Coach Calhoun tapped him affectionately on his lid as the first period ended with the Rebels already two goals up. “Not bad, Durand. Not bad at all.”
“Thanks, Coach. Glad to be back.”
As they skated off for the break, he looked up into the stands and waved to Cecy and Gwen, who looked so happy to be here. Cecy had something gray and furry in her arms. Man, she sure loved that Rowdy Rebel toy.
Vadim Petrov, the Rebels’ captain, came alongside him. “Good work, Junior.”
“Junior?” Hell, Petrov might be an elder statesman in the game, but it wasn’t as if Bast was a complete noob.
“With two Durands on the team, we must come up with a way to distinguish you.”
“Yeah, but Junior? That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it though?” Petrov grinned that smirk that lit up catwalks during his modeling side-gig. “You can’t fight a nickname if it’s bestowed by the team. But do not worry. Kershaw is working on something special.” Kershaw was, by all accounts, the team’s nickname generator.
“Guess I’ll have to see what he comes up with.”
“Yes. Stay on the tenterhooks. Or the blades. For now, bask in the worship.” He waved a gloved hand toward the crowd. “Looks like you have fans on this side of the city already.”
Sure enough someone was holding a sign against the plexi: We love you, Bast!
Aw, that was nice and definitely made him feel like he’d made the right call. And when the sign was lowered, he was damn sure he had.
The woman with the sign was gorgeous. Blonde, apple-cheeked, full red lips—a real stunner. A little like Marina, in truth, which soured the moment a touch. But then Marina Two waved and he forgot all about his ex. He usually had no shortage of female attention, but it felt different when he was getting it for doing his job instead of being hit on in a bar.
That had him thinking of Pepper. Was she in the crowd somewhere cheering him on? Hell, that would be something. Where would she be sitting? Most of the Rebels’ comps were in the same area, where Gwen and Cecy were, so maybe Pepper was up there, too?
As he moved closer to the tunnel, the blonde leaned over, giving him a prime view of a great rack with what looked like a tattoo of …
He squinted …
This woman had his name tattooed on her tits.
Christ, it was good to be back.
With one last flash of a mouthguard-covered grin at his superfan—one that let her know he might be looking her up later because hell yeah, he needed to get back on that horse—he headed for the tunnel, realizing absently that the other players were already inside. All but him, but then he was moving a little more slowly these days. Hot blondes will do that.
The next few seconds happened fast.
Someone checked him—not hard, but enough to make him lose his balance. Usually that wouldn’t be an issue, especially as he was about a foot from the tunnel’s entrance and one of the team assistants holding skate guards, but for some reason he didn’t react like a professional hockey player.
No. He reacted like he suddenly had no idea how to stay upright on his knife-shoes and, with a Looney Tunes Roadrunner-style foot move, went down like a sack of pucks.
And because he had the self-preservation instincts of an ant, he put his hand out to break his fall.
His wrist—fuck!
Praying that his instinct about what happened was wrong, he made a move to push himself off the ground.
Pain ripped a fiery path up his arm. No, no, not again.
He looked sideways … into the eyes of a huge feathered being.
The mascot, Rowdy Rebel. That weird Frankenstein of a bird and a dinosaur, with the grace of neither. Was this what he collided with on his way into the tunnel?
He hadn’t even seen it. But then he rarely noticed anyone around him except the other players. He barely even registered the fans, except that cutie he’d just been making eyes with.
If he’d been paying more attention … no, this wasn’t his fault.
It was this person—this thing’s—job to stay out of his way!
Okay, don’t call the mascot a thing. There was a guy inside that costume, though God only knew how he saw anything, never mind stayed upright.
The mascot was talking to him, its voice oddly pitched, like a woman’s. Was he making fun of him?
“Are you alright?”
The stupid mascot reached for his elbow, and there it was again: excruciating pain. And then the medics were on him, cannoning him with questions about where it hurt and hauling him into the tunnel and an exam room.
After he stripped off his jersey—no picnic—the team doc, Dr. Nasir, took a closer look. “It doesn’t appear to be broken, but maybe a ligament tear? We’ll know better after an X-ray.”
This could not be happening.
He had just come back. New team, new season, new wrist.
Same bad luck.
Waiting for the image results, he iced and elevated it. The door opened and Reid put his head in.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Bast could barely get the words out. “One minute I was skating toward the tunnel, the next I was in a heap and—this!”
Reid stared at Bast’s wrist, his expression a mix of guilt and disbelief. “Does it feel broken?”
“I don’t think so? It doesn’t feel as bad as the last time, but it’s not good, bro. The fucking mascot! I can’t believe they let this lunatic on the ice. Don’t they get training of any kind?”
Reid looked as clueless as Bast felt. Neither of them was up on the training regimen for NHL mascots, but bitching and moaning were the only tools in their arsenal.
Twenty minutes later, the result wasn’t quite as bad as he feared but gloomy enough.
“Wrist sprain.” The doc grimaced. “Unfortunately, you know what it takes to heal. At least another couple of months before you can hold a stick again.”
All because he bumped into the fucking mascot?
No, the mascot had bumped into him, and there was going to be hell to pay.
7
Twenty minutes earlier …
Pepper liked to think of her side hustle as performance art.
After all, not everyone got a chance to wear a fun costume and dance in front of thousands of people apart from a Broadway show or a strip club. Though dance might be a stretch. And fun was possibly not so accurate.
The art part? So she was making lemonade here.
Most people failed to realize that, just like the emergency backup goalie crew for the NHL, the teams also had one for mascots. A list of people to call when the regular mascot was unavailable.
And tonight, Pepper was the one to save the day.
“Has anyone figured out what this thing is yet?” Pepper held up the mascot’s head. She’d always considered it as a cross between a cat and a fox, but now that she looked at it more closely, it had a weird birdlike appearance with those feathers coming out of its forehead.
“Something prehistoric,” Danny, one of the equipment managers, said as he helped her into her skates. With the body of the cat-fox-bird, she couldn’t reach them herself. “Thanks for doing this. I know it’s not your favorite thing.”
Yeah, well, she’d promised her dad that she’d help out whenever she could. Saying no to John Calhoun, head coach of the Rebels, was generally impossible. About nine months ago, she’d stepped in for a couple of circuits when the previous mascot had been fired, as a favor to her dad. They had since hired someone else, but the new mascot’s wife had gone into labor this afternoon and the usual backup was out of town, so Pepper was the next best thing. A one-night only performance.