So Ryan punched him across the jaw. And the crowd went wild.
Ryan had hoped the one punch would do the trick, and the younger player would fall to the ice. Then the refs could step in and break it up, the kid would get to say he fought Ryan Price, and Ryan wouldn’t have to hurt this rookie too badly.
But the kid didn’t go down. Instead, he pulled back his right fist and hit Ryan in the shoulder, which probably hadn’t been where he’d been aiming, because Ryan could hear his knuckles cracking against the hard plastic of his shoulder pad.
The kid—a twenty-two-year-old rookie for Minnesota named Corkum—stared in horror at his own fist for a second, and then turned his wide eyes to Ryan’s face. Ryan sort of shrugged and gave him an apologetic look before landing a second punch to the right side of his face.
This time, Corkum hit the ice. Ryan made a show of covering him with his much larger body and pulling his arm back as if he might hit him again. He wouldn’t—the kid was turtling now, and Ryan would never hit a guy in that position—but he wanted to get the ref’s attention.
It worked. In a moment, one of the linesmen was roughly hauling Ryan off of Corkum. The crowd was chanting now as Ryan was ushered to the penalty box.
“Pay. The. Price.”
Ryan hated that chant. Truly, and deeply despised it. It had followed him from his junior hockey days to the eight different NHL teams he had played for, and now to his ninth team.
“Pay. The. Price.”
He settled into the box, took his helmet off, and shook out his long, sweaty hair.
“I was starting to miss you,” the penalty box attendant joked. Gerald was in his sixties, and chattier than most of the attendants around the league. Ryan would know; he was very familiar with them.
“You’re going to be expecting a proposal soon, I’ll bet,” Ryan said. “All this time alone together.”
Gerald laughed, but Ryan found himself wondering how many hours of his own life had been spent in penalty boxes. How many days, if he added up all the two-minute and five-minute intervals.
Well, less than Gerald. Maybe.
When the crowd had settled down, and the play was underway, Ryan heard Corkum yelling at him from his own penalty box. “Hey, Price!”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks!” Corkum wasbeaming, and flushed like he’d just had the best sex of his life. Ryan snorted and shook his head.
“You made his night!” Gerald said cheerfully.
“He’s an idiot,” Ryan grumbled. He grabbed a water bottle and squirted it over his head, then finger-combed his damp hair, pulling it away from his face before putting his helmet back on. It wasn’t unusual for young players to challenge him to fights; Ryan was known to be one of the toughest fighters in the league. A youngster could quickly earn a little respect by challenging him. It was probably Ryan’s least favorite kind of fight, though. The last thing he wanted to do was truly hurt someone, so he had to concentrate on pulling his punches, and making sure they didn’t land on the guy’s temple or his nose or eyes. At six-foot-seven and almost two hundred and sixty pounds, Ryan was usually the biggest guy on the ice, so evenly matched fights were rare.
Ryan inspected his left hand before putting his gloves back on. He’d probably have a bit of bruising on his knuckles, but nothing serious. He was more concerned about the fact that his back had been bothering him again.
He glanced up at the clock. He doubted he’d see more ice time tonight; his team was up by two goals with a little over eight minutes left to play, and he had done his job for the night.
When the five minutes were up and play had stopped, Gerald opened the door to let Ryan out of the penalty box. He quickly made his way to the Toronto bench, where he wedged himself between his defensive line mate Marcel Houde and Wyatt.
“Good fight, Pricey,” Marcel said halfheartedly when Ryan sat next to him.
“Thanks.” Ryan didn’t mind the lack of enthusiasm; it hadn’t, truthfully, been a good fight. But fighting was all his teammates expected of him, and if he didn’t get perfunctory acknowledgments for punching people, Ryan would never hear praise at all.
“Who do you think the stars will be?” Wyatt asked with a grin.
“I don’t know. Maybe—”
“I mean,” Wyatt continued, “obviously the first star of the game will be me, but who will the second star be?”
Ryan laughed. “You and me, buddy. One and two.”
Wyatt shook his head. “I’m one, the Zamboni is two. You’re three.”
“I’ll take it,” Ryan said. The game was now into its final minute, and Ryan realized he was in a good mood. His team was going to win at home, and it would be days before he inevitably started worrying about the next flight he needed to board.
