Blood on the Ice

Blood on the Ice

by AM Riley

Smashwords edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

for other titles by AM Riley see http://www.amriley.net

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BLOOD ON THE ICE

CHAPTER ONE

I'm just a hockey player.

I'm not famous. Not one of those guys who does commercials and sound
bites. Or one of those the press give nicknames to, like 'The Great One' and
'The Next One'. Those guys, they sell skates and trucks and kids carry their
pictures stuffed in their shirts. I'm… well, I guess I'm just lucky to be an
NHL hockey player. I skate good enough to keep up, I can keep a puck on
my stick in a rush, and my points stay on the plus side most years. But
mostly I'm the meat at the end of a fist, what you fans call 'an enforcer', and
that's okay with me.

I've got stitches in body parts I can't even pronounce the names of. Most my

teeth sit in a cup by my bed at night. There's a crack in my skull that the doc
takes pictures of now and then to see if its widening, like one day my brains
might just pop out there on the ice. And you know what? If they did, I'd
probably not even notice. I've been skating for so long I think my feet would
just keep going.

Hockey's what I do.

So the little incident last March up in Calgary, at the dark end of that
hallway after the team had boarded the bus and I ran back for my lucky
socks? Well that slowed me down a bit at first, but when all's said and done
I'm still just a hockey player.

Just. Now, I've got what you'd call unusual appetites.

Heh. No not like that. Well, yeah sorta like that, but I'll explain those things
later. I mean, like, the sun thing. It's not as big a pain in the ass as you'd
think. Hockey's an indoor nighttime sport in the NHL. And on the road,
we're all just trying to find a way to catch a few extra winks anyway, so it's
no big deal to anybody if I roll up in a blanket and find a dark corner, you
know?

And being on the road all the time is kind of convenient. It probably
wouldn't be good to eat at the same place every night. Might attract a little
unwanted attention, if you know what I mean. So, a different city every
night suits me just fine.

And I'm murder on the ice now. I mean, I'm like a monster.

CHAPTER TWO

Okay, I know what you're wondering about.

Those lucky socks.

Cuz, yeah, a lot of us don't wear socks. Me, I like to be barefoot in my
skates. I can feel the ice right in my bones, like I'm some kind of animal with
blades on its feet. But Petey lent me those socks once, when they called me
over and told me I had to talk to the press cause the kid they'd had set up for

the interview was in the locker having stitches in his head. And I'm standing
there in my civies with barefeet in my loafers like some kind of bum. So
Petey he says, 'here, take these' and holds up these skinny little brown socks.
The kind my dad used to wear with his suits, you know? So I took 'em and
afterwards Petey, he says, 'phew, keep 'em, they smell like something died
or something.' and so I did. And we won every game for the rest of the road
trip so I told Petey, 'hey man you gave me lucky socks' and it was kind of a
joke between us, you know? So I didn't want to leave them behind,

Anyway, it was when I ran back to the locker room and I was poking around
there by the doors and what do you know but a shadowy figure appears and
says something and I said, "sorry I didn't catch that" and then the next thing
I've got a bear trap on my neck and I'm going down.

I don't know how long I was out. I came to in a funk with a hell of a
headache but you know I still found those socks and got back to the bus.
Coach fined me for making them all wait.

And Petey gives me a look and says "Was she worth it?"

And I say, "I don't remember." and he laughs.

Petey, he's part of the problem now, you know. Or maybe not a problem,
exactly. Just a complication, like they say.

Petey, he's my roommate on the road. Him and me been sharing hotel rooms
8 months of the year for three years come this October. Petey's one of those
fast little guys with good hands who can work a puck though almost any
goalies weak spot if you give him half a chance. So most of the guys on the
other team try to take him out as soon as they can. They treat him pretty
rough. Petey, he knows that's part of the game.

One of my jobs is nailing the bastards who go after Petey. Just so's they'll
think twice about doing it again.

Maybe its from having big mean hockey players trying to lay you out every
night, or maybe Petey got cracked in the head a few times too, but he's a
little bit dingy. Like, he watches those talk shows? You know, the ones
where the girls confront their long lost ex-loser husbands and every body
cries? He eats that stuff up. And he's a neat freak. This is not a bad thing in a

roommate, you understand. But sometimes its a little weird. How he, like,
folds the hotel towels after he's used them and stuff. And how he makes
such a big deal about not sleeping on the same pillowcase as I used the night
before. Or how he gets all crazy when I leave my boxers in a heap here and
there.

He's always kidding around, too. Like with jabbing me and calling me 'big
guy' and 'my hero'. Wacko stuff like that, you know.

But he's a good roommate and I guess he's my best friend in a way. So after
the thing in Calgary it was kind of weird with Petey.

See, all of a sudden I could smell stuff. Like that there'd been a cat in our
room. And some chicks perfume from about a hundred feet away when we
were down at the bar. I could smell people's blood too, you know, which
turned out to be kind of an advantage.

And I could smell Petey. Not that he's a stinker or nothing. Most of the time
Petey smells real good. But it was like I knew him so well I could smell his
emotions. Like the night we was over in St. Louis and that big guy, Avery,
he went and yelled at Petey across the ice how he was gonna bust him up.
And you know he meant it. And Petey, he was all smiles and yellin' back
'yeah sure you and your momma,' in English and French, too, for good
measure. But then he skated by me, and I could smell it on him. For the
first time ever, I swear, I could smell Petey's fear. It makes you look at a
man different, I'll tell you. There's Petey our there night after night putting
his neck on the line just for the love of the game.

That's a special kind of courage. That's what that is.

I was finding out more about Petey off the ice, too. I'd always thought Petey
was kind of a happy go lucky guy. But all of a sudden, I could smell how
much he wanted. In, you know, a sexual way. I mean, Petey was going
crazy with it and all I could think was how long had the poor guy been
suffering like this and I hadn't ever known?

So one night in Detroit, I says to him "Hey, you wanna go over to that strip
place there?"

And he says "No," like I'm a crazy sick bastard or something.

And I says, "Hey, we're both guys here."

And he gets this look and he says, "Yeah thats the point." And then he goes
off and sits at the bar by himself like I pissed him off or something.

See, it's like I told you. He's wacko.

CHAPTER THREE

I was telling you about the smelling thing, right? Weird how that can
change how you feel about things. Like, the smell in the locker room. You
know old sweat all caught up in the pads and equipment, and new sweat
from healthy men there. The sportscream and the iodine and that wet rubber
smell. Its home, you know? But all of a sudden I can smell the team. Like
how they’re feeling. That tired smell when we lost because they beat us,
that sour smell when we beat ourselves. That fresh kind of bright hot smell
when we’d win for no fucking good reason except that the bounces went our
way and we knew the gods of hockey were smiling down on us there.

Its good to know your team like that.

Petey, there, he was having a rough time of it. He'd gotten hit in the teeth
back in St Louis and what with the want and the injuries, Petey’s smell was
getting kind of desperate and just dog tired and then we rolled into Pittsburg
and that’s when it happened.

I gotta tell you, those Penguins are scrappers. Petey couldn’t get anywhere
near the crease and they were hitting him into the boards over and over.
Every shift he came off the ice looking a little smaller and more beaten.

I did what I could. Until the ref caught me on a hook and then I was in the
box.

Petey did the penalty kill, but I could see his feet were dragging. And then
that big kid they’d just picked up from the Russian team came across the ice
and just smashed him into the post.

I could hear Petey crack like an old piece of wood all the way over in the

box

I dunno what happened next, really. I've seen the playbacks and don't
remember any of that. How I busted the glass out of the box and came over
the boards. Made a beeline for that Russian kid, the whole team just starin'
their jaws hanging open.

All I know is, I saw blood. No. Really. Petey’s blood, there on the ice,
from the gash in his leg where the post had caught him. That Russian kids
blood, on his face, gushing out of his nose and onto the ice. Onto my fist.
Blood everywhere. Spurting up into the air as if from a fountain. Then both
of us down and it took about four guys, I heard, to drag me off of him.

I didn't even look back when they hustled me down the tunnel to the locker
rooms. The assistant coach follows me down and reads me the riot act while
I fling off my equipment and take a shower, pull on some clothes and leave
him there flapping his gums while I go outside where I can hail a cab and
follow Petey to the hospital.

Petey was in the hospital ER for a few hours. He kind of perked up when I
went in to talk to him,

“You suspended?” he says.

And I say, "Yeah, for sure, at least five games."

And he whistles and he says "That sucks." but he’s grinning like the wack
job that he is.

And I say "They say you can play?”

And he says. "Nope."

And I say, "Well, I guess we’re going home then,"

And he says "Yeah." And then the nurse comes in and she gives him a shot.

And well, then, he must have been feeling pretty dopey because he reaches
over and he grips my hand where its lying there on the bed. And we just sit
like that for a while not talking.

After awhile, I figure its time to go and truth is I was getting kind of hungry
and so I say "Well, see you."

And he says, "Wait. Nickie?"

And I say "Yeah?"

And he kind of looks at me and I can smell that want again and I say, I don’t
know why, seriously, because I should be planning to head out to the airport
soon as I can pack my bags, but I say. "Hey, I’ll see you back at the hotel,
tonight, right?"

And he kind of sits up a little and he says. "Right."

Well, okay, and then I go find something to eat.

Oh. About that.

I’ve never been what you’d call a picky eater. Six foot three two hundred
sixty pounds of hockey player is a helluva machine to keep running and I
would just about eat anything you put on my plate and the plate too if you
didn’t snatch it away from me fast enough.

But all of sudden I was feeling particular.

I could smell their blood, remember. And their feelings and their moods. It
gave me an uncomfortably intimate insight into my meals, and somehow I
just couldn’t stomach some of them. Never got that judging a book by its
cover stuff like I did when I found myself preferring some wrinkled old
thing to a hot bouncy young one just because the old one smelled, I dunno,
pure, and the other smelled like bad meat.

Weird.

Age didn’t matter. Looks neither. Surprised myself one night when I bit
into some guy’s neck and just thought about how good they taste when
they’ve been working out a bit. Testosterone, I guess. Its like wasabi. You
get a taste for it and pretty soon you want it on everything.

And then, you know, there was the other thing.

Fuck, who am I kidding. There was the sex.

Blood makes you hard. Yeah yeah yeah. Shut up. What you think keeps
that little man between a guys legs standing up like that? Antigravitational
powers or something? It's blood.

I guess, since I was pretty much kept standing up by blood too, that’d make
me a giant dick, huh? Heh.

Anyways, well you can guess how it was. I’d eat, and pretty soon I’d be
hard and then I’d want to, you know, consummate all that wasabi. So to
speak.

Seemed not to matter much if it was girls or boys anymore, neither. And
wasn't that a shocker. One night I'd just finished topping off and I got a
whiff of something. Like ginger beef with a touch of teriaki. And I look
over and there's some guy wearing tight jeans and a leer and I figured why
the hell not. I mean, you suck blood out of a few throats and your horizons
broaden a bit. Hell, your horizons blow right out into infinity.

Got to be a matter of mood, really, which I went for on a particular night.

Well, that night after I left Petey at the hospital, was about the same. Not far
from the hospital, actually, I found one of those neighborhoods where
people are on corners looking to score somehting and I talked some guy into
going down into an alley with me and then I had my dinner and then, well I
was gonna go find somebody else, maybe, but I thought about Petey there at
the hotel alone and I went back there instead.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re back."

And I says, "Yeah, I decided to call it an early night, seein' as how I've got to
catch a flight tomorrow morning."

And he says "Oh," and then he says, "Nickie?"

And I say "Yeah?"

And he looks at me for a long time and then he just closes his eyes and
shakes his head and sort of sighs and he says "Never mind," and all of a
sudden I get it.

Christ I’m a meathead.

"Hey,” I says and I come over and sit next to him there on the bed. He looks
at me with those eyes and the want is so thick in the air its making me feel a
little drunk and I can’t think of anything to say, not a word, so I just sort of
reach out and touch him. Right there on the cheek.

Petey just stares at me, like he thinks maybe he got knocked out back there
at the game and he’s still unconscious. And I lean over and just plant my
lips on his and his mouth opens on a little gasp and then I just push him
over.

Petey’s no pussy. Just want to make that clear. In case you're thinking this
guy was some little thing that needed protecting or something. On account
of next to me almost everything looks little. Petey’s an NHL hockey player,
for Christs sake, and he holds his own, lemme tell you.

But when I gave him a shove he just fell back under me like a big feather
pillow.

Christ, Petey smelled good.

I was just sort of enjoying the whole thing. The taste of his mouth, the lust
rolling off of him like cologne, the way his body writhed around and rubbed
up against me. And then he grabs hold of my head with both is hands and
makes me look at him. “Nickie," he says.

"Yeah?" I says.

"Christ," he says, "Is this really happening?" and we both laugh. And then
we start kissing again, only I figure enough of that and I get up off the bed
and strip and then I help him get all his clothes off and then I lie back down
and his skin tastes as good as it smells.

I've seen it all before, you know? But never up this close. And never with
Petey making noises like he is now. Five years I've known him and I've

never heard him complain. But when I catch the head of his dick in my
mouth, he cries out like I'm killing him.

Petey’s real quiet when he comes, though. His eyelids closed and sort of
flickering like they do when he’s dreaming and then he opens his eyes and
he looks at me and he sees me working myself there and he reaches down
and helps me out there. And fuck if that doesn’t feel better than anything
ever.

So it's all good. Surprisingly, like they say. Petey’s sleepy and kind of
dopey-happy and he’s lying on my chest and then he kind of laughs and
says. "Nickie?"

"And I says, "Yeah?"

“I can’t hear your heartbeat. Are you sure you're not dead?”

So, see, there’s the complication. I dunno what to do. Cuz, see, Petey and I
we went back home and we had ourselves some time together before we
were able to play again and we got to know each other real good.

The complication with Petey is, well, I think I fell for the little wack job
somewhere there. And now what am I supposed to do?

CHAPTER FOUR

Petey’s no dummy. I mean, him and me are hockey players, of course, and
brains aren’t exactly an asset in hockey. Not the kind of brains that you're
thinking of at least. I passed through college kind of like fiber. Just this big
chunk of wood that played hockey and hoped to get picked up by the scouts
when they came out to the games.

Petey, though, he has savvy, you know.

I should tell you about the first time I met him. He was playing for
Washington up there and I was playing for the Blues that year and we were
wiping the ice with his teams asses until around the second period when he
comes at me down the ice and I know he’s going to go left, cause he always
goes left, and then he feints right and then he shoots. He’s been doing it all

night and I’m ready. He’s coming at me going something like 50 mph and
he’s looking straight at me with those crazy blue eyes and I can see him
thinking that he’s gonna fool me this time and he’s gonna go right. I mean, I
saw it on his face like he’d written it there with magic marker.

So I covered right and he went left and he shot that puck at something like
90 miles an hour, and Rickie, our goalie back there, he couldn’t see because
of my big dumb ass standing there and so Petey scored.

Later, we were at the bar and I saw him there drinking and I went over and I
says, "Hey,"

And he says "Hey" and "Good game," he says.

“Yeah," I say. "Too bad you won," and we laugh and then I say. "You
faked me out good, there."

And he says, "Did I?" all smiling.

And I say "Yeah, you made me think you were gonna fake me out and then
you didn’t."

Petey he has a drink of his beer and he says. "I figured you'd be thinking,
'he's failed a dozen times going left, so now he's gonna try to fake me out'. I
figured you’d be expecting it. So I didn’t."

See, Petey, he’s got people smarts.

So I shoulda known he’d see something was up with me.

It all came to a head during that long home stretch where we were only three
of eight and the press they were starting to speculate, as they say, about
whether Peter Nicolai was getting ready to retire.

I'd be sitting there looking down the bench between shifts and I'd see Petey
there and I know he was trying not to think about it.

Then back at my place, we'd throw back some beers and I'd say, "Hey, you
okay?"

And, Petey, of course, he'd just give me that bullshit grin of his and he'd say,
"Sure."

So there you are.

Until the last game at home and the coach, he pulled Petey off his last two
shifts. Sent that new kid out of Sweden in instead. I didn't have time to
think about it because next shift I went into the boards knee first and then I
was sitting with my head down trying not to puke for the rest of the third.

And then we were dragging our sorry loser asses down the long dark tunnel
to the showers.

Petey was still sitting there on the bench in front of his spot in the dressing
room, when I’d come back from getting my knee wrapped. He looked worn
down to the bone.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he says all quiet. I sat down there with him. He looks at me
sideways and he says, “Coach is scratching me a coupla games.”

What can you say to a man when that happens? "Hey," I say, "Fuck it, lets
go out."

Petey almost smiles at that. "You go ahead," he says.

No way I’m leaving him there alone because, well, Christ I already told you.
Don’t make me say it again.

So I wait and eventually he pulls it together and gets his stuff packed and we
go and I follow him to his place and well, then we’re there and he says "You
want a drink?"

And I say "Sure."

And then he hands me a beer and he says, "You can’t let me hold you back,
Nickie."

‘What?’ I say, "What are you talking about?"

“I’m a free agent come the end of the season," says Petey. "And I don’t
think I’m getting picked up." And he looks old and worn and well, Christ.

"Sure you will," I say.

He looks at me then. "Maybe the Senators, or the Panthers need a veteran
left winger maybe I hear."

And then I get it. Petey’s telling me he’s going to leave.

"Oh," I say, and I drink about half my beer in one swallow and then I go and
sit down.

Petey comes and sits with me. “You wanna talk about it?” he says.

Now let me explain this, in case you don’t’ get it yet. I would rather tell
Petey that I am a blood sucking member of the living dead than that I love
him.

"No," I say.

He puts his hand on my leg and tips his head and looks at me all gentle like.
“Nickie," he says.

I don’t seem to need to breathe much anymore but I start to feel like I’m
suffocating. "Why do you have to go?" I ask, sounding all of four years old.

"Coach says I’m just not pushing hard enough. I don’t finish my checks, I
don’t take the hits. He’s right, Nickie. I just don’t have the hunger for it
anymore."

I’ve never felt this terrible in my life. Unlife. Whatever, you know what I
mean. Christ.

Petey gives me a little punch. "Not like you, Nickie. You’re playing better
than you ever have. Its like you’re on fire."

He looks at me. I look at him.

"Petey," I say. "There’s something I gotta tell you."

CHAPTER FIVE

There’s nothing like the sound of that bullhorn when you win at home. The
crowd is still cheering as they announce the stars and I watch Petey skate out
there, doing his little circle, raising his stick. He comes sliding in off the ice
and I thwap him on the helmet once.

"Good game."

I’ve barely got him to myself for a minute and there’s an announcer with a
mike in his face again. “Mr. Nicolai, twenty goals in twelve games. The
hottest streak in eight years of NHL history. How does it feel…” They’re
eating him up here, they are.

"So where do you want to eat?" he asks when we’re all set for the street.
He’s on fire. I can see it. I can smell it. He looks at me and those eyes are
lit up like he’s got a bulb in his head. “I’m starved.”

Turns out Petey’s got quite an appetite for wasabi.

END

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