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He nods toward the back of the house and winks at me on his way past. Paige says her name and goes after her, the room fills back in, and somebody behind me laughs at something I don’t catch.
Koda looks at me. “That went well.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m in the same spot with the same beer, and I haven’t seen blondie since she walked off toward the back with Greeley’s hand on her elbow. Paige is across the room being loud with Koda. Whatever happened between her and Kylie is over, or Kylie’s saving it for outside. It isn’t my business. I check the time, and I’ve got about an hour left here.
Greeley comes into the kitchen with an empty cup. He’s been circling all night, and I’ve been waiting.
“Hey,” he says, easy and loud. “You good, Kennebeck?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure? Looked rough in there.” He leans back against the counter next to me, shoulder to shoulder with the room, so everybody can see what a great host he is. “Your girl’s nice, by the way.”
I don’t answer.
“She’s real nice.” He takes his phone out of his pocket, taps it twice, and turns the screen toward me: a thread with three messages in it and a name at the top. He turns it back before I can read anything. “Took about four minutes. You were standing right there when I did it.”
He’s been drinking since before we got here. I can smell it on him, and it’s in the way he holds his shoulders, loose and wide, taking up more room than he needs.
“That’s the whole difference between us,” he says, watching the room. “You’ve lived in the same building as that girl for three weeks, and she’d rather stand in a corner than look at you. I had her for four minutes, and she gave me her number and told me her whole life story. She’s sad, Kennebeck. Sad girls are easy. You just have to be nice to them for ten seconds.”
My jaw sets.
“She’s not going to remember your name in a month,” he says. “But she’s going to remember mine, because I’m going to—”
“Finish that sentence.”
His face changes. He likes it. He steps off the counter, and now he’s in front of me instead of beside me, close enough that I can see the shine on his forehead and the beer in his eyes. The acting is gone.
“You think this is about a girl,” he says. “That’s cute.”
“Get out of my face, Greeley.”
“I’m going to take everything you have.” He says it almost gently. “The spot. The line. Waleska, because he’s going to get tired of losing games for you. Every guy in that room, one at a time, because I’ve been here two years and you’ve been here three weeks, and they’re going to believe me when I say you’re worthless. And when the scouts show up in October, I’m going to be the guy Berwyn walks them over to, and you’re going to be standing at the far boards with two juniors.”
“You’re drunk.”
He smiles. “You had one thing when you got here. A clean tape and a coach who watched it at night. By Christmas, you’re going to have a reputation, a healthy scratch, a highlight reel with a hole in it, and nothing else. No line. No spot. No girl.” He taps his phone against my chest, twice. “I’m going to take it all off you, and then you can go home to whoever raised you like this and tell them how it went.”
He’s still smiling when he says it, and he’s already turning away, already lifting the phone toward the four guys behind him, already opening his mouth to say something to the room about me. That’s what this is. It’s a performance, and I’m the prop. It’s been three weeks of him smiling in my face and cutting my legs out from behind. Stay down this time, rookie. It’s on me too, Coach. For the team. Nobody expects much.
The feeling comes up my chest, hot and heavy.
I don’t think––I just swing.
I catch him on the side of the jaw, and he goes back into the counter and takes a stack of cups with him. He comes up off it swinging and gets me in the mouth. After that, it’s just hockey. I’ve got his shirt, and he’s got mine, and we’re throwing short, ugly punches that land, and I’m slipping on a kitchen floor covered in beer the same way I’d slip on the ice with the gloves off. He gets me twice. I get him more than twice.
People swarm around us. Koda is pushing people back, and he’s thrilled. I can hear it in his voice. “Fuck yeah! There it is!”
Three or four guys peel us apart. Pennock has me around the chest. Somebody has Greeley. We’re both still going, my collar’s stretched out, and there’s blood in my mouth.
Greeley is laughing as we come apart, one hand at his lip and blood on his teeth, and he isn’t even looking at me. He’s looking at the room. “See?” He spreads his arms as far as the guy holding him allows. “That’s all it takes with this guy. Three weeks.”
The guys holding him let go. He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, and then he looks at me with the first honest face he’s shown me since I walked through his door.
“Get out of my house,” he says, and then louder, “All three of them. Out. Party’s still going, everybody. We’re fine.”
Pennock walks me as far as the living room and lets go. I’m wiping my mouth on the back of my hand when I see the blonde at the bottom of the stairs with her coat over her arm, frozen, looking at my mouth. Her eyes go to the blood on my chin, then to my hand, split open across two knuckles.
