Power Play (2 page)

The one thing he knew he should say, the thing he
wanted
to say, wouldn’t come.

I’m sorry.

Not only did that seem much too trivial, Misha worried it might upset the delicate balancing act they seemed to be performing just to annoy their general manager.

The years had been kind to Max, even if fate had not. He was dark-haired, clean-shaven, clear-eyed. He looked to be in good shape, and wore a suit that was tailored to his frame. Handsome. Misha should not have noticed that. But he was glad to see Max was healthy, even if the guilt was eating him up inside that Max was there, instead of on the ice where he should be.

“I think we disappointed Belsey,” Max said. His voice was even enough, but his hands were still shoved in his pockets.

“I’m not sorry about that,” Misha said. Max darted a look at him and gave a slight smile. He turned away and looked at the empty walls and the empty desk.

“Me neither. Look, Samarin, I can do this. It’s fine.”

Misha nodded, even though Max wasn’t looking at him. “Yes.” He had no idea what else to say. Maybe Belsey didn’t actually expect a fight between Misha and Max, but he should have foreseen awkwardness and tension. Misha had no idea how pairing them was supposed to help their hockey team, but apparently Max did.

“He’s going to use this to get people here.” Max’s voice was tight.

Misha’s stomach knotted unpleasantly. They would be one more enticement for the fans, another marketing tool to sell tickets. Misha thought the job would let him move past that single, defining moment of a career that spanned two decades—a career that ended in a Stanley Cup ring that he’d never worn, because he didn’t think he deserved it.

All of it would be dredged out again—
Satan Samarin
, the names, the harsh accusations. He could feel a headache starting behind his eyes.

“We’ll have to give them something else to pay attention to,” Misha said. “Max,” he started, still uncertain.
You ruined this man’s life. The least you could do is say you’re sorry.

“Don’t.” Max turned to face him and held a hand up. His voice was tight. “Don’t say it. I don’t need to hear it. It doesn’t change anything.”

Misha accepted that with a slight nod, because of course Max was right. Words weren’t enough to undo the damage Misha had done to him. “All right. And when they bring it up? The media?”

“Are we good enough to
have
any media?” Max asked and then cleared his throat. “The team, I mean.”

“I don’t think so. If we were, Belsey wouldn’t be relying on anything else to bring in fans.”

Max shoved his hands in his pockets again. “Yeah. Well, say whatever you want. We’ll say it’s behind us. Because it is.” His gaze sharpened.

Misha nodded again, but he wondered if that was true—if it could ever be true for either of them.

“Let’s talk about the team,” Max said. “And the facilities. It’d be good to see those.” He wanted to get out of the office. Misha could tell. He couldn’t blame him. It seemed too small a space to accommodate the weight of all the history between them.

All of that history, and that was the first time they’d ever spoken.

THEY HAD
two weeks before training camp to get a plan together, and it was not going well.

Misha was not a talkative man, though he’d learned that he was an effective coach. He knew hockey better than he could express in either his adopted or native language, and it was always easier for him to communicate on the ice than off it.

But Max seemed no more relaxed around Misha than he had been when they were introduced—re-introduced?—in Misha’s office. When they were going over the last year’s rosters and the current year’s tryout lists, game footage, and statistics, Misha would sometimes catch Max looking at him—studying him.

He wondered what Max saw. Was he, like Misha, pondering the strangeness of the universe that had brought them together as though it were determined to give them a story with a shared beginning instead of just a shared end? It was a ridiculous thought, fanciful in ways that made Misha feel ridiculous, but he couldn’t quite shake it.

“Did the last coach leave any notes?” Max asked him as they met in the tiny room just off the locker room that was ostensibly Misha’s office. “Because I don’t think there
was
an assistant coach before me.”

Misha pushed a file folder across the desk to Max. “The last coach left me this.”

Max opened the folder. He looked up at Misha. “All that’s in here is a Post-it note that says ‘Good luck, sucker.’”

Misha’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

“Are we on a reality show?” Max looked around the room. “I’m not signing any consent forms if we are.”

“Don’t give Belsey any ideas,” Misha said. Max made a little noise at that. A laugh, maybe, if he didn’t seem so tense.

Max drummed his fingers on the table. He was prone to nervous gestures like that, Misha noticed. It was unclear whether it was usual for Max or if it was because Max was around Misha. “We could just get an entirely new team. Start over.” He cut his eyes toward Misha. “Give the season a whole theme, or something.”

Misha wasn’t sure if Max was serious. Being around him shook Misha’s equilibrium, more often than not. “That might be a good idea.”

“Or we could put a bunch of kittens on skates and see how that works.”

For a moment, Misha thought he’d misunderstood the English, and his brow furrowed. “Kittens?”

“Puppies? Toddlers? Small, adorable bunny rabbits?” Max scowled. “You keep agreeing with me.”

“I don’t think the bunny rabbits are a good idea,” Misha said, blinking. “But I have seen, one time, a dog on ice skates.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe there is a spot on the fourth line.”

Max snorted and then leaned back in his chair. He stretched his arms over his head and twisted in his seat. Misha watched him—the way his body moved—then viciously told himself to stop. “You don’t seem to want to argue with me.” Max directed that to the wall, not Misha.

“I didn’t think you were serious,” Misha said. “About the kittens. If you were, I would probably argue.”

Max looked at Misha. He looked perilously close to smiling. “You don’t argue with anything I say, I mean. Do you think we should scrap all of last year’s players and start all over, or what?”

“I think we should consider it. Yes,” Misha said, confused. “I do not understand, Max. Am I supposed to argue with you?”

“I just don’t want—” Max looked down, and the tips of his ears turned red. “Never mind. Look. We have to think of something. Camp starts in a few days, and we have to have some kind of plan for the team…. Don’t we?”

Misha leaned back in his chair and looked down at his notepad, where he’d been taking notes. And drawing—to keep his hands busy during the inevitable uncomfortable silences. Maybe Max was used to nervous gestures, but Misha was not.

“Samarin, seriously. A plan. You’re the head coach. They pay you slightly more than me to come up with this stuff.”

“There are two ways we could proceed,” Misha said slowly. The doodle on his notepad was of the Spitfires’ logo, an old WWII-style airplane. He added a few tendrils of smoke around the nose of the plane. “We have a plan and we choose the players. Or we choose the players and we come up with a plan.”

“So what’s it gonna be, Coach?” Max leaned across the table, and the fabric of his jacket pulled across his shoulders. “We could flip a coin and let random chance decide.”

“Is this like the kittens?” Misha asked, drawing another Spitfire, and then another—a squadron.

“I have no idea what you mean by that. Wait. Do you mean am I serious? Kinda.”

Misha thought for a moment and then looked at his notepad. All of the cartoon planes were on fire. “We should pick the team first. This is what I think.”

“Let’s make sure to tell Belsey how confident we are in our plans for the future of his team,” Max said and then, “What are you doing? Drawing? You are, aren’t you? I thought you were taking notes, and you’re doodling. Does that help you think?”

Misha nodded, then turned the notepad over so Max could see it.

Max took in the little squadron of fiery Spitfires and said, “New logo. I like it. Think we could get Belsey on board?”

“A team rises and falls together,” Misha said by way of explanation. The back of his neck was hot, unused as he was to showing anything to anyone. “If one of them crashes and burns, they all do.”

“Not always,” said Max, but he wasn’t looking at Misha.

Misha didn’t answer. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

MAX LEANED
back against the boards, watched the skaters as they flew by, and made some notes on his clipboard. Every so often he blew his whistle to change up the drills, called some encouraging words, and went back to observing.

Misha was across the rink, watching and making notes of his own. Or drawing more cartoon airplanes caught in their death throes. For some reason Max couldn’t get that little drawing out of his head. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he didn’t expect Misha to be any good at art. Though why Max thought that, he wasn’t sure. They didn’t know each other at all.

Misha, made impossibly taller by his skates, wore a black zip-up fleece that made his fair skin look even paler than normal. He was a striking man, a study in contrast as his pale face and his light-blond hair made his pitch-black eyes look even darker. Max wondered why the hell he even noticed. He had always conflated Samarin’s appearance with black and gold… and red—the spoked B of his Bruins uniform and the spill of blood on the ice.

The Spitfires hopefuls were arranged in lines on the ice. Sweaty, tired athletes stood alone or in groups, drinking water and trying their best to impress the coaches. The team might have the worst record in the entire league, but it was still a professional hockey team, and there were a lot of guys who wanted to play.

They hadn’t started over from scratch, as the team had players under contract, although not that many. Some had elected not to return. There were still more spots than returning players, which was a bit daunting, but it was also a good chance to start fresh, and Max was looking forward to it. Even if his so-called “fresh starts” hadn’t gone entirely as planned, surely he’d get lucky eventually. Right?

“I said don’t get in the fucking crease. Do you need a goddamn fucking diagram?”

Max tried—and failed—to stop the wince as he heard the goalie, Isaac Drake, lose his temper again at one of the skaters. Drake was contracted to the Spitfires for four years and was actually a very talented player… when he could keep his mask on and his shit together, that was. He was intense and quick-tempered and had almost as many penalty minutes last season as the team’s enforcer, Matt Huxley.

Right then Drake was standing on the ice, glaring at the shooter with narrow-eyed rage and his cobalt blue hair messy and standing up in sweaty spikes. He also had a lip piercing, which Max had done his best to convince Drake to remove. It hadn’t worked.

“Drake,” Max said, rubbing at his eyes. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he missed breakfast. As usual. Being a grownup was hard. “Put your mask back on.”

The poor guy who was supposed to shoot the puck looked like he wanted to turn and run away. Skate away. Whatever got him out of the furious goalie’s field of vision the quickest. “I’m just saying, Coach, that it’s a shooting drill, not a fucking snow-the-goddamn-goalie drill.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” Max pointed out, trying not to glance at his watch. He wondered if hockey coaches could have a beer at lunch, and if Misha would go for a minifridge under the desk in his office so they could have them when needed. Max had spent too long as a professional athlete to be much of a drinker, but he was starting to develop a new appreciation for the soothing effects of alcohol. Max nodded at the kid who was waiting to shoot. “Your turn, Wolfe.”

Drake pointed his stick at Wolfe. “Stay the fuck where you’re supposed to or I’ll fucking hit you until you get the goddamn message.” He yanked his mask back down over his face, went into his stance, and tapped the stick on the ice to show he was ready. Some goalies were easy and loose in goal. Not Drake. Drake was tense, like the skaters heading toward him were shooting bullets instead of pucks. But despite his relatively smaller frame, he moved gracefully. Like a dancer.

Just a really angry one.

Max blew his whistle and Wolfe skated forward, stopped a good five feet from the goal, and shot the puck directly into Drake’s glove.

“You can get a little closer than that,” Max said, amused despite himself.

“I don’t know about that,” Wolfe said, eying Drake. “I played here last year, Coach. One time he hit me with that stick. It
hurt
.”

“You’ve got on all that padding, though,” Max pointed out. “It couldn’t have hurt that bad.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m usually not wearing it in the locker room,” Wolfe muttered, but he skated off before Max could say anything.

After the day’s drills were over, Misha and Max would meet to go over the day’s results, decide who to cut, and then have an awkward moment where they said good-bye and then left to go their separate ways.

That day, though, when they met in Misha’s office, Max said, “Can we do this at a bar? Or somewhere with beer? Because I need a drink.”

Misha surprised him by nodding. “Me too.” He ran a hand through his hair. “In Russia once I had a coach who put vodka in a flask. When he pulled it out and started drinking on the ice, we knew we were in trouble.”

Max laughed, and he realized it was the first time Misha had made a single reference to his playing career. Obviously they didn’t talk about The Game, and that was fine with Max. Still, Misha had played for a long time. There were other games he could talk about, given the length of his career, and Max wished he was chattier about it. Their shared history aside, Misha was the one with the playing experience, and Misha had spent the last five years as an assistant coach in the AHL.