Cage's Misconduct (NHL Scorpions #3) (5 page)

***

Karen

I used Cage’s quick disappearance as an excuse to mentally chastise myself. That scene at the door bothered me. Truthfully, I thought I was over Freddy. As in completely over him, never to be thought of again, but when I woke up, and Cage’s arms were so tight around me, I went right back there. Right back in time to a moment when I was helpless as a new born babe. My mind rewound to see me being held tight as Freddy hit me with no way to defend myself. The whole incident was so long ago. What, in the name of all that was holy, would it take to banish him from my mind forever? I just didn’t have the answer to that yet, I guess.

Cage had left the slider open, and while it was a tad chilly, I enjoyed the gentle breeze ruffling the curtains. The sound of the ocean still reached my ears, bringing me the peace that so alluded me at times like these.

Just as I was heading into the kitchen to open the new bottle of wine that Jody, or rather Lacey, had obviously left for me, a gentle knock reached my ears.

“Hey. That was quick.”

Cage stood at the door with an arm full of sheets and a ball of something fluffy perched on top. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought Charlie with me.”

My nose crinkled in affection as I looked at the little ball of fur. “Wow. Is that a chinchilla? She’s adorable! Can I pick her up?”

“She would love that.” Cage watched closely as I ever so gently picked up Charlie and nestled her against me just under my chin. “I thought you might like her. I brought her cage and food with me. Maybe you’d like to keep her for a few days until you get settled? I heard Vlad saying something about your liking animals.”

“Are you serious? Aw, Dalton. I would love that. Thank you so much. I promise I’ll take excellent care of her.” What a sweetheart he was. I gently stroked Charlie’s downy fur as she continued to sleep, still curled up in her protective ball. “I don’t get it. Everyone thinks you’re such a badass. I’m guessing they don’t know about Charlie either, do they?”

“People assume what they want to. It’s no big deal. Well, here are the sheets. I know they’re a bit juvenile, but they’re kind of a joke between my brother and me. I put them on his bed when he comes to visit in the summer.” Cage handed me a set of red and black sheets. At first I thought how fitting they were for Cage. Such strong colors, and then I saw them. KitKats. They were KitKat sheets!

The laugh that broke free from low in my belly made Cage’s eyes dance. “I love them. Thanks for the loan.” Overcome with good, fun feelings, and just so happy to be there, I leaned close, Charlie still snuggled into me, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I like to make you smile, Karen.”

I was still smiling as he walked toward the door. “Lock this behind me, please. Don’t forget, I’ll leave the game tickets for you at the box.” And then he was gone.

I knew Cage wanted to be more than friends, and if his idea was to kill me with cuteness, it was working, but I was not going to give in. He needed a friend much more than he needed another woman in his bed, and that’s what I was going to be to him.

Chapter 5

Cage

Game night brought out my excitement as well as my nerves. As expected, I got the nod to start in net. If I could get another shutout, that would be three in a row, and a huge boost to my ego. Three consecutive shutouts was not a commonplace thing, and I wanted it—bad.

Yeah, okay, you got me. I also wanted to look good in front of Karen. Vlad, Zoe and Crystal were with her, which was fine with me. I was just glad Jody didn’t tag along, too.

When I saw the four of them walking into the locker room before the game, Vlad’s hands over Crystal’s eyes before he ensured everyone had their unmentionables covered, my ‘unmentionable’ gave a stir. Karen looked great. Skin tight jeans and a Booker jersey covered those luscious curves. Thank God women didn’t wear those baggy, ugly-ass jeans. I couldn’t actually see her ass as well as I would have liked beneath the long jersey, but my imagination worked just fine. A funny thought ran through my mind. Maybe I wasn’t so different from Jody after all, because I sure did like seeing my name on her. In my mind’s fantasy world, that marked her as mine.

“Hi, Cage.” My sweetest fan looked up at me, batting her baby blues and twirling in her skirt.

“Hi, Crystal. How are you doing, beautiful?” As I knew it would, my words drew a giggle from Vlad’s adorable daughter. She was only ten years old, but she was ten going on thirty.

“I’m fine. How are you? All ready for the game? You’re going to be stellar, I just know it.”

I reached out and tugged on her braid. “Stellar, huh? I’ll do my best. First save’s for you.”

A joyous laughed bubbled up from her that shone in her eyes. “I knew it. You like me too. Daddy says you’re too old for me, but I know you’ll wait for me until I’m all grown up.”

Now my experience with kids is limited to my little brother, so I didn’t quite know what to say to that. I didn’t want to break her heart, but did I tell a little girl she’d never be old enough for me? Did I tell her she was a cute kid, but to find someone else to entrust with her heart? Thankfully, Karen stepped in and saved me.

“By the time you’re ready to date, Dalton will be old and wrinkled, and you won’t want him anymore. He’s grumpy anyway.” Karen winked at me as Crystal shook her head in denial.

“No way. He’s perfect.” She continued to look up at me like I could rope the moon.

With an eye roll only a father could muster, Vlad grabbed Crystal’s hand. “All right. That’s enough of that. Let’s go find our seats.” He turned to me and shook my hand before they left the locker room. “Stop em’ hard tonight, Cage.” Leaning toward me so that only I could hear him, he whispered, “And don’t forget to watch your goddamn corners.”

If I had a weak spot, and let’s face it, every goalie did, it was those shots that snuck in just past my left shoulder. Way too often they sailed right into the corner of the net. Any player worth his salt knew it—and I was man enough to admit that it drove me bat shit crazy, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

As quietly as he did, I whispered back, “Bite me, Impaler. I’ve got this.”

“We’ll see.”

“Good luck, Dalton. Go get em!” Karen blew me a kiss as they walked out of the locker room, making me wonder if maybe, just maybe, she was interested in more than friendship. I mean, Vlad didn’t blow me a kiss, right?

***

Halfway through the first period, my dream of three consecutive shutouts was over. Where did the puck land, you ask? Neatly in the upper corner of the net—right over my goddamn, mother fucking left shoulder. My stick was laying on the ice in two pieces. It’d wind up that way when it got slammed against the net post. You want to know how that show of temper worked out for me? It got me a ten minute misconduct penalty, which Max Kessler had to serve for me since goaltenders didn’t serve their own penalties (unless we got a game misconduct of course, then we were out of there). Max was a fourth line winger who had a tendency to crash the boards a bit too hard now and then, thereby crushing his opponents. His hits were not necessarily always legal, so at least he was used to being in the sin bin.

Because I tended to have a hot temper, and couldn’t keep my fucking mouth shut, I added insult to injury. Yes, I was an idiot. No, I didn’t particularly care at that moment. I skated out after the ref, screaming at him that the goal was no good. I told the fucker that I was interfered with and pushed into the goal after being punched in the head. He did not agree.

“It was a good goal, Cage. There was no interference. Get back to your crease.”

“Fuck that, Snider! That fucker hit me and pushed me in. Review the goddamn play!” I knew I was, excuse the pun, skating on thin ice, but as I’d admitted before, keeping my mouth shut wasn’t my strong point. Reviewing the play wouldn’t have helped anyway. He’d already made the call and the puck had most certainly crossed the goal line.

“Get back to your crease, Booker, or I’m giving you a minor for leaving it, too. You want your team to be short-handed now?”

Fuck!
If I got a minor, not only would Kessler be in the box for ten minutes because of me, but my team would be down a player for two minutes. There was no way I was giving the Rangers that kind of advantage.

“Yeah, okay.” I skated back to my crease, and the crowd roared their approval. If I’d have gotten a minor, they would have wanted to stone me for it, but since I fought with the ref and didn’t cause us to be short-handed, I was a hero. Fans loved a little aggression against the stripes.

Keith skated over to me and handed me a new stick. “Relax, Booker. It’s one goal. Let it go.”

“Yeah. I’m good.” Like I did every time I came back to my net, I skated side to side and then around it, coming back to stop in front, tapped my helmet twice, and got in position with knees bent and glove up.

New York won the next face off, and Nash fired a shot in the same spot they’d just scored in. That time, I stopped it with my shoulder, causing it to fly out to the corner where it was picked up by our top defenseman.

Matty Johnson took his time, weaving the puck back and forth through our own players while we made a quick line change. Before he jumped over the boards, he shot the puck forward to Gunderson, who crossed the red line and quickly got off a wrist shot that just missed making a goal.

The crowd was on their feet as Scorpions continued to swarm the net. Another shot rang off the post.

“Last minute of play in the first period!” The announcer’s voice boomed through the arena and the crowd roared with encouragement. “Let’s go Scorpions! Let’s go Scorpions!”

With 0.2 seconds left, Gunderson again threw a wicked wrist shot toward the goal, and Simmer redirected it right into the net. The arena was deafening, even drowning out the goal horn.

The players on the ice celebrated with chest bumps and high fives all around.

Back in the locker room, the air was buzzing with the thrill of tying up the game with such little time left on the clock.

“Okay, guys. Settle down.” Coach DeLeon clapped his hands and waited until we were all seated on our benches. “For a change I don’t have any criticism for you. You look good out there. Keep crashing the net and good things will happen.”

“No words for Booker’s little outburst?” Carl Rush, the team’s current enforcer, had the same problem I did. Diarrhea of the mouth. He rarely knew when to keep his mouth shut.

“How about you worry about your job, and I’ll worry about mine? That work for you, Rush?” Without waiting for an answer, Coach left the room to head into his office where the assistant coaches were already seated watching a replay of the goal New York scored on me.

“What the fuck, asshole?” I walked over to Rush and slapped him in the head. “What’s your problem?”

“Hey. None of that. Come on, guys.” Keith, ever the peace-keeping captain stepped in between us, gently pushing me back. “Carl, you know better than to poke the bear during a game. And Cage, you do realize how alike you and Carl are, right?” I didn’t bother answering his question as he made his way over to some of the other guys.

“Sorry, man. I don’t know why I said that.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. How could I stay mad at him? We
were
a lot alike. “No problem. If it makes you feel better, I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it later.”

With a minute left to go until the start of the second period, we made our way back out onto the ice. I tried to catch a glimpse of Karen, but with all the lights swirling around the arena, I couldn’t pick her out. My tickets were in a club box on the blue line, and I knew exactly where it was, but I still couldn’t find her. It didn’t matter, though. There was no time left to study the crowd up there. It was time to get my head back into the game.

At the end of the second, the game was still tied at one to one. Coach DeLeon was not so quiet this time around. As soon as everyone was seated in the locker room, he threw his clipboard on the ground hard enough to separate the board from the clip.

“What the hell happened? You guys were on fire in the first. And now you give me three shots on goal in the second? Three fucking shots? That’s unacceptable! This is New York. Their goalie is one of the best in the league. You have to constantly pepper him with shots. Every fucking time you’re in their zone, I want that puck shot on goal.” He bent down and scooped up the broken pieces of his clipboard, but he wasn’t done. “Each and every goddamn one of you better kiss Cage’s ass on the way out of here. He stopped sixteen shots in that period alone. Sixteen shots for New York to your three! Get out there and shoot the goddamn puck. And maybe the defense could help out our goalie, eh? Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You got it, Coach.”

“We’re clear.”

All heads swung toward Keith after the coach’s exit. “You heard him. We sucked. We sat on our heels the whole period. Cage is the only reason we’re still tied. Well, fuck that. Let’s go make the game a little more interesting.”

I got some slaps to my pads on the way out in recognition of my play, but it wasn’t as heartfelt as it should have been. What did I have to do to make them appreciate me? They’d treated Vlad like he was a fucking god when
he
was their goalie. I knew I’d rubbed a few people the wrong way in the past, but I’d gotten better—and Vlad was gone. I even made sure I fucking smiled more, for Christ’s sake! Was it too much to ask that maybe a few of them could be a little friendlier? Maybe just a little bit more encouraging? You know what? Fuck ‘em. Did I really even need them? Hell, no. I just needed to win.

The third period went much like the second, with one fortunate exception. We scored the only goal. It wasn’t pretty, but we’d won. Granted, it could have been a much sweeter victory, but I’d take the win anyway we got it. And I was absolutely the reason we won. You think it was cocky for me to think that way? Maybe, but if I wasn’t so sure of myself, there was no way I could’ve saved forty-two shots. Well, forty-one. The end tally was forty-two shots for New York and sixteen for San Diego. Fucking pathetic. Pretty amazing we pulled a win out of that shit.