Anton

Nothing compares to the adrenaline rush of game days, but I’ve got a thing for practices, too. When the rink is quiet, and you only hear the whoosh of skate blades on ice and sticks hitting the rink, it’s pretty damn zen to me.

Then there’s the occasional eruption from all of us when someone makes a nice play, like just now when Victor shot the puck across the ice like a bullet.

Vic and Luca are my wingers, and I hope like hell they both stay healthy, because we work together like a well-oiled machine.

On our break, we all grab water bottles and sit down.

“How’s it going, man?” I ask Luca.

“Okay.”

“Kids doing good?”

“No one’s in juvie yet.” A smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

The past year has been a crash course in fatherhood for Luca. His brother died serving in Afghanistan a couple years ago, so Luca moved his sister-in-law and his brother’s three kids into his house so he could help. Not long after, his sister-in-law was diagnosed with an aggressive pancreatic cancer and she passed away within a year. Luca was granted custody and is raising the kids now.

“Hey man, that’s something,” I tell him.

“How come you never ask us to babysit?” Vic elbows Luca as he asks. “We’re fuckin’ awesome babysitters.”

I nod. “I could teach ‘em all how to make torches out of aerosol cans.”

“We’ll juggle knives and brew beer with ‘em,” Vic adds. “Maybe watch some porn.”

Luca can’t help laughing at that. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Seriously,” I remind him for at least the dozenth time, “let us know if you need anything.”

There’s a collective yell as Adam and Knox battle for the puck, both of them giving it everything they’ve got. Seeing Adam makes me think of seeing Mia last night—not that I’ve stopped thinking about it for more than a minute at a time since then.

“What’s going on with Adam?” I ask Luca and Vic.

“What do you mean?” Luca turns my way.

I shrug and come up with something. “He just seems off.”

“He banged two strippers last night,” Vic says. “Probably tired.”

A wave of disgust hits. I’ve always known Adam didn’t deserve Mia. He cheats on her like it’s nothing. But I never knew whether she knew about it. Now, for the first time, I have hope that maybe she finally left him. And that means…

I shut the thought down immediately. It’s a cardinal violation of the bro code to lust after your buddy’s wife or ex-wife. Even worse when he’s your teammate. I’m the captain of the Chicago Blaze and I have to stay above reproach. If it even got out that I have feelings for Mia, whether I ever acted on them or not, it would divide our team in an ugly way.

Our team is a family. Most of the time, we see each other more than the guys with wives and kids get to see their actual families.

My folks will never leave Russia, even though Alexei and I have the means to give them a better life here. We visit them there, but they’re afraid to step outside their comfort zone and take a vacation here. They’ve been repeating the same day for the past forty years, and they’ll never stop.

Work has been engrained in me from birth. And while the American family that hosted my brother and I think of us as family, they’re not blood. Working hard is my way of honoring my parents and the sacrifices they made to get me here.

My brother’s my only blood relative I see more than once a year, so my team family is that much more important to me.

I’m just stepping out of the shower after practice when Adam approaches me, wearing a shit-eating grin.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” he quips. “One for me and one for all the ass you’re missing out on.”

“Fuck off,” I growl.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” he demands.

“You’re an asshole.”

He advances on me. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Knox steps in between us. “Walk away, guys.”

“Go home to your wife,” I tell Adam.

I know it’s not a comment I should be making, but I can’t help it. It just comes out of me, same as my feelings for Mia. Right or wrong, my logic disappears when she’s involved.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, mentioning my wife?” Adam pushes past Knox.

I was hoping he’d say she’s not his wife anymore. Damn, I was hoping hard.

“You know my car,” I say. “You got a problem with it, come find me in the parking lot.”

One of our coaches, Larry, steps in then.

“What the fuck is wrong with you two? You’re both right. Marceau, you are an asshole and Petrov, you are not his mother. And you both get paid too goddamned much to be getting injured fighting in the parking lot. Petrov, you’ve got ten minutes to get in your car and get the hell out of here. Marceau, you put your ass on that bench for the next ten minutes.”

I feel like an asshole. Larry’s right. And I’m never one of the guys the coaches have to yell at.

But I glare at Adam anyway before going to my locker to put on some clothes, grab my phone and keys and take off.

It’s such bullshit that a guy like him even got a second look from Mia. I don’t have to know her well to know she’s way too good for him.

I hear an old man bitching about something before I even unlock the door to my Lakeshore Drive apartment. His voice gets louder as I open it.

“What are you, stupid?” Uncle Dix shouts. “Did your nursing degree come from one of those online outfits? You could’ve killed me!”

“Mr. Dixon, please settle down,” a female voice urges. “This isn’t good for you.”

“You know what’s not good for me? A twelve-year-old nurse that doesn’t know shit from shinola.”

I toss my keys on the table and walk into the living room, which has a great view of the lake, a pissed-off nurse on one side of the room and my Uncle Dix in a recliner on the other side, scowling.

“Did you find her number in a Cracker Jack box, Anton?” Uncle Dix demands. “Did you even ask to see her nursing degree?”

I turn to Leah. “What’s going on?”

“I took away his cigarettes.”

“Seems reasonable.” I look over at Uncle Dix.

“You can’t just take a man off his smokes cold turkey! I’ll have withdrawal symptoms. The shakes. And the stress isn’t good for my blood pressure.”

“Mr. Dixon, you’ve had two strokes,” Leah says. “You can’t be smoking.”

“Eh, what do you know? I’m seventy-eight goddamned years old. I served in combat. If I want to have a smoke—”

I cut in. “Uncle Dix, where’d you get the cigarettes? I told you, no more having shit delivered when I’m not here.”

He curls his upper lip at me. “Am I in prison? Last time I checked I wasn’t in no fuckin’ prison. If I want to have a smoke—”

“I’ll talk to the front desk again,” I tell Leah. “I told them no deliveries get past the front desk without me signing for them, but obviously he found a way around it.”

“I found a bottle of whiskey in his nightstand, too.”

“You better not’ve touched my whiskey, you bitch!”

Uncle Dix presses the button on his recliner that eases him up into a standing position. It moves slowly, his crippled body at the mercy of the special chair. I can’t help feeling sorry for this man who’s not actually my uncle. Strokes have taken away much of his physical control.

“Mr. Dixon!” Leah rushes over to get his wheelchair in position.

“Don’t Mr. Dixon me,” he grumbles, looking at me. “She calls me all kinds of names when you aren’t here. Dickhead, asshole, cocksucker…”

Leah’s mouth falls open with shock. “I do not!”

“She does!” Uncle Dix insists. “And she plays with my balls when she’s giving me a bath.”

Leah shakes her head. “I would never.”

“Look, it’s not you,” I tell her. “He’s this way with all the nurses I’ve hired.”

“Mr. Petrov, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

My heart sinks. “No, please don’t go. If you can just ignore his mouth—”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Uncle Dix barks.

Leah holds onto the handles of the wheelchair until he’s situated, then wheels him over to me.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I just shake my head. She’s the fifth nurse I’ve hired in the four months Uncle Dix has been living with me. He’s the brother of Laura Carr, the wife of the coach Alexei and I moved in with as five-year-olds. Martin and Laura are traveling the world, and their daughter Lindsey took in Uncle Dix for a couple months, but she’s got a family and he was teaching her kids words she didn’t want them to know.

And Alexei? Hell, he’d party so hard with Uncle Dix the poor old guy wouldn’t last a week under his roof. Lindsey and I are the responsible ones, so now I’m stuck with Uncle Dix.

“I understand,” I tell Leah. “I’ll have my accountant send your last paycheck.”

She puts her coat on and heads for the door.

“Hey, do you know anyone else who might be interested in the job?” I call out.

She laughs humorlessly. “Try to find a hearing-impaired nurse for him.”

“You’re a fat cunt,” Uncle Dix says to her.

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap.

“She is. Bet my whiskey’s in her purse right now.”

Leah gives him an exasperated look. “It’s on top of the bookshelf in your office, Mr. Petrov.”

When she closes the door behind her, I walk around Uncle Dix’s wheelchair to look him in the eye.

“You know what? She deserves all the whiskey she wants for putting up with your bullshit. What are you doing? That was the fifth nurse.”

He growls at me. “The first one was a goddamned man, Anton. I’m not having a man wash my dick and balls.”

“Anna wasn’t a man.”

“No, but she looked like one. And she treated me like a child.”

“Well, you act like one most of the time.”

He waves a hand and gives me a look. “Well, I liked the third one.”

“Yeah, but you kept talking about her tits and ass. You can’t do that, Uncle Dix.”

“In my day, women knew how to take a compliment.”

I squat down so we’re at the same level. “Look, I have to work. And you can’t be here alone.”

“The hell I can’t! I told you, get me one of those necklaces I can push if I need help.”

“No way. The doctors told us you can’t be home alone. You could have another stroke and not be able to push a button.”

Uncle Dix’s brown eyes flood with emotion. “When my time’s up, my time’s up. I want to live life my way ‘til then.”

I’d feel the same way. But I can’t let Laura’s brother die on my floor while I’m playing hockey.

“Look, your options are living here, with a nurse when I’m not around, or a nursing home.”

“I’d rather be dead than in a nursing home.” Uncle Dix shakes his head.

“As you’ve said. So that means a new nurse.”

“Find a decent one this time, would ya?” he grumbles.

“I’ll do my best.” I give him a wry look. “Now I’m gonna go make us some dinner, and then we can hang out and watch Jeopardy. After you go to bed, I need to go out, so I’ll have the front desk send someone up to be here while I’m gone.”

“I don’t need a fucking babysitter, Anton.”

“You want chicken or turkey for dinner?”

“I want a fat steak and a cold beer, but I’m living with a diet Nazi.”

I pat him on the knee and stand up. “Chicken it is.”

I’m starving. I’ll have to grill several chicken breasts and roast two sheets worth of vegetables tonight. And even though Uncle Dix will bitch the whole time, he’ll eat it.

And later, once he’s asleep, I’m going back to Lucky Seven to look for Mia. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. If she and Adam are still together, I need to know why she was bartending last night while he was out banging strippers.

And if they’re not together…

I may have a hard time doing the right thing.