Olivier (Chicago Blaze #9) - Brenda Rothert Page 0,57

her. If I ever meet that douchebag, I won’t be polite.

“In hockey, other players’ wives and girlfriends are off limits,” I say. “It’s an unwritten rule. The hockey world is actually a pretty small community in the scheme of things. You just don’t go there. But Hunter went there, and everyone knows Maverick’s ready to kill him over it.”

“Is that…” Daphne looks at the screen, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Is that him?”

“Yeah.”

We both freeze as we watch the scene unfolding right after the ref drops the puck. Hagen descends on Paul like a demon, jabbing and punching, and the other players from both teams stay back, knowing this was coming and that it needs to happen.

Gloves fly. Hagen gets in a few good punches before Paul shoves him to the ice. The refs break it up and send them to their respective penalty boxes.

Daphne snuggles in close. “It’s wrong to be entertained by violence, but here I am watching it anyway.”

“It’s part of the game.”

“You’ve mentioned that a time or two.”

With a laugh, I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. The physical therapy I had to do for my broken shoulder was intense, but worth it. My shoulder is fully healed and I’ve rebuilt the strength I lost.

“You know, we wouldn’t be able to have these evenings alone watching hockey if we decided to have more kids,” Daphne says, pulling away to meet my gaze.

“We’ll still do it; it would just be different. I want our kids to grow up loving hockey as much as I do.”

We’ve been talking a lot recently about our future. Daphne wants kids, and she was concerned that at age forty-two, with a seventeen-year-old daughter leaving for college soon, that I wouldn’t.

I do, though. Being a father is the hardest, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I want to have more kids with Daphne, and I want it soon.

I’m having an engagement ring made for her, and planning a weekend at a cabin for just the two of us so I can propose.

“I’m terrified and excited at the same time about having kids,” she says. “My mother isn’t exactly nurturing.”

“Hey, you’re nothing like your mother, babe,” I assure her.

“But what if I overcompensate, and make our kids too soft?”

“Don’t overthink it.”

She smiles. “Didn’t you say overthinking is like a part-time job for me?”

“Oh, it definitely is.”

She leans in and I kiss her, trying to remember what time Giselle is supposed to be home. Daphne and I have found that practice makes perfect when it comes to sex. The longer we’re together, the better it gets. She knows every inch of me now, and I hope she feels the same way about me.

“We have maybe twenty minutes,” she says, reading my mind.

“Hagen is at it again,” the announcer on the TV says. “He’s only got one thing on his mind tonight.”

Daphne and I turn to look at the TV screen again. Maverick Hagen sprints out of the penalty box towards Hunter Paul, and when he hits him, they both fall to the ground. They’re nothing but a tangle of fists and hockey gear. I’m pulling for Hagen, because Paul had it coming.

And Hagen’s getting the better of it, landing more punches and getting back on his feet first. As soon as he does, though, another Tampa Bay player shoves him back down and starts punching him.

“Bullshit,” I mutter, because this fight was between two men and no one else.

I get a look at the back of the sweater and see that it was Gil McCoy who butted in.

“Tom, this isn’t good,” one of the announcers says.

The refs are pulling McCoy off of Hagen, and Hagen is motionless. His leg is bent at an unnatural angle and blood is pooled beneath it.

“Holy shit,” I say, not knowing if Hagen is even still alive.

The arena is eerily quiet. Trainers from both teams are running onto the ice when the network cuts away to commercial. They don’t want viewers seeing a gruesome injury up close.

“Will he be okay?” Daphne asks me.

“I don’t know.”

“He wasn’t moving. And there was so much blood.”

“I think Hagen must have gotten pushed into Hunter Paul’s skate blade. Those things are very sharp.”

Daphne covers her mouth with her hand, looking horrified.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” I tell her. “That’s not the way fighting in hockey is supposed to work. McCoy had no business getting into the middle of it.”

“What if his family is watching?”

I put an arm around