Rachel Gibson: True Love and Other Disasters

Number Eleven, Daniel Holstrom, skated toward the Canucks’ goal and shot the puck across ice to forward Logan Dumont, who passed off to Ty. With the puck in the middle of the blade, Ty skated behind the goal, came around the other side, and shot. The puck bounced off the goaltender’s knee pad and a battle broke out. Faith lost track of the puck in the collision of sticks and bodies. From her position, all she saw was pushing, shoving, and flying elbows.

A ref blew a whistle and the play stopped…except for Ty, who shoved a Vancouver player, hard, and nearly knocked him on his butt. The player caught his balance just before he toppled backward. They exchanged words and Ty threw his gloves to the ice. A referee skated between the two and grabbed the front of Ty’s jersey. Over the top of the ref’s head, Ty pointed to his face and then at the other player. The ref asked him something, and as soon as he nodded, the smaller man let go of his jersey. Ty picked up his gloves and while he skated to the bench, an instant replay flashed on the sports screen. “Welcome to the Jungle” blasted from the arena speakers, and on the big sports screen suspended above the ice, Faith watched Ty raise a hand before his face and point to his intense blue eyes. Over the ref’s head, he stared out from beneath black brows and white helmet. Then he turned his hand and pointed at Number Thirty-three on the opposing team. A menacing smile curved his lips. A shiver ran up Faith’s spine and raised goose bumps on her arms. If she were Number Thirty-three, she’d be afraid. Very afraid.

Just in case anyone missed it, it was replayed one more time in slow motion. The crowd below went wild, cheering and stomping their feet, as once more Ty’s intense blue eyes locked on his opponent, the scar on his chin slicing through the dark stubble.

“Lord have mercy.” Valerie took a step back and sank into her seat. “And you own him.” She set Pebbles down and the little dog waddled over to Faith and smelled her shoe. “You own them all,” she added through a sigh.

“You make it sound like they’re slaves.” Pebbles raised her beady black eyes to Faith and yipped. Stupid dog. “I employ them.” But how many women in the world could say they employed twenty or so good-looking, buff men who swung at pucks and pounded on other players?

She was probably the only one, and the thought was both exciting and terrifying. She looked down at the row of men sitting on the Chinooks bench, spitting on the ground between their feet, wiping sweat from their faces, and chewing on their mouth guards. The sight of all that spitting and sweating should have made her feel a little nauseous, but for some reason didn’t.

“After the games, Virgil always went to the locker room and talked to the team,” Jules told her.

Yeah, she knew that, but she’d never gone. “I’m sure they won’t expect me to make an appearance in the locker room.” It had been a long time since Faith had been around so many men in a confined space. Not since they’d stuffed money in her G-string. A lot of them had been jocks. As a rule, she generally didn’t like jocks. Jocks and rock stars didn’t think they had to abide by the rules.

“You have to, Faith,” her mother said, pulling her attention from the ice below. “Do it for Virgil.”

Do it for Virgil? Was her mother smoking weed again?

“Reporters will be there,” Jules continued. “So it’s important. I’m sure they’ll want you to make some sort of statement.”

On the ice below, a whistle blew and the action resumed. “What kind of statement?” Faith asked as she studied the players, who looked like a swarm of organized blue and white jerseys.

“Something easy. Talk about why you decided not to sell the team.”

She glanced at him then returned her attention to the game. “I decided not to sell the team because I hate Landon Duffy.”

“Oh.” Jules chuckled. “When you’re asked, you should probably say you love hockey and Virgil would have wanted you to keep his team. Then mention that people should come out and watch Game Four next Wednesday night.”

She could do that. “What if they ask me something about the game?”

“Like what?”

She thought a moment. “Like icing. What’s an icing call? I read the rules last night and didn’t understand it.”

“Don’t worry about it. Not many people understand icing.” Jules shook his head. “We’ll go over a few basic answers before you talk to reporters. But if there is a question you don’t understand, just say, ‘I can’t comment at this time.’ It’s the standard non-answer.”

She could do that. Maybe. She sat next to her mother and watched the rest of the game. In the last three minutes, Ty knocked an opponent off the puck and raced to the opposite end of the ice. The crowd inside the Key cheered, and just inside the blue line, he pulled back his stick and fired. The puck shot across the ice so fast that Faith didn’t know it scored until a horn blasted and the light above the net flashed. The fans jumped to their feet screaming, “Rock and Roll Part 2” thumping the concrete beneath Faith’s pumps, and the Chinooks skated around Ty, slapping him on the back with their big gloves as he skated with his hands in the air as if he was the champion of the world. All except Sam, who punched some player in the head, then threw off his gloves-and the fight was on.

Jules lifted one hand and gave both Faith and Valerie high fives. “That hat trick is why you pay the Saint thirty million.”

Faith didn’t know what a hat trick was and made a mental note to look it up in her Idiot’s Guide .

He grinned. “Damn, Virgil put together one hell of a team this season. I’m going to love watching them play.”

“Does that mean you’re my assistant?”

Jules nodded. “Oh yeah.”

In the aftermath of Seattle’s 3-2 victory over Vancouver, the post-game media scrum inside the Chinooks locker room was more jovial than the last time they’d played in the Key Arena. The coaches allowed the reporters in after a few minutes, and the players laughed and joked as they toweled off after their showers.

“You’re tied in the playoffs. What are you going to do to advance to the next level?” Jim Davidson, the reporter from the Seattle Times asked Ty.

“We’re going to keep doing what we just did tonight,” he answered as he zipped up his dress pants. “After our last loss to the Canucks, we couldn’t afford to lose points in our building.”

“Having been the captain of both the Canucks and the Seattle teams, what would you say is the biggest difference?”

“The coaching philosophy in each club is different. The Chinooks give me more freedom to play the kind of hockey I like to play,” he answered, and wondered when they were going to get around to asking about his hat trick.

“Which is?”

He glanced over the reporter’s head to Sam, who was being grilled by someone from a Canadian news organization. Ty smiled. “Coach Nystrom thinks outside the box.”

“The team already has twenty combined penalty minutes. Just last week, Nystrom expressed his desire to keep penalty minutes per game at a minimum. Don’t you consider twenty excessive?”

Ty shoved his arms in his shirt and buttoned it. “Not at all, Jim. We kept Vancouver from taking advantage of the power plays. So, I’d say we did our jobs tonight.”

“You scored your first hat trick of the season on your home ice. How does that feel?”

Finally. “Real good. The whole team deserves a lot of credit for tonight’s win. I just happened to be in the right place when Daniel passed me the puck. Monty’s first assist since being called up from-”

“Mrs. Duffy’s in the lounge,” someone from the Post Intelligencer called out, and Jim turned toward the commotion in the doorway. “Thanks, Savage,” the reporter said and followed the stampede out of the locker room.