Page 21 of Under His Jersey

“Sure.” Back to the phone. “The choirboy told me to move my feet on the forecheck. In front of Dannebrog. Move your feet, like I’m eight and it’s my first practice.”

“Were your feet moving?”

The look he darts at me isn’t friendly. His hand closes around his phone, and I think about the crack in his stick. I know where it came from. I was on the ice at 7:40 this morning when he slammed it into the boards after Greeley skated away.

“Say that again,” Rafe says.

“Were your feet moving, Rafe?”

He holds it for a second longer, then laughs once through his nose and drops his head back on the pillow. “Fuck you.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Greeley is hard to get a read on. With everybody else, he’s loud and easy, the guy who knows your hometown and your girlfriend’s name. With me, he’s quiet in a way that makes the space between us feel graded. He tapes his stick like a surgeon. But on the breakout this morning, with Dannebrog watching and the second unit on the ice, he made the first pass every single time, flat and hard and right on the tape, and he never once looked like he had to think about it. I stood at the boards and watched him do it, and I didn’t like how good it was.

“Greeley’s good,” I say.

“Never said he wasn’t.” Rafe scrolls. “He’s still a choirboy.”

“He’s good, and he’s a choirboy.”

“And you’re pissed.”

“I’m not pissed.”

He smirks at his screen without looking up. “Tomorrow at eight, Berwyn’s going to sit you both down, and Greeley’s going to fold his hands in his lap and say he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. And you’re going to sit there with your Friday face. The serial killer one.” He turns his phone sideways and lets the next video start, loud, a crash and somebody screaming. “Berwyn’s going to take one look at it and give Greeley your spot before official practice even starts.”

I don’t care about this conversation anymore. “Headphones,” I tell him because I need to concentrate on homework.

“No.”

“Rafe.”

He looks at me over his phone with that same smile, deciding whether this is a fight he wants tonight. Then the door bangs open without a knock, and Koda walks in with a bag of chips in his hand.

“You tell him about Raygoza?” Koda says to Rafe.

Rafe looks at me. “I told him.”

“He care?”

“He says he doesn’t.”

Koda looks at me. He’s still got a faint red mark on his jaw from a corner battle this morning, and he’s been pissed about it all day. “Raygoza’s got a car in the lot by the rink. It’s already got a dent in the back, so honestly it’s halfway there.”

“No,” I say. “Nobody touches Raygoza’s car.”

“Nobody’s touching his car,” Rafe says from the bed. “We’re just going to go look at it.”

“In the parking lot,” Koda says.

“Parking lot,” Rafe agrees, and holds up his fist without looking. Koda bumps it, and then they both look annoyed that they agreed on something again.

“You two hate each other,” I say.

“We do,” says Koda.

“Deeply,” says Rafe.