Page 100 of Goalie Interference

“Tell me it’s not true,” he says. His voice is somehow both tired and angry.

“Tell you what’s not true?”

“Are you in Buffalo right now?”

“No,” I say, even though I have a feeling that the only acceptable answer to his question is yes. I check the arrival time on my GPS. “According to my GPS I should be back in Buffalo in about thirty minutes. Is morning skate no longer optional?”

“Why are you thirty minutes outside of Buffalo?” It sounds like he’s speaking through gritted teeth.

My phone begins to beep. I have another call coming through. It’s Gavin.

I smile. He’s probably calling to talk about the picture of that dog I sent him. It’s still funny to me that someone thought to name their Yorkie after Gavin. One, because Gavin is the opposite of a little dog. And two, it’s even funnier that the dog in question’s owner is from Toronto. Our fanbases don’t tend to mix and mingle.

“Ander Bouchard! Are you paying attention?” Coach growls.

He sounds pissed. I should let Gavin go to voicemail. I’ll call him back.

“Yes, I’m paying attention,” I say. “What’s the big deal? You’ve never cared if I didn’t show up to an optional morning skate before?”

“That’s because before when you didn’t come to practice it wasn’t because you were across the goddamn border canoodling with one of our biggest rivals’ goalies before a must win game!”

Oh shit. How did he find that out?

“Did you just say canoodling?” I laugh. What a strange word for him to say. I guess he’s been hanging out with Connor too, learning new words and phrases. Connor is great for the Blizzards’ collective vocabularies.

“Do you have a better word for what you were doing?”

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what canoodling means, or if it applies to me and Nikolai⁠—”

“Nikolai!” Coach roars. “You’re on a first name basis with him! What the hell is wrong with you?”

I gulp, and slump in my seat as I drive. Scolded and suddenly feeling very guilty but I don’t know why, I answer, “Nothing.” Because there is nothing wrong with me. And there is definitely nothing wrong with me and Nikolai.

Over the speaker I hear him take a deep breath. “You’re right,” he says, more calm, but still obviously irritated. “There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with Nikolai. And if the two of you are together, there is nothing wrong with that…”

I let out a long breath. But something tells me I’m not out of the woods yet.

“There is, however, something very wrong about my goddamn star goalie hopping the border to spend the night with the starting goalie of the number one team in the league that is a threat to us three-peating for a Stanley Cup.”

“How did you know I spent the night?”

“Lucky. Guess.”

I gulp again. He’s still pissed. But also, what started all this? I was careful. I told no one that I was going to surprise Nikolai. My plan to come up here was fool proof. “How did you find out about this?”

Through gritted teeth, he explains, “Because you and Ivanov are all over the goddamn internet with some fan in Toronto and your tiny little dogs.”

All the color drains from my face. “Oh shit.”

I look at Shutzie in the passenger seat. He’s smiling up at me with his tongue hanging out, blissfully unaware of what’s going on.

“Oh shit, is right,” Coach says. “Now get your ass back to Buffalo, get some rest, and show up to the game tonight ready to fucking play.”

Nikolai

When we land in Montreal I have about one hundred missed calls from Ander, a dozen texts telling me to call him, and one missed call from Sofia.

Shit. This can only mean one thing.