Chapter 2
She might be cold; she probably hadn't bothered to grab her coat before she'd stepped outside.
She exhales, then says in English, "Don't kick me while I'm down."
Nikolai frowns up at the ceiling, says in Muscovyn, "I don't get it."
"It means, don't hurt me while I'm already hurting," Olga says.
"You say it when someone's rude to you when you've already been crying, or something.
I like it.
It's kind of evocative.
Makes me picture booting someone in the ribs."
Nikolai's lip quirks.
"Sounds like fun."
Olga says, "You're the captain.
Make those fuckers learn your language."
"They wouldn't even learn Muscovyn if they played in the ECL," says Nikolai.
"They'd just assume everyone speaks English wherever they go."
"Probably," agrees Olga.
"Imagine how bad their accents would be if they did try to pick it up, though.
Fucking Valdorians."
"Fucking Valdorians," Nikolai agrees, maybe with a little too much energy behind it.
"And why do they speak so fast, anyway?
What's the rush?"
"You know that you'd get better, if you practiced more."
"Oh, come on."
"I'm just saying.
You don't even really try to understand everything, sometimes.
You always say generic shit in your interviews, no matter what they're asking."
"Everyone does that."
Olga says, in her fucking perfect English, "'Gotta get pucks in deep.
Gotta get shots on net.'"
Everyone
fucking says that."
"Yeah, but the Valdorians actually know what they're being asked before they answer with bullshit.
Don't pout.
You know I'm right." She pauses.
"They've got that Valdorian winger playing for Halifax now, right?
On Matt Lawson's line?"
Nikolai narrows his eyes up at his bedroom ceiling.
"I heard about that."
"I saw an interview with him the other day," Olga says.
"He's a really fast talker."
"Haven't heard."
"He's not too hard on the eyes, either."
Kicking me while I'm down, Nikolai thinks.
"Get back to dancing," he says.
"I'm going to sleep.
Don't stand around outside without your coat."
There's another crackle as Olga sucks on the cigarette.
She sounds like she's either trying not to cough or suppressing a laugh when she says, "Sleep well."
The phone beeps twice, and Nikolai's alone again in his silent bedroom.
Nikolai closes his eyes.
His pillow is cold against the back of his neck.
His mother had never let him go to bed with his hair wet.
It's something Nikolai thinks about every time he falls asleep like this.
Matt Lawson's pretty new linemate is even taller in person.
Nikolai can tell, even during the warmups in Halifax, even when the Valdorian kid is skating all the way on the opposite side of the ice, that he's at least a head taller than Nikolai.
The Valdorian puts a half-hearted shot on Halifax's empty net, then slows to a stop beside where Lawson is folded into a frog stretch in front of the left face-off dot.
He gazes down, says something to Lawson.
Lawson looks up at where the Valdorian is looming over him.
Nikolai can't tell, from here, if Lawson is smiling.
Nikolai frowns, then turns his back to the Huskies' half of the ice to fold into his own frog stretch.
He's been having a nagging issue with his hip, lately, a catch in the muscle that gets worse if he doesn't stretch it out before he skates.
Abramov glides slowly by, comes to a stop beside Nikolai.
He's a rookie, a call-up from the farm team who probably wouldn't be in the league if it weren't for injuries, and he's odd and too skinny and a bit shy, but at least he's fairly Muscovyn.
Not completely Muscovyn, because he's lived in Arcadia since he was a kid, or something, but fairly Muscovyn.
His Muscovyn is at least perfect when he asks Nikolai, "Are you going to fight Lawson?"
Nikolai looks sharply up from his stretch.
Abramov shrugs, leans on his left skate to stretch out his opposite leg.
"Don't you hate him?
You keep glaring at him.
I was just wondering.
I thought maybe you two had already agreed to it."
Nikolai shakes his head and folds back down.
"No, I'm not fucking fighting Lawson," he tells the ice beneath him.
"He's way too soft to drop the gloves, anyway.
Go finish your warmups."
It's Lawson against Voronov for the opening faceoff.
Lawson is smiling more than usual, as he skates up to the other side of the dot.
"Hey," he says.
He's gotten pretty good at speaking through his teeth, without giving any broadcast lip-readers anything to work with.
"Are you still coming over later?"
"Focus on game, Lawson," Nikolai says.
And then he leans down and loses the draw.
That allows Lawson to hit the puck back to the pretty Valdorian, who immediately bursts forward to carry the puck over the Wolves' blue line.
Nikolai spits, and spins to throw himself after Lawson, who already has a step ahead of him as he follows his linemate into the Detroit zone.
The Valdorian is all but certainly going to pass it to Lawson.
He's going to try for a give-and-go.
Nikolai knows he will, because he's seen it on about a million Huskies highlights.
He puts his head down, tries to get himself between Lawson and the puck.
Nikolai hadn't been expecting Lawson to turn.
Lawson turns anyway.
Suddenly he's in Nikolai's path, and Nikolai can't halt in time to stop his knee from smacking into the back of Lawson's leg.
Lawson loses his footing.
He goes down hard, his stick flying out of his hands as he hits the ice, slides along it on his side until he bumps into the boards and is brought to an abrupt stop.
The ref already has his arm up when Nikolai skids to a halt, three feet away from where Lawson is still curled on the ice.
They haven't blown play dead yet.
It's a delayed interference penalty.
The Wolves haven't touched the puck to get the whistle.
Out of the corner of Nikolai's eye, he can see the Huskies goalie sprinting out of the net on the other side of the rink, so that Halifax can get their extra skater on.
Nikolai is distantly aware that he is needed, that he should move, that he should defend.
He is equally aware that he's staying so still it's like his skates have suddenly become stuck deep in the ice.
Lawson slowly raises his head from his arms.