Point Shot 01 - Two Man Advantage by V.L. Locey Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed to be the joker of the team. Not wishing to hear Dan and his primate posse yukking it up in the rear, I pulled out my MP3 player, shoved the earbuds in and cranked up Bullet For My Valentine’s “Waking the Demon”.
    * * * * *
    My chest hit the boards soundly. My forehead impacted the glass with such force it jarred me into a full moment of dizziness. I slid to the ice, my stick dropping from my hand, and tried to locate who had just cross-checked me from behind so violently. The puck I had been after skittered away, kicked aside by my skate as I crumpled to the ice. Coach was shouting. A whistle blew. I lay on my back trying to figure out how a simple gold versus blue scrimmage game had become so dangerous. Someone started asking me who I was. Dan Arou stood over me, his eyes unreadable. I tried to concentrate on what the trainer with the rotten breath was saying, but I couldn’t quite grasp what had just happened.
    “Did you fucking hit me from behind?” I asked. Dan skated off. I shoved away the stocky dude trying to look into my eyes.
    “Okay, now that is not what I want to see on the ice tonight!” Lambert was bellowing from somewhere to the right. My sight was stuck on number twenty-eight. “Arou, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
    “Sorry, Coach, just got caught up in the game is all,” Dan replied.
    I took the hand offered. My skates were a little wobbly at first. My eyes kept showing me two of everything, but after a few seconds things were back to normal.
    Lambert appeared in front of me, briskly rubbing his left eyebrow. “You okay, Kalinski?” he asked.
    I nodded gingerly, hoping the jar to my head didn’t put me out with a concussion. The C-word is a dreaded one for any athlete. A concussed player can be out for a season, or be forced into retirement at a young age if they can’t shake the brain injury as they should. And to be back-ended, and not in a good way, by a dude I had slept with the night before? Seriously, what the fuck, you know?
    Coach didn’t look totally convinced, but after a rather vocal discussion in which I demonstrated my mastery of language and expletives aimed at Lambert’s mother as well as his fat wife, he skated off muttering about how if my brain were glop at least my mouth would be shut. Yeah, as if a bruised brain would shut my mouth. Get real.
    The scrimmage went on after that without any major hits. I met Arou coming off the ice. The rest of the guys stalled when I grabbed him by his arm.
    “I need to talk to you.” That was all I said as I held on tightly to his gold jersey. He motioned the rest of the team on with a jerk of his head. We skated over to the Zamboni gate, helmets and mouth protectors in hand. When the last player and member of staff had left the home ice of the Waconia Wasps, I rounded on Dan like a rabid badger. “You care to tell me exactly what the fuck your problem with me is?”
    His handsome face screwed up in rage. “Man, I can’t believe you!” he hissed, his gloved hands flying around wildly. “You and me spend all night in bed, then when I touch you the following morning you act like I’m some sort of walking syphilis sore!”
    I threw a fast look around the stadium. No one could be seen.
    “Okay, for starters, you need to calm the fuck down,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “I don’t think either of us is ready to pull a Cliff Dwayne.”
    Cliff Dwayne was the premier goalie in the minors who had come out in a big way after winning the championship with the Mount Royal Mounties the year before. As one of the B people in LGBT, I’d been thrilled to see Dwayne and his partner step out of the closet. What that move would mean for him, though, remained to be seen. He was still in the minors. Why and how I did not know, but I wasn’t taking the chance of having my career ruined by the wrong person overhearing this fucking Degrassi-style spat. When I came out, it was going to be on my own terms. That was how Vic Kalinski