Rule #1

by T. A Richards Neville

  A girl with shoulder-length brown hair hops up onto the back of the couch Roman’s sitting on, her back to the rest of the room as she looks down at him over her shoulder. She brushes her side bangs from her moss green eyes, laying a hand on Roman’s shoulder to get his attention.

  He casts a long glance behind him.

  “Can you just call him, please?” Her tone’s an unhappy one, underlined in exasperation.

  With a small, blown-out sigh, Roman takes his phone back out of his pocket, swipes the screen a couple times with his thumb, then hands it to the girl behind him, who’s watching everything he does.

  She smiles as she takes the phone, much happier now. She faces the wall and puts the phone to her ear, ignoring everyone else.

  “You just gonna stand there?” Roman asks me.

  “I’m looking for Maddie. I should probably keep doing that.”

  “I mentioned her to O’Shae.” Roman pulls a face I’m not sure what to make of. Doesn’t look like anything good, though.

  I walk further into the room and sit on the couch beside him. There’s only enough space for two people, so it’s a snug fit. Not that Roman seems to mind. “What did you say?” I ask. “What did he say?”

  This time, his feeble grimace is unmistakable.

  “You ready for this, B?”

  “Tell me everything.” Madison perches on the edge of the couch, in Brooke’s place, her knees and her hands clasped together.

  I feel like I’m under intense investigation. Poor fucking Colin. Girl’s hot as hell, but I definitely see a boiling bunny in her future.

  “I, ah, asked if he was seeing someone. He was pretty vague about it, so it sounded casual. I didn’t tell him your name, so you’re still in the clear.”

  “How come I waste ten minutes looking for you, and all he does is mention Colin’s name?” Brooke asks. “Is that the trigger word for your instant manifestation?”

  Madison turns her head and sneers at Brooke. “You know it is.”

  They both smile and then laugh.

  “What was he wearing?” Madison turns back to me and asks.

  I lift my eyebrow, sliding a questioning look to Brooke. She lifts her eyebrows right back, smiling as she glances down at her fingernails.

  “What was he wearing?” I fire the question back, with the intention if Madison hears it from someone else, she’ll realize how ridiculous it is.

  “Yeah.” She nods, her smile dripping in excitement.

  Brooke’s laughter draws my gaze to where she’s sitting on the cushioned rest of the armchair. Right winger, Quinn Fox, is sitting on the chair, and he glances up at her, lifting a bottle of water to his mouth. He looks just as disturbed as anyone.

  “A tight tank top and cycling shorts,” I say to Madison.

  Brook scoffs so loud, everyone in the room’s eyes shift to her. “He was not, you liar.”

  “You weren’t there,” I defend.

  “I didn’t have to be. Colin doesn’t wear tank tops. And you wouldn’t notice even if he did.”

  “Did you know he’s got your name tattooed on his biceps?” I ask Madison.

  Her blue eyes bulge. But then she cottons on to the joke.

  “Cut it out,” Brooke says for her. “Maddie, don’t ask him anything else. We can’t trust him. He’s obviously the enemy.”

  Maddie rushes straight over that, doesn’t even look at Brooke. “There really is a girl, though? Like, he’s got something going on there for real?”

  “For real,” I say. “I don’t know who, before you ask.” I sorta do. It’s the same girl from the Drunken Barrel all those nights ago.

  Madison huffs, scrunching her mouth on one side. “’Kay. It’s gotta be that girl we saw him with.”

  I feel kinda bad for her now. Relieved for O’Shae, though. A lucky but narrow escape.

  “Do you know what?” Rachel lurches off the back of the couch. I forgot she was even there, and I grab my phone outta her hands before she does a runner. “Fuck this. I’m just going to look for him. Asshole.”

  “Trouble in paradise?” Brooke asks.

  “If you can call Bowers paradise,” Quinny answers with a lopsided frown.

  Some guy with Shawn Mendes hair strolls up to the archway. Leans a forearm against it like he’s in a photoshoot.

  “Maddie,” he says, tipping his chin up. I match Quinny’s snide laughter, Brooke glancing between us to see what we find so funny. “Let me get at you for a minute.”

  Quinny smothers his choked grunts of laughter with a fake cough. Even Brooke’s latched on to what honestly just came out of this douche’s mouth, where people can seriously fucking hear him.

  Maddie seems to be giving it some thought. Then she pulls off a look of inevitable acceptance and stands up. “You know what?” She’s looking at Brooke, and I get the impression more’s being conveyed here, but those are lines I’m not interested in getting stuck between. “Why the hell not?”

  Brooke watches her leave, a flicker of confliction across her face.

  “Hey, B,” I say, and when she looks at me, “let me get at you for a minute.”

  Quinny hoots, pulling the brim of his hat all the way over his eyes. “Shit,” he mumbles. “That was insane. Now I know what to say next time I want in some girl’s pants.”

  “Seriously, B. Let me get at you.” Somehow, I hold a straight face through that.

  Brooke stands up and walks across the room to sit next to me. “He isn’t getting in her pants,” she says to Quinny.” She’s not smiling now. She’s brimming with too much concern over her friend and Shawn Mendes.

  “She didn’t go with him because of what I said, did she?” I ask Brooke. After what I’ve just seen, the thought doesn’t seem so dumb, even though any other time I’d think that was exactly what it was.

  Nipping at her thumbnail with her teeth, Brook shrugs, staring at nothing ahead of her. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “I was just kidding around.”

  That gets her to look at me. Her thumb lowers from her mouth. “You made it up?”

  “No, he really is into someone. I was just playing around after that, though. I wasn’t trying to upset her.”

  Brooke considers me, her eyes searching mine in a slow examination. “You didn’t do anything. She just really really likes him.”

  Yeah, I’m getting that. I’d suggest Brooke get hold of a stronger adverb, though. ‘Really’ doesn’t cut it.

  My attention floats up to the archway when Jen strolls in from the living room. I didn’t hang around for the catch up, but I know she was at the game tonight. Everyone else knows it, too. The alternate Warriors jersey she’s wearing, white on black, instead of black on white, is tied in a knot at her waist. Black socks hit her upper thighs, and she’s wearing high-cut black shorts. Her blond hair’s parted in low pigtails, two black strips sprinkled in silver glitter under each eye.

  It’s overkill, but if having everyone look at her was her goal, then Jen’s overachieving.

  I pick up on Brooke’s discomfort the second she starts emitting the vibes.

  Booker Jones, wide receiver for the college football team, barrels in after Jen. Abruptly, he catches himself before he smacks into Jen and knocks her through the opposite wall. His eyes drop to her ass, and he raises his fist, biting on it. “Damn,” he says over a harsh frown. “Bend over just a little more.”

  And then everyone’s here. Rachel Piper charging in, dragging Bowers behind her with her hand in his like she’s taking the family dog for a walk.

  Jen sits on the carpet, by the side of my legs, and rests an arm across my knee. “Hey, Mr. King.” She hasn’t acknowledged a single other person, and that goddamn name. “You must have got here fast.”

  I feel like asking who invited her, but Jen’s acquainted with most of the hockey roster, so I don’t bother. I’m trying to be less of a dick tonight.

  “Pretty fancy goal in the first,” Jen says. “UMass couldn’t stop that one. You were o
n fire tonight.”

  From under the brim of his hat, Quinny says, “Good thing he was playing on ice then, or that could’ve turned messy.” He’s slouched all the way over the chair, legs hanging over the armrest, arms folded over his chest.

  Jen flips him off. “Go back to sleep, Quinny. Your brain needs the rest.”

  Brooke laughs. Jen’s eyes shoot to her, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “Torre, I’ma bone out,” Booker says. “You need a lift anywhere, or are you good?”

  Brooke thinks it over, subconsciously shuffling forward as though she’s about to dash any minute. “Ah, I’ll need to ask Maddie. Have you seen her?”

  “Nope.” Booker slams a hand against the inside of the archway, then gives Brooke a departing, two-finger salute. “And I ain’t got time for that shit.”

  Brooke relaxes against the cushions, rolling her eyes. “Idiot.”

  Murmuring voices wake me up. My neck’s stiff as I lift my head off the back of the couch, and I rub a hand across it, stretch it from side to side.

  I glance down, at Brooke narrowly hanging on to consciousness. Jen’s still draped over my thigh, a drink in her hand while she laughs at the cartoon on the TV screen, half engaged in conversation with Rachel and Bowers.

  Because I don’t really give a fuck, and my body feels like it’s been run over by a dump truck, I put my arm around Brooke and shift her forward. She swings her eyes to me in stark alarm, and I pull her across my body, getting rid of Jen’s arm in the process.

  I stretch out on the couch, tucking Brooke in beside me. Her head’s under my chin, and there’s barely enough room for both of us. But as long as she doesn’t move, I can make it work.

  “These are nice,” I say, my fingers getting caught in the holes of her black fishnet tights. I laugh when Brooke slaps my hand away.

  I close my eyes. Then I peel my left eye open and peer down at Brooke. She’s looking up at me, and I give her a slow smile. She smiles back, and I bring my hand higher over her spine, threading my fingers through the ends of her long, thick hair. I don’t look to see, or care, what anyone else is doing.

  I’ve got no idea what time it is. Late as fuck.

  Brooke rests the side of her face on my chest, her hand on my stomach. “Do you think Maddie’s okay?” she asks, staring at the couch cushion.

  “Nothing wrong with a hookup, B. Maddie’s old enough. What’re you worrying about?”

  She blinks. Erases the frown as quickly as it touches her eyes. “I’m not worrying. I don’t want her to do anything stupid over another guy. She’ll regret it. I know she will.”

  “Is she saving herself for O’Shae, or what?” I meant that to lighten the mood, but Brook’s lack of a smile makes me think I might have hit the mark a little too close.

  “Have you always played hockey?” Brooke asks five minutes later, out of the blue.

  I glance down at her. “Since I was four. Although, not very good. I was still hammering out the skating part at the same time.”

  “I don’t think I could skate till I was ten or eleven, and not very good either. I had all the basics down, standing upright, putting one foot in front of the other.”

  Laughter eradicates the line cutting between my brows. “I was three when I got my first pair of skates, but I wasn’t learning anything useful, any skill that would actually help me to play hockey.”

  Brooke tilts her head back and lifts her eyes to my face. “How old are you now?”

  “Twenty.”

  She ponders that for a minute. “Seventeen years playing the same sport. I bounced around every type of dance class in Vermont before it became obvious all my body was good for was holding a pen or pencil.” Brooke blinks, and it’s at that point I realize I haven’t taken my eyes off her, that restlessness humming under my skin mellowing into calmness once she got here. The rest of the room’s faded out, their voices shrinking to a distant hum.

  “Well, your artwork’s phenomenal, don’t play it down. Fuck the dance classes.” I cross my ankles and adjust my gaze to the ceiling. I’m giving myself too much to think about. “Did you watch the game?” I ask her. She’s never talked hockey before, not to me. She didn’t even know who I was. A swift dent in my ego that doesn’t happen often. Of course there are people who don’t know who I am, I’m not Mario Lemieux, but I usually can’t walk more than two feet on campus without someone wanting my attention.

  “Tonight’s game?”

  “Yeah, or Friday’s.”

  “I was working, but I caught bits and pieces. I missed all the goals,” Brooke says, flicking her gaze up to my face for my reaction. “I did try and listen to as much as I could any time I heard the King line mentioned, but you know how customers are. Always wanting something.”

  I tip my gaze down. “You wanna come to a game sometime? I can score you a ticket.”

  Doing that thing where her hand, backed up by her upper-body weight, where she almost sinks through my ribcage, Brooke rises off me, her brows pinched. “You want me to come to one of your games?”

  While she’s looking at me like that? I think I might have changed my mind. “Only if you wanted to. Forget I asked,” I quickly say, making the decision on her behalf. “It was a stupid idea.”

  Brooke’s eyebrows straighten out, and the pressure on my chest eases up. “Oh. Okay.” Her smile’s as weak as my damage control. “I don’t watch a lot of hockey, so…”

  “Right,” I say, trying not to read that strange look in her eyes.

  She lies down on me, but it feels different now. Like I just shifted the dynamics in a way I’m not sure I understand or know how to reverse.

  “This guy right here. I’m sure he needs no introduction to most of you.” Coach taps the capped end of his marker pen against the whiteboard, the projection of a Boston game paused before that crucial moment we can all sense is coming. “Travis Leonard. He was a problem for us last season, and the way he’s playing, he could be an even bigger problem for us this season.”

  From two-man tables placed around the darkened hotel’s conference room, the whole team’s watching and listening. Boston’s a big game for us, and we faceoff in under three hours, in a seven-thousand-seat arena with wild, dedicated fans and a DI team with talent and depth up and down the lineup, NHL draft picks throughout past and present rosters.

  Travis Leonard’s a prospect for the Carolina Hurricanes. A top-line center who I played against back in bantam AAA and peewee, and every season since I’ve been at NU. He’s only getting stronger, more confident, on the puck as he gets older, and Coach isn’t dulling down the buzz surrounding him. Leonard won’t make it easy for us. He’s misery for any defense. A pain in the ass. Doesn’t matter how good you are in net, or in front of it, he’ll find a way around you. That’s what he’s been trained and conditioned to do, and he’s only getting better at it.

  Coach hits a key on the laptop setup on the table in front of him, and the isolated segment of the game against Northeastern jumps into play. “Keep your eyes on him,” Coach says, targeting Leonard with his pen as he strides up ice with the puck. He gives the puck to one of his wingers, a crisp pass that connects on the tape, then Leonard whips around Northeastern’s six-six D. The defense corners him, though, no clear lanes to the net, and Leonard skates behind it, eyes constantly on the play. I can read his next move as we well as he reads the ice, but it’s no less impressive to watch when he opens himself up for a pass along the boards and sets off a quick one-two-three cycle, sprinting across the ice, pulling the defense every fucking which way, constantly moving. He snaps the puck from the bottom of the circle, between the skates of number 12, and under the goalie’s blocker. It takes me a second to realize it actually went in. Nearly every player’s around the crease, flapping around like headless chickens, and Leonard still finds the space to create impossible goals. He makes that shit look easy.

  “See that?” Coach drags the cursor back, forcing us to sit through it again. “Quick, smart thinki
ng. There was no space there, no lanes. Travis forces it and opens it up. Northeastern’s defense are still scratching their heads over Boston’s puck possession. Kid’s so fast they couldn’t establish the backcheck. He’s pulled nearly every one of those guys out of position and created an opportunity that could have been prevented if any one of these players could keep with him. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t give the D enough time to set up an attack. They can’t get any coverage on him. We need to be on the lookout for that whenever his line’s on the ice and shut down that skill. Don’t let me catch any of you boys sleeping out there.”

  Someone lets out Zs from the back of the room, triggering a few snickers. Coach shakes his head but gets right back to business. “And we need to win faceoffs. As a team.” He glances at the usual, encroaching suspects. “We win more faceoffs, win more possession, we get more goals, more points. It’s that straightforward. You can’t score if you don’t make the shot.”

  “Who’re the killing unit, then?” I ask. We’ve been trying out three to one. Three forwards, one D. But didn’t sound like that would be going ahead tonight. Not with so much focus on protecting the net.

  “We’ll go back to the old way for now.” Coach nods to two of our defensemen, Kris Wolf and Tye Lahaye. “No blocking big, unnecessary shots on this one, King. I’m rethinking the new system, anyway. But we’ll discuss that on Monday.”

  Rethinking it? Scrapping it, more like.

  I meet Coach’s hard-edged stare. “Right.” I don’t agree, and he knows that, but I get where he’s coming from. It’s still frustrating. Captaincy only takes me so far, though, and that’s not into an argument with the man who runs the team and makes the decisions.

  We spend most of pre-game video analysis covering the bases for keeping Leonard out of our zone, or at worst, out of our net. This isn’t a game for matching lines, and Coach makes it clear tonight won’t be about strength but playing defense against offense where possible, and I’m no use to anyone if I’ve worn myself out in the defensive zone. We need to keep Leonard out, and the rest will take care of itself. As long as we can hold him off during his shifts, and keep him off the scoreboard, we’re golden.