammates do their magic on-screen. The most fun I ever had at a rink was with him. Not that he never pissed me off. He did that hourly. But I can honestly look back on his challenges and taunts and see he’d made me a better player.

Except for the last challenge he issued. I never should have accepted that one.

“Last day,” he’d taunted me, skating backward faster than most of us could skate forward. “You’re still afraid to take me on in another shootout, huh? Still whimpering over the last one.”

“Bullshit.” I wasn’t afraid to lose to Wes. People usually did. But it was hard to shut out a shootout, and I already owed Wes a six-pack of beer. Trouble was, my bank account was drained. As the last of six kids, sending me to this fancy camp was all my parents could do for me. My lawn-mowing money had already been spent on ice cream and contraband.

If I lost a bet, I couldn’t repay.

Wes skated a backward circle around me so fast that it reminded me of the Tasmanian Devil. “Not for beer,” he said, reading my thoughts. “My flask is full of Jack, thanks to the beating I gave Cooper yesterday. So the prize can be something different.” He let out an evil laugh.

“Like what?” Knowing Wes, it would involve some sort of public display of ridiculousness. Loser sings the national anthem while hanging brain on the town dock. Or something.

I set up a row of pucks and prepared to shoot them. Whack, went the first one, just missing Wes as he went by in a blur. I set up my next shot.

“Loser gives the winner a blowjob,” he said just as I swung.

I missed the f*cking puck. Actually missed it.

Wes cackled, skidding to a stop.

Jesus Christ, the guy was good at f*cking with my head. “You’re hysterical.”

He stood there breathing hard from all that fast skating. “Think you can’t win? Shouldn’t matter what the prize is if you’re confident.”

My back felt sweaty all of a sudden. He had me in an impossible position, and he knew it. If I refused the challenge, he won. Yet if I accepted, he had me rattled before the first puck even flew my way.

I’d stood there like a moron, unsure what to do. “You and your mind games,” I muttered.

“Oh, Canning,” Wes had chuckled. “Hockey is ninety percent mind games. I’ve been trying to teach you that for six years.”

“Fine,” I’d said through clenched teeth. “You’re on.”

He’d hooted through his facemask. “You look terrified already. This is gonna be rich.”

He’s just f*cking with you, I’d told myself. I could win a shootout. Then I’d turn the mind games back on him—I’d refuse the prize, of course. But then I could hold the fact that he owed me a BJ over his head. For years. It was as if a cartoon light bulb went off over my head. Two could do mind games. Why had I never realized this before?

I’d lined up one more puck and shot it with great force right past Wes’s arrogant smile. “This is going to be a piece of cake,” I said. “How about we have this shootout, wherein I kick your ass, right after lunch? Before the end-of-camp scrimmage?”

For the briefest moment his confidence slipped. I’m sure I saw it—the sudden flash of holy shit. “Perfect,” he said eventually.

“’Kay.” I scooped up the last puck off the ice and flipped it in my glove. Then I skated away whistling, as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

That had been the last day of our friendship.

And I never saw it coming.

At the front of the room, a new reel is playing, this one highlighting North Dakota’s offensive strategy. Coach is no longer thinking about Ryan Wesley.

But I am.





3





Wes





Boston’s skyline comes into view from my bus window well before I’m ready.

It’s a mere ninety minutes from Northern Mass to TD Garden. The Frozen Four is always played at a neutral rink, but if anyone has a home-ice advantage this year, it’s me. I’m from Boston, so playing in the Bruins’ arena is my childhood fantasy come to life.

Apparently it’s my jackwad of a father’s fantasy, too. Not only is he pumped up to invite all his * colleagues to my game, he can look like a hero on the cheap. He only has to spring for a limo, not a charter flight.

“You know what I like best about this plan?” Cassel asks from the seat next to me as he flips through the itinerary our team manager passed out.

“That this event is like the puck bunny world headquarters?”

He snorts. “Okay, sure. But I was just going to say that they’re putting us up at a nice hotel, not some sleazepit off the interstate.”