“ANY OF YOU boys hear anything new about Lennon?” Tony Bridger asked, setting down one of the cards from his hand and replacing it with another card from the draw pile.

Bridge was one of the new guys on the team this season, a fourth-line center who’d been spending a decent amount of time with me and Hammer on the penalty kill. The guy was something of a face-off specialist. He would’ve been an asset in helping Luke learn to take draws before preseason started, but Bridge hadn’t been in town yet.

Then again, that ship had already sailed. Luke had a new focus now.

I stole a glance at the back of the plane, where Luke was in deep discussion with Anne and the rest of her crew, taking notes and occasionally piping up with a thought of his own. He would be working a camera at the game tonight—the first time she was trusting him with that sort of responsibility.

I couldn’t help the warm rush of pride that flooded me every time I thought about how Luke was settling in at his new job. I’d played a small part in getting it for him, but that wasn’t what made me proud—he was embracing this change of focus and seemed to be enjoying his new career. But I only allowed myself a moment before turning back to the card game.

The Lennon that Bridge was referring to would be Hayes Lennon, a top-line forward for the Thunderbirds, who’d been suspended due to allegedly beating up his girlfriend or something.

I supposed this was news we should all be aware of, though, since we’d be playing Tulsa in a couple of days. If Lennon wouldn’t be on the ice, we should have a much easier time of beating the T-Birds—especially at home. With or without him, they were becoming a bigger threat than they had been even as little as a year ago, but it was never a bad thing to play a team without one of their best players.

I shook my head. “Haven’t seen anything. What’s new?”

Actually, I hadn’t focused much on any of the news lately, whether about things going on in the hockey world or otherwise. I’d been too caught up in getting to know Luke Weber on a more intimate level to worry about some asshole who liked to hit women or the most recent debates politicians were raging over.

“Officially suspended pending results of the league’s investigation,” Hammer said. “And none too soon if you ask me.” He drew a card, studied his hand, and discarded a different one with a scowl.

“Sounds like there’s not much evidence against him,” Soupy said. “That’s probably why the league dragged their feet.”

“The team decided to suspend him before the league did,” Bridge put in. He reached for a card and quirked up an eyebrow when he saw what it was.

“Because the Jernigans are terrified of scandal surrounding their church,” Preston Hutchinson said, studying his hand and changing the order of a few of his cards. Hutch was relatively new to our team, too, having played in Tulsa during their first few seasons in the league. “Nothing more to it than that. Mrs. J probably shit a brick when she heard what he’d been accused of.”

“You make it sound like you think he’s innocent,” I observed.

Hutch raised a brow and shook his head. “Lennon? The guy’s a slimeball. Never liked him. I don’t know if he did it or not. But my point is that Mrs. J just can’t deal with anything like that. Whether he’s guilty or not, she won’t want him to be associated with the team—and with her church by association—for any longer than necessary. She’s all about appearances. She cares more about what her congregation will think than she does about anything else.”

“Sounds like a treat,” I said. And I couldn’t help but wonder how she would have reacted if I’d been playing for her team when I’d come out of the closet. Did she welcome homosexuals into her church family with open arms?

Something told me it wouldn’t have gone well.

“At least there’s one good thing about that,” Hutch said.

“Yeah?” Soupy gave him a disbelieving look.

“It means we don’t have to worry about Lennon being on the ice. They’re a lot less dangerous without him up front.”

True enough. And even though they weren’t one of the better teams in the league, we’d all learned a long time ago that we should never count any team out. They could have a good night coinciding with us having a bad night, and the next thing we knew, they’d be beating us by a score of six to one or something. The Thunderbirds’ top goaltender, Hunter Fielding, had been known to steal more than a few games.

I took another card from the draw pile. Still didn’t have shit to work with in my hand. Picked a random card to discard because none of them were helping me anyway.

Before long, we were on the ground in Minnesota.

A brief stop at the hotel included a catered team meal. Anne and her crew were all with us for that, as well, but Luke stuck with them instead of joining me and the guys. Too bad. I doubted we would have done any flirtatious talking in front of the rest of the boys, but just having him near me would’ve been nice.

I was getting to be a little too attached to his presence. I liked having him around me so much that I physically missed him when he wasn’t there. That was the only good explanation for the gnawing ache that filled my stomach.

But they were probably having a meeting over their meal, anyway. Anne worked crazy hours, and Luke was starting to follow in her footsteps where that was concerned.

After we ate, I looked over to where they’d been sitting, but he was already gone. It was just as well, since I needed to head up to my room for a nap before the game. We hadn’t had a morning skate today, due to travel, so I at least needed to be well rested before puck drop tonight.

HAMMER SAUCER-PASSED THE puck over to me just before one of the Minny forwards slammed into him in an effort to knock the puck free. He grinned and shouted a few choice words at the guy, but I’d already skated the puck out of danger and was making my way up the ice with it. There were only two minutes left in the game, and we were tied. The boys and I all wanted to end it now. We needed two points in the standings, and more than that, we needed to keep the Wild from walking away with any.

Soupy was open, so I passed the puck to him. He could get it to his linemates. The guy wasn’t as mobile as he used to be, but he could still pass as crisply and cleanly as anyone in the league. Probably because he’d spent hours a day for years passing the puck back and forth with his best friend, Eric Zellinger—our former captain, who was now playing in Tulsa.

Austin Cooper, one of our young forwards, had turned on his jets and was streaking in toward the Minnesota goal. Soupy managed to thread the needle, getting the puck between the two Minnesota defenders and right onto Coop’s tape. But the Wild D were converging on him. He didn’t have time to get a shot off.

They tied up his stick, and then it was a two-on-one fight to get the puck free. Somehow, he got his skate blade on it and kicked it back out to me.

I didn’t stop to think. Didn’t want to let my head get in the way.

I pulled back my stick for a slap shot and slammed it home.

The Wild’s goalie just got his glove on it, but he couldn’t control the puck. It bounced away from him and headed straight for Hammer, of all people, who didn’t waste any time. He just slapped the hell out of the puck, sending it back toward the Minnesota goal, since their goalie was still flailing to get back into position.

All three of our forwards converged on the goal.

The clock kept ticking down, with a mad crush of bodies all struggling for the puck just outside the blue paint of the goaltender’s crease. I skated in and joined the melee in front of the net. Somehow, I got the toe of my skate on the puck.

It squirted free and headed straight for Coop’s stick. He just got the blade of his stick on the puck in time to angle it into the net, right as the buzzer sounded.

The refs blew the whistle and convened at center ice to discuss what had happened.

“It went in,” Coop shouted, skating after the zebras. “It fucking went in.”

“You kicked it in,” one of the Wild forwards countered. “Won’t count.”

“You fucking wish,” he shot back.

But instead of waiting around to find out, Hammer casually skated over to the group of officials and listened in. Soupy followed him, keeping a bit of distance but still getting close enough to speak up if need be. Hammer said something to the refs, not that I could hear him, and then the two of them skated back to me.

“Going to have Toronto review it,” Hammer said. “But they’re calling it a goal on the ice, so even if they can’t determine it from video...”

It’d be a goal. That was the rule—the call on the ice stands if the video doesn’t produce enough evidence to overturn it.

I nodded, skating back over to the bench to fill in the coaching staff and the rest of my teammates.

A minute later, one of the referees put on the mic for the arena’s loudspeaker system and announced that the play was under review. His mic cut out halfway through his pronouncement, but everyone caught the drift.

The crowd was restless. You could almost hear a fucking pin drop in the place. For an arena that could be unbelievably loud at times, the silence was disconcerting.

Usually, the in-arena entertainment team would start playing music during a video review, but it appeared they were having difficulties. Even the Jumbotron over the center of the ice was malfunctioning. It was just showing black-and-white static. The silence only made the crowd more restless.

And then it happened. Someone high up in the stands shouted, “Fucking faggot!” It echoed through the arena, the one thing that could be made out among the general crowd noise.

I couldn’t tell where, exactly, it’d come from. Didn’t care. All I knew was I wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out again for a very long time.

Then it wasn’t quiet in the arena any longer. More people started shouting, even louder than the first guy.

“Queer!”

“Fucking homo!”

“We don’t want you here.”

But there were other shouts, too. “Get out of here. Take your hate and go home.”

“Mind your own damned business!”

“He’s not hurting anyone.”

Then there were so many people shouting, nothing anyone said could be made out. It was just a big mess of anger and hatred.

A shouting match that no one could win.

I didn’t even think anyone was trying to win. They just wanted to shout for the sake of shouting, not to be heard.

The tension was so thick it felt as if the whole arena was about to explode.

This was exactly why I’d wanted to keep my secret until I wasn’t playing any longer.

“Ignore it,” Hammer said in my ear.

I nodded, but I couldn’t ignore it. My head was swimming. I felt nauseated.

And Luke was here somewhere, too. Filming it? Probably. I had to wonder if Anne or any of the other guys on her team were with him… If he was alone in the midst of this somewhere…

If he was okay.

I scanned the crowd, but I’d never be able to find him out there. Trying was futile.

Our head coach, Mattias Bergstrom, caught my eye, and he waved me over to the end of the bench. “You want to come off?” he asked.

I glared at him in return. “I’m not running and hiding from this.”

He nodded. “Didn’t think you would. But I thought I’d offer.”

“I’m good,” I bit off. Swallowing hard, I nodded my thanks and skated back over to the rest of my teammates on the ice. I caught Webs’s eye as I went. He looked as pissed as I felt.

And scared, just like me.

Probably thinking about Luke, too. Probably worried about his kid.

I wished there were something I could say, something that would make it easier for him, but there wasn’t anything. What could anyone say to ease the sting of ignorant hatred?

Finally, the ref who’d been on the phone in the scorekeeper’s box skated back over to join the others. He spoke to them for a minute, then to each of the coaches. When he tried to turn on his mic, the sound system still refused to work.

But the crowd could easily make out that he was signaling a goal. We’d won the game, and the crowd erupted into an even bigger fit than before. Some of the fans tossed things onto the ice—beers, hats, popcorn containers, and all sorts of other game-going paraphernalia—and the coaching staffs and building security hustled both teams down the tunnel toward the dressing rooms.

We’d won the game, but it felt like shit.

And I still didn’t know if Luke was somewhere safe.

Nausea threatened to overwhelm me, and I had to take a moment in the concourse to gather myself together. I pressed my forehead against the cool wall, struggling to breathe.

Koz, of all people, stopped and waited for me. He passed a bottle of water into my hands.

I dumped the whole thing over my head. I desperately needed to cool off, much more than I needed to drink it. And besides, if I’d tried to swallow it right now, I might have upchucked everything inside me.

He slapped me on the back a couple of times. “Come on. He’ll be okay. Same as you will. People suck, but he’ll be okay.”

I couldn’t form the words to ask him what he was talking about.

“Let’s get back to the room. That’s where they’ll bring him.”

Somehow, I managed to force my legs to move, my feet to take one step and then another, until we were at the door to the locker room.

I didn’t fall apart.

But there were only frayed threads holding me together.