Icing the Puck (New York Empires Book 2) (27 page)

She followed the rest of the orchestra onto the field, taking a deep breath as she walked through the tiny path the stadium crew had created. It was cold, but she’d been in worse. Unfortunately, that didn’t make it any easier because her fingers were still freezing. Once again, she was grateful for the electric violin.

“Holy crap,” murmured Pete, the first chair of the second violins. “It’s crowded…”

She nodded, but she’d expected it. Tickets had sold out despite the dire predictions of below-zero weather. But this was New York; the two other outdoor games that had been held in the tri-state area had sold out. New Yorkers knew how to bundle up, and the other team was from Toronto. Again, no big surprise the game had sold out.

As Kayleigh sat down on top of her heated seat cushion, she looked around at the stadium. It was filled to capacity; she didn’t think about where her parents and the rest of the Empires family had been assigned to sit. All she focused on was the brief sounding of a tuning note.

Finally, Arun joined the orchestra, standing on the podium provided for him. His face was serious, focused. She focused on him, setting her violin on her shoulder and placing her chin on the rest.

Finally, the downbeat.

Max

The team only had a short time to finish getting ready after Max finished his interview.

Finally, there was a knock on the locker room door. “OK, guys.”

“Now remember,” Coach MacArthur said. “We follow the path out of the dugout that will take us to the copy of the Kosciuszko…”

“Why did they choose that bridge?”

Max was glad someone had asked; he’d wanted to know too.

“It connects Brooklyn and Queens,” the coach replied. “They wanted to have us walk into the stadium on that bridge as a symbol of the journey from where we usually play to here. Did a good job too, barely recognize that ugly bridge. Anyway, architecture aside, they’ll announce us, and then we walk across that bridge. Stay together. Don’t move to the music. Just follow your line mates. Defense, forward. Stick together. Right?”

“Right,” the team shouted, clapping.

“We got this, boys,” said Emerson. The guy who’d be playing on the center of his line. His captain.

And they lined up, leaving the locker room one by one. They stayed together in single file, waiting at the dugout, listening to the familiar PA announcer’s voice.

“And your New YORK EMPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRES!”

At the sound of the team name, they started to move across the bridge, crossing the stadium, and into the sight of the fans. It was magical.

He followed his teammates, then waited at attention and held his breath.

Kayleigh

The anthems were fast; the Canadian singer insisted she sing a capella; the American singer wanted the orchestra. They’d practiced both, but she knew it was a game-time decision.

After the anthems, the orchestra was shuttled off the ice and sent into an area where they’d be able to watch the game.

“This is exciting,” she said.

Jonathan nodded as Arun sighed. “Here we go,” he said and pointed out at the stadium below. “Puck drop. Game time.”

Yes, Kayleigh thought. It was time to play.

First Period

Max

The puck dropped, and Max felt the exhilaration immediately. He stayed focused, watching the puck as it moved. He skated down the ice with his line mates, holding the line, and then…

There was an open side. Evans’s new/old defense partner, Dobrynin, wasn’t doing what he was supposed to, and there was going to be a goal scored if he wasn’t careful. He felt the other players’ uncertainty and so he immediately moved into position to cover the hole he saw on the left side. But it was too late.

The player he was supposed to be paying attention to had gotten past him, the defenseman he was covering, and everybody else on the ice. Now he had the kind of shot on goal that not even a perfectly executed dive in the way of the puck would stop. And Semenov, wonderful as he was, had no chance.

And then, the red light.

Tabernac.

Kayleigh

Nooooooo!

There were assorted snarls and curses that matched her own, and even a few cheers. Toronto had scored, with five minutes left in the period. Damn it.

But five minutes left in the period also meant she had to start to get ready to go out and play. Layers, gloves, and deep breaths all were the order of the moment. As was the extra jersey her brother had given her.

“Kayleigh!”

Arun’s voice sounded half stressed and half as if he was trying desperately to keep from losing it.

“What can I do you for?”

“They want an interview from us,” he answered, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. “They didn’t say they want you, but, well…”

They didn’t have to. She knew where she stood It was easy to figure out what story the reporters were searching for. “Fine,” she said, sighing herself. “I’ll go. I know.” She reached out again, only stopping her reach inches from her conductor’s perfectly shorn hair.

And so she adjusted her jersey—her brother’s, of course—before heading off into the hallway. She followed Maureen, the Philharmonia’s PR person, through the halls of the building.

“She’s here,” Maureen said.

She looked up into the eyes of Clint Fucking Beauchamp, the reporter who’d been responsible for exposing Max’s linguistic difficulties to the world.

Instead of punching him in the throat, she smiled.

She behaved herself, answered the man’s questions while doing her best not to strangle him on live television. After the interview was over, she headed back to where the rest of the Philharmonia was preparing to head back onto the field.

“I made it through,” she told Kassie as they stood in line. “I almost killed him. But I didn’t.”

Kassie, the smart flautist she was, laughed.

And then the orchestra headed back onto the field.

First Intermission

Max

When the buzzer rang, signifying the end of the period, Max stood, then followed his teammates back to the locker room. Nothing was said until the large door was closed.

“All right guys. We can’t afford to let their momentum take us down,” the coach began. “We need to take a step back. All of us. And get back in the fucking game. Because even though it looks pretty out there, this game fucking counts. And we cannot forget that.”

“Five minutes” Emerson said. “Then we go out to make my sister blush. Two lines. We sit. Got it?”

“Yes,” Max said adding to the team’s chorus.

He took a deep breath and stared at his locker.

“I need you guarding my ass, being my wingman,” Emerson said darkly, “not being some phantom fucking defense thing out there. Get your ass together.”

Max did the only thing he could. He nodded. “
Ouais
,” he said.

He didn’t have to look behind him to see the sudden freeze in Emerson’s expression. He felt it. Didn’t need his
percée
to feel it either. “Good man,” Emerson replied.

Then he stood, following Emerson, past Evans, who was snarling at Dobrynin. Past Semenov who was studiously ignoring everybody, trying to get into a groove.

“St. Laurent?”

Max stopped at the sound of the Coach’s voice. Then he turned on his guarded skate blade to face the man.

“You need extra time. You’re not fully set on offense,” the coach began. “Close. I could see sparks. You screwed up on that goal, not because you don’t have sense, you’re just playing with the wrong one. And you need to play with the right one…”

He didn’t say anything.

“I have confidence in you, otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. And I get it’s a switch, but you need to make it. Do
not
let your defensive instincts overrule your offensive ones when you’re playing forward.”

Max nodded.

The coach sighed. “What I’m going to do is to sit you down and make you watch this second period. You need to mentally follow the game for a period before I let you put skate one back on the ice. Right?”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Offense,” Coach said, before leading him back into the locker room. “Offense. You’re not defense today. And we need you to be the best fucking forward you can be.”

And as the coach went out to join the rest of the team, Max sat back down on the bench in front of his locker, took a breath and closed his eyes.

Kayleigh

Kayleigh knew this was going to kill her. Knew it. The song was too appropriate, the piece was too sad. And she was the one who broke up with Max, so it was her fault. Damn it.

The show must go on, as they said. And the world was watching. So she held her breath and joined the ensemble in her assigned seat. As they’d practiced, she would play with the ensemble and then stand for her solo. She was glad they’d nixed the skating idea. Even though she could have, it would have been impossible to implement.

She noticed that the Empires were there, as Chris promised, kneeling on the ice, or at least as much of the ice as they could legitimately cover. At least most of them. She didn’t see Max, although he had spent the back end of the period on the bench, after the Sirens’ goal. That meant he could be in Chateau Bow-wow, the coach using the time the rest of the team was watching her play to give him a blistering lecture. He also could be hurt. She knew which one she would prefer; no matter what was going on between them, she’d already seen him in the hospital. It was a nightmare she’d rather not relive.

“And now,” began the public address announcer.

The rest of the words washed over her, and she closed her eyes, let go of mostly everything around her and focused on the page. Then she looked up at Arun, waiting for his signal.

And then the downbeat, and they started. In her brother’s jersey, she played. The song, the lyrics broke her heart, but she held tight, held close.

“Caught in the headlights…loose this fight…lost in your arms,” the singer sang plaintively.”

And there it was. She stood and let the notes fly out of her instrument, the solo connecting her to the singer, the song and the moment.

She sat down, took a quick breath, the time signature counting silently in the back of her mind. Then immediately back to the music, the backing part printed on the page. Quick staccato slips of the bow on the strings. Closing her eyes. Waiting for the right moment. And then.

“Lost in your arms, baby lost in your arms…”

Once again she stood, lost in the music.

Damn it.

She had made a mess of everything. But what was she going to do to fix it?

Second Period

Max

He watched the game from the bench during that second period. Semenov stood tight, didn’t let anything in. That was what saved them. They were missing something, and it was his fault. He needed to change that.

First was his mental state when he was watching the game. What was he focusing on? Right away, he noticed that the center of his attention wasn’t the puck and forward momentum. It was defense. And so he forced himself to think about the offensive lines and how they played, what he’d do to retain puck possession, and forward motion if he was on the ice.

Coach was double shifting Sandberg to fill the place on Emerson’s line. Which wasn’t fair to his teammate. Sandberg was good, but he was used to skating with Jahr and Karpov. Emerson was good in his own way, and he had good chemistry with Smythe, but neither Emerson nor Smythe were Jahr and Karpov and everybody knew it.

Which is part of the reason he liked playing with Emerson. He was a good hockey player, but he wasn’t the kind of player who demanded the spotlight unless he wanted it. And that was just fine for Max, because he liked to stay in the shadows.

“Good, Lucky Seven,” the assistant coach assigned for offense said. “You’re doing the right thing. Visualize yourself on that pond, and you’ll be back out there in no time.”

Then the older man moved down the bench to the guys who were playing, leaving Max to wonder how the man had figured out what he’d been doing.

Kayleigh

Kayleigh’s heart was in her throat as she watched the second period. She was supposed to be preparing for the second intermission and the piece they’d play. Instead, she was watching the game, watching for something that wasn’t there. Or, rather, someone who wasn’t there.

“St. Laurent isn’t playing,” she said.

“They have Sandberg playing with your brother and Smythe,” Jonathan said as he came over to join her. “It’s problematic because he’s being double shifted, being used on both of the top lines. And that can’t be good for him.”

“Why is the coach doing that?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Because your
Max
hasn’t been playing since that incident in the first when, well.”

Kayleigh nodded. “Yes. I know. When he forgot he wasn’t playing defense. Common rookie mistake…”

Jonathan shrugged. “And your Max isn’t a common rookie; he’s a rare player who’s both a winger and a defenseman. He can’t afford to make that kind of screw up. Though, to be fair, he had been playing defense on that side before…”

Before. Before he was injured. Before she’d heard his truth and told him she couldn’t deal with it, or him.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, though,” Jonathan continued, oblivious to the turmoil in her head. “I mean he’s there, on the bench. If there was a problem, Max would be back in that locker room or on his way to Stratford, no question. But he’s in plain view of the public, freezing that tight butt off. And that tells me that he’ll be on the ice during the third. Mark my words.”

And as Kayleigh followed Jonathan’s fingers, she saw a small, solitary figure sitting on the end of the Empires’ bench. The figure was focused on the ice, not bothered by the cold, heated bench or no.

And then, she had an idea.

“Aruuuun!” she shouted. “I need something!”