Overnight Sensation(78)

“Sure thing.”

But after the next whistle there’s a media timeout, so we all get a chance to breathe. I ruminate on our opponent’s defense squad and try to formulate a plan. Meanwhile, the team mascots take the ice. There’s a furry blue fish and our own Brooklyn brown bear. They’re having a faux-fight—the kind of thing I always ignore.

But for some weird reason, I feel a tingle at the back of my skull. And I glance up to see the bear do a graceful spin in front of the penalty box.

“Holy shit.” Trevi whistles. “Our bear can skate.”

My eyes widen as the Brooklyn bear executes a double axel, landing with its furry brown arms outstretched. There are hoots of laughter from the crowd. But not from the other mascot. The fish swerves, cutting off the bear’s path, moving in and punching the bear right in the neck.

“That doesn’t look very sportsmanlike,” a teammate says.

But the San Jose fans like it. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” they cry.

Our bear squares himself to the fish, and raises a pair of furry fists. But anyone can see that it isn’t a good matchup. The fish towers over the bear. And even though flippers aren’t known as weapons in the wild, this fish winds up and clocks our bear right in the chin.

“Fuck ’im up!” yells some cretin in the stands.

Our bear seems to realize he can’t win with brawn, so he goes for flare instead, executing a roundhouse kick that neatly avoids actually touching the fish, and then follows that up with a stylish spin maneuver.

“Holy shit!” Silas laughs from the other end of the bench. “Now we know what job they gave Heidi this week. Mystery solved.”

Holy shit indeed. That tingle moves down my backbone as I realize he’s right. Only Heidi could bring such flare to the bear suit. And she said she used to compete at skating when she was little.

The fish is unimpressed, though. He keeps trying to jab at her, while Heidi is literally skating circles around him. He flaps those long flippers, spoiling for a fight.

Then Heidi skates toward him, as if she means to engage. But—psych! She’s too quick. The fish punches and misses. The crowd howls.

You’d think that a guy in a whole-body fish suit couldn’t look angry. But you’d be wrong.

“The bear won’t fight!” yells some asshole in the crowd.

“The bear is a pussy!” screams another.

“Take it like a man, bear!” As if that makes any sense at all.

I grow increasingly uneasy, because Heidi doesn’t seem to sense the anger in the room. Or maybe she does, and she’s just running down the clock. Then again, no sensible person would do what she does next—skating up fast and then pulling a hockey stop so sudden that she sprays the fish with ice shavings. It’s the ultimate burn in hockey.

And then? Heidi opens her furry arms as if to say, I’m right here. What’s the problem?

The shark lunges. The crowd roars. As my heart climbs my throat, both mascots go down in a heap of blue and brown fur.

“Fight fight fight!”

“Oh, shit,” Trevi whispers as the mascots begin to grapple. Heidi has the fish by its snout. She gives him a shove and then tries to roll away. A wave of nausea rolls through me as the fish whips his skates around in an arc.

A sharpened skate can kill you. I’m on my feet now.

“Hey,” Trevi says, pulling me back down. “Heidi’s smart. She won’t get herself in trouble.”

For a few beats of my heart, I actually believe him. Heidi pops to her feet and skates away from the shark. But then she looks over her shoulder at him. She puts her big fuzzy hands on her big fuzzy hips and shakes her giant padded ass. You can’t catch me.

He tries, though. A mad fish is a fast fish. He’s practically on her little bob of a tail already. Heidi weaves and dodges down the ice. Her footwork is amazing, but the fish has a longer stride. When he closes in on her, the asshole uses one of his skates to sweep her legs out from under her.

All my blood stops circulating as he reaches down and picks her up in his flipper arms. I’m on my feet again.

Heidi flails while the crowd roars.

“Sit down!” Trevi hisses to me. “You set foot on that ice and they’ll penalize the team and also fine you.”

I can’t even breathe as the fish staggers forward and hurls Heidi into the hockey net. I’m already over the wall and skating toward them even as her head bounces off the surface of the ice.

“Goal!” yells some asshole fan.

The next three seconds are a blur. I reach the goal crease as the fish is celebrating and Heidi is trying to scramble to her feet. But she’s caught in the net.

“What the fuck, man?” yells the fish as I push him out of the way.

I reach into the net and pull the Brooklyn brown bear into my arms. “Let me go!” Heidi shrieks. “I’m going to kick his ass!”

“You know you’re beating up a woman?” I snarl at the fish.

The ref is blowing his whistle like crazy as I stand up, carrying my girl.

“What are you doing?” Heidi squeaks as I skate quickly toward the chute, where a very puzzled rink official pulls open the door so I can set her onto the rubber padding. “I could have won!”

It’s dawning on me that twenty thousand people are watching as I glare at Heidi through the mesh eye holes of her costume. I put a hand on her fuzzy head. “Are you hurt?”