“While I’m at it,” I said, “why didn’t you do something about your mouth-breathing neanderthal teammates when they tried to take my head off?”
“Because I was letting them play the game. We’ve got refs on the ice to maintain order, you know. Plus, I know that you’re tough enough to handle it.”
Another heaping helping of bullshit.
I wouldn’t press him about it too hard because I didn’t want him asking too many questions about why the Lions had gone so hard on the Riptides. There could’ve been some tacit—or explicit—encouragement of hurting opposing players. If it’d happened in the Lions’ locker room, it sure as hell could’ve happened in Remington’s, too.
I had more reason for saving him from big, bad Levi than I would let on, though. For starters, seeing Zane get hurt caused me pain. You know, I could’ve done something about it. He didn’t need to get hurt. And I felt the same way about letting guys play hockey. I might not have been nearly as pig-headed as Zane, but I understood that we played a tough game.
I just hated anyone putting their hands on my man.
“Do you know how much flak I took over you doing that?” he asked.
“How much?”
“A metric ton. All the guys in the locker room wanted to know what the fuck was going on.”
“Big deal.”
“Big deal? It was to me, Jakob. I might be the best player on the team, but I’m not the one calling the shots. That’s Jax’s job, and it pissed him off something fierce.”
I meant to draw some satisfaction from that, mostly because I loathed Jax Echlin more than any other Riptide. Still, I couldn’t escape Zane’s plaintive look, with the skin between his eyebrows all bunched up. Time to go on the offensive.
“For your information, I got plenty of blowback from my own teammates,” I said.
“Who the fuck cares? It was your own stupid fault, wasn’t it?”
“That’s not the point, Zane. It was just a little too much for me to see you about to have your ass handed to you by Levi Dunn.”
When Zane sat bolt upright, I knew I’d landed in a heap-load of trouble.
“That’s assuming Levi Dunn can do jack shit to me, pal.”
“Oh, I think he can. He’s our enforcer, not to mention the biggest meathead on our team. He does this sort of thing for fun. That makes him doubly dangerous.”
I didn’t bother reminding him that I myself had laid Zane out flat and was the farthest thing from a tough guy on our team… by hockey standards. Underestimating Levi only guaranteed he would get hurt next time.
“Look, I don’t care,” Zane said. “I think this little incident has made something perfectly clear.”
“And what’s that.”
He paused, like maybe he’d never had a point to make and had tried to get by on a dramatic speech alone.
When he rolled out of bed, he stepped into the underwear he’d discarded on the floor, and I eyed his cock, savoring every moment of its freedom before his boxer briefs hid it.
I couldn’t deny that something was going on here. I’d felt something while on the ice, as players from both teams had surrounded us. I couldn’t put my finger on what, though.
“I didn’t expect things to become this much of a problem,” he said.
I shrugged, saying, “I didn’t expect both teams to come out guns a’blazin’ like that.”
Okay, I’d served up a load of my own bullshit, but turnabout is fair play, right? Of course, I’d known that both teams would come out swinging. They always do. And maybe I should’ve expected the dial to have been cranked up at least a few notches for this game. That further convinced me that the Riptides had planned to purposely inflict injury on us.
I could believe that. The Lions had done the same even though I’d refused to participate. Maybe Zane had landed in the exact same boat but couldn’t admit to me that he’d known what was going on.
That made two of us, I guess.
When Zane finished dressing, I gave up hope for an encore performance and then rolled out of bed myself. I glanced at him, knowing he hadn’t yet finished speaking.
