I don’t respond to him and I have to force myself not to look over at Lexi, who is no more than twenty feet from where I am right now on the other side of the glass. I’m pissed at myself that apparently Schultz has been watching me close enough to see me looking at Lexi, but then again, I didn’t make it any secret she was mine as during warm-ups I went up to the glass and put my glove against it. She fist-bumped me from the other side and gave me a huge grin, yelling, “Kick ass, baby.”

That had me skating away from the glass with a huge-ass grin on my face, and chances are Schultz saw that.

Nick Schultz and I have a volatile history. Both of us are defensemen, but not all defensemen are the same. You have offensive-minded ones who tend to handle the puck more but aren’t as physical. Or you have defense-minded ones, which is what Schultz and I are, who are bruisers on the ice. We get very physical when protecting our teammates and the goal, and we don’t venture out of our zones.

Unfortunately, when you have two opposing defensemen like us on the ice who have had some pretty big scuffles throughout our history of playing against each other, you can usually count on at least a major fight, if not something more nefarious.

But I know what Schultz is trying to do. He’s trying to bait me into doing something stupid. It may be that he’ll be satisfied with a bare-knuckle brawl, and that’s fine. I’m always down for that. Or he may try to draw me into a stupid penalty, which we really can’t afford right now, as we’re up by only one goal.

“If she’s not yours, maybe I’ll have a go at her,” Schultz says as he comes to line up beside me.

I bend over and get my stick poised and ready for Alex to take the drop. I ignore Schultz, because he can run his trap at me all day long and I won’t jump. I’ve never been one you can bait with words, because they’re nothing but noise that fades away as soon as they’re spoken.

Besides, I’ve got a vested interest now to try to keep my cool. With Gray on my ass, and me now dating Gray’s sister, it’s going to be best if I can try to lie low for a bit. Doesn’t mean I won’t play tough, and doesn’t mean I won’t get in legitimate fights when called for, but I won’t let my emotions get away from me and do something that could get me ejected or suspended.

At least that’s my game plan for the immediate future.

In the tense few moments before the ref drops the puck, my body naturally tenses up, ready to burst forward, or backward, depending on where the puck goes.

It tenses further when Schultz mutters at me just as the ref lets the puck go, “I bet her pussy tastes sweet, right, Sýkora?”

When the puck hits the ice, there’s a clamor of sticks at it, and it’s knocked free and right toward me. I battle Schultz for control of it, break it clean, and get a pass off to Garrett. He fakes left, weaves right, and puts it right on goal, and by right on goal I mean right into the Cardinal goalie’s glove.

The whistle blows and play is stopped again, but this time there’s an accompanying TV time-out as evidenced by the red light that’s gone on inside the official’s booth. It’s near the end of my shift anyway, so we’ll switch out with the next line.

I start a slow skate toward the bench while loud rock music is played throughout the arena during the time-out. I tilt my head to the side to take a quick peek at Lexi, and I put the brakes on, coming to a dead stop.

It’s almost like slow motion.

Lexi’s standing at the glass, cheering along with the rest the crowd and clapping to the music. She’s looking straight at me with a huge smile on her face, but I don’t smile back. That’s because I see Nick Schultz skating up to the glass. He comes to a stop, tapping his stick against the glass to get her attention, and her eyes slowly slide to his and then round with surprise to see him standing there.

The fucker drops his right glove, holds his hand up making a V between his index and middle finger, and then lewdly sticks his tongue in between it, wiggling obscenely. Forget he just did this in front of a little kid sitting right behind Lexi. Forget play is stopped and I should be heading to the bench.

Forget that Gray Brannon warned me about doing anything stupid.

Forget all that.

My blood pressure skyrockets and I feel a sensation of pinpricks all over my body, followed by the pure scorching heat of rage. Before I even think about what I’m doing, I burst across the ice at him, raising my stick at the same time. He doesn’t even see me coming, which means he’s blindsided when I cross-check him across his left shoulder with my stick, sending him crashing into the glass right where Lexi’s standing.

He falls to the ice and then immediately tries to jump back up, but it’s not fast enough. I dump my stick and gloves, then drop down on him with a knee to his stomach, whereby I proceed to have that bare-knuckle fight I’ve been itching for since that asshole mentioned Lexi to me.

I’m able to get off three quick punches to his face, completely dissatisfied his skin doesn’t split, before multiple sets of hands are pulling me off him. I struggle against them, even as they haul me up on my skates.

Schultz also jumps up and comes at me, but his teammates are on him as well.

Both of us strain and pull against our captors, and I only stop the futile effort when Alex Crossman hisses in my ear, “You need to calm the fuck down, Roman. You’re in a world of shit as it is right now.”

Those words turn my heated blood immediately to ice, as I consider the repercussions of what I just did. Cross-checking an unsuspecting player is some serious shit. The fighting, not so much, although it will surely earn me an ejection from this game, since it was unprovoked. As it stands, I just put my career in jeopardy…again.

And my girlfriend’s sister is going to have something to say about it.

“I’m good,” I tell my teammates, and they take me at face value, releasing me. Schultz’s teammates do not let him go, but I don’t care. He can come at me again, and I’ll give him more of the same. But for now, I’m done.

“You’re out, Sýkora,” the senior ref says as he skates up to me, then turns to look at Alex, since he’s the captain. “Game misconduct.”

I don’t even argue, because it’s a fair call. I’ll let Alex be the one to make a fuss, even though it won’t do any good. Instead, I skate toward the exit from the ice that leads to our locker room, which is in the opposite direction from Lexi. I don’t look at her once, not because I don’t care what she’s feeling, but because I care too much.