Max didn’t think so, but he kept his mouth shut because he did like his job.
Belsey’s first attempt to use their infamy to his advantage was to call a press conference that was entirely unnecessary and altogether pointless. It was obvious the journalists had been paid to attend and ask a few slightly different versions of the same question, because Max and Misha both answered, “How are the two of you working together after what happened?” about seventeen times.
Max wondered what would happen if he answered, “I’m going to hit him with my car,” and then thought maybe he’d been spending too much time around the Spitfires’ angry goalie.
Misha looked as stoic and Russian as ever and just said that he regretted the accident very much and was looking forward to working with Max and having a good season with the Spitfires. He said it pretty much the same way every time, and Max realized near the end that Misha was laying on the accent pretty thick.
At one point the two of them exchanged a glance that clearly said, “This is miserable. Someone kill me.” And it struck Max that if Belsey was successful at anything, it was turning Misha from his enemy into his ally in the relentless and aggressive war on hockey disinterest being waged by their general manager. Who was a complete and utter sleazeball.
When the press conference failed to elicit any kind of buzz, Belsey started working on an ad campaign for the Spitfires. It centered around the phrase “New Season. New Start,” which would have been fine if it didn’t feature old footage of Max’s injury overlaid with “Holding Out for a Hero,”—the eighties version by Bonnie Tyler.
Every time it came on, it made Max want to punch a wall.
What they needed wasn’t a hero. It was offense. Because the Spitfires dropped their first four games of the season, all without scoring a single goal, and Max’s fresh new start was starting to smell like old hockey gear left too long in the trunk of a car.
“Look at it this way,” Max said to Misha after the fourth game. “At least no one was here to see it.”
That wasn’t true for their fifth game, which was against last year’s champions, the Jacksonville Sea Storm. The Storm were a gifted team who had kept most of their players. They demolished the Spitfires 8-0 in front of a full crowd in their home arena in Jacksonville.
It was after that humiliating defeat that Misha finally lost his temper during one of their miserable and mandatory staff meetings.
And it was
glorious
.
They were seated around the conference table as Belsey went on and on about promotions and cheap beer and advertising, and Max was just waiting for him to suggest he and Misha reenact their accident when Misha spoke up. “We need to win games.”
“What was that?” Belsey asked. He turned toward them. “I’m sorry, I thought you said something useful.”
Misha threw his pen down. He’d been doodling again, Max noticed, but he couldn’t see what it was. Probably crosshairs. Max picked his own pen up and wondered if he could draw those. It might make him feel better.
“I said, we need to win games,” Misha snapped in a much louder voice than Max was accustomed to. “That’s what sells tickets. In Jacksonville they were champions. They have a crowd. Here you are trying to sell a drama. Not hockey.”
“We don’t seem to have that either,” Belsey said, which…. Okay. Fine. He had a point.
“I know this. Max knows this. But I think we are tired of having our past paraded around like it is some kind of advertising gimmick.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Belsey snapped. Obviously their lack of success was taking its toll on the GM, but Max found it hard to drum up any sympathy for a guy who was intent on parading the worst moment of his life to the masses—set to Bonnie Tyler.
“Maybe we should show some season highlights instead,” Kim Stamford, the marketing assistant, suggested helpfully. Max shot her a grateful look, and she gave him a small smile in return.
“When we have some, we’ll be sure to do that.” Belsey narrowed his eyes. “I could fire you both. This is abysmal.”
Don’t hire your fucking coaching staff for shock value, then, you asshole.
“What’s keeping us from winning?” Belsey demanded.
“Losing,” said Misha.
Already on edge from the meeting, the season, and the fact he couldn’t stop noticing how well Misha wore a suit, Max hid a sudden, wild laugh in a cough. It was utterly unconvincing.
“I don’t need you to be a smartass,” Belsey snapped impatiently.
“That is the answer to why we are not winning,” Misha said.
“Samarin, I hated Russian existentialist literature when I was in college, so I sure as fuck don’t want to deal with that shit at work.”
“You are not asking the right questions, is what I mean,” Misha continued as if Belsey hadn’t insulted his home country’s… whatever-the-fuck kind of literature. Max had no idea what that even
meant
. “You ask why we are not winning when you need to ask why we are losing. And it is because this team—this season—you have made it about the past. About accidents and endings. Not beginnings.”
That made so much sense, it made Max wonder if he should pick up some of that literature. “He’s right,” he added, because he wanted to support Misha. And because Misha was right. “Coach Samarin and I don’t have a problem with each other. You’re playing off of something that doesn’t matter, instead of something that does.”
“What I’m doing is trying to find a way to market a hockey team in the south. A hockey team that not only hasn’t won any games, but hasn’t scored
a
single fucking goal. You want that commercial pulled? Then give me some fucking highlights to use in a new one.”
“Done,” Misha said and stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have game tapes to watch.”
Everyone in the room watched in silence as Misha walked to the door, notebook in hand, and left without another word.
Everyone turned to look at Max, who had just noticed that Misha’s ass looked really good in those pants.
“Me too,” he said. Then he bolted.
MISHA SAT
in the dark of his office with a headache pounding behind his eyes, watching game tapes on his laptop without really seeing them.
He should be paying attention to the team. He should be watching and trying to find what was going wrong so he could fix it. He should not be thinking about Max.
And if he was thinking about Max, he should be thinking of him in terms of coaching and not… other things he had no reason to think about. No
right
to think about.
Maybe Max did not hate him, but that was it. All that mattered was finding a way to fix what was going wrong with the team. It was a second chance for Max, who—young as he was—could work his way up to coaching a team in the majors someday and get his name on the Stanley Cup.
Misha’s was on there, but he’d never seen it. He refused his day with the Cup because he didn’t think he deserved it. Just like he never wore his championship ring. It was still in a box he’d never opened, hidden away in a safe in his closet.
He was suspended for fifteen games after Max’s injury, even though Misha hadn’t been given a penalty for the hit during the game. The hit was legal, and from what he understood, the injury that sent Max off the ice for good happened when Max’s head struck the edge of Misha’s stick. But the league wanted to make an example of him, and they did so with a lengthy suspension that infuriated the Bruins on Misha’s behalf. They wanted to appeal, but Misha wouldn’t let them. Instead Misha watched from the press box as his team won the Stanley Cup, and then he quietly retired.
That was the inglorious ending to the story of Mikhail Samarin’s professional ice-hockey career. It could have been an inspiring story—the Russian player who barely spoke English, was recruited by the NHL, and moved to America without the help or support of friends or family.
The problem was the desire that had followed Misha his whole life, unwanted, unwelcome, and so fierce that he could not ignore it. No matter how often he prayed, no matter how many recitations he made at mass when he was younger and believed in such things, nothing could take it away from him.
He was not allowed to want the things he wanted—not in Russia, not in his family, not in the life in which his father was so deeply entrenched. He was a butcher. Yes. But not the kind Max probably thought he meant when Misha told him.
Max did not call him names like the press did in the days following the accident. He simply reached across the space that separated them and shook his hand. Max was very American. Misha wished he could be that way, but years of living in the US had never given him the breathtaking optimism Americans seemed to inherit from the cradle.
Max greeted Misha every day with “Good morning,” whether he meant it or not. Max didn’t accuse or yell or stare balefully at him as Misha deserved. Max smiled at him and did his job, and maybe that was because he didn’t know what Misha thought about at night in his bed.
It was unexpected and unforgivable for Misha to want Max. Misha could not repay the unexpected gift of Max’s forgiveness with the dark, lustful thoughts that crept up at night and made him shudder silently and with gritted teeth.
“I didn’t think you were actually serious,” a voice said from behind him. “That’s why it took me so long to get here. I thought you’d done the sensible thing and gone to a bar. Or to the parking lot to slash Belsey’s tires.” Max leaned against the doorway with a slight smile. He nodded at the laptop screen. “Getting anything useful out of those?”
“That we are awful,” Misha said bluntly. He thought of sliding to his knees in front of Max, undoing the jeans he was wearing, and taking Max’s cock in his mouth. Lust hit Misha like a brutal, merciless hammer.
“Well, yeah. Anything else?”
“No.” Misha reached into his pocket, and closed his fingers around the pill that offered him relief from the pain of his headache. He didn’t take it. He merely rubbed it between his thumb and finger as though to reassure himself it was there.
He would not take it around Max. It would make him too easy with his words—too free—and maybe he would say something he would regret. He didn’t take the pills when he had to see Max, or coach hockey, or drive a car. At home he simply drank vodka and went to bed. Misha didn’t think he deserved to have his pain ended so easily.
He knew that was dramatic to the point of caricature. But it was still the truth.
“Hey. Are you okay?” Max sounded worried. “I mean, other than the mess we’re in.”
The mess we’re in.
Together. The two of them. Max’s forgiveness was almost too easy. Like the pill Misha refused to take. He had done nothing to earn that either.
“A headache,” Misha said. They weren’t really headaches. The doctor called them migraines. Not just painful, or a nuisance, they were debilitating.
“Oh. Want some aspirin or something?”
“No thank you.” Misha could feel his pulse in his temples and behind his eyes. His blood rushed south at the idea of getting on his knees in front of Max, and that made other things throb. It wasn’t as pleasant as it should be. He should take it as the warning it was.
“Watching game tapes probably doesn’t help.” Max’s mouth quirked. “Either the glare from the screen, or what’s on it.”
Misha smiled a little. “No.”
“That was—I’m glad you said that. At the meeting.” Max looked down and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Misha could see his fingers move beneath the fabric of his jeans. Max never wore a suit unless they were at a game.
“It was true, and you said it way better than I could have,” Max said.
The praise made Misha flush, and he nodded uncomfortably. “It had to be said. Belsey is wrong to use what happened to you as an excuse.”
“To us,” Max said firmly. “To us, Misha. Not just me.”
Every time Max said his name, something inside him yearned a little more for the things he had no right to want. It was a name for close friends and family. It had been a very long time since Misha had either, and yet that was the name everyone in America called him.
“To you,” Misha repeated in his coach voice. “It was you who suffered, Max.”
“Bullshit.” Max took a deep breath. “Look. I think—I didn’t want to have to do this. Talk about it.”
“Then we won’t.”
“But we need to. Not here, though.” Max made a face. “I imagine Belsey could be lurking around the corner. Or there are bugs in your office.”
“Bugs?” His brain was migraine slow, and it took him a minute to realize what Max meant. “Ah. Yes. Like the KGB.”
Max grinned. “I know more about Russian spy stuff than whatever that literature was that Belsey was talking about. But seriously, let’s go. Oh… uh. Unless your head hurts and you want to go home?”
Misha’s head hurt, and he did want to go home. But he wouldn’t do that. If Max wanted to talk, then they would talk—even if his stomach was coiled up tight with nerves, even if the lights were starting to make colors that weren’t there shine behind his eyes.
“It’s fine,” Misha said. He felt the edges of the pill against his fingers, rolled it once, twice, and then pulled his hand from his pocket and stood up. “Where do you want to go?”
“My place,” Max said, and Misha’s words were all stolen away, taken from him by Max Ashford’s pretty eyes and his easy smile—all the things he was giving to Misha that Misha did not deserve. All the things he wanted that he couldn’t have.
MAX’S APARTMENT
was in a new development south of town, a ten-minute-or-so drive from Misha’s place. The apartments were simple and clean, with white walls, new countertops, and up-to-date appliances. Max still had boxes in the living room.
Hanging on his wall was a team picture of the Habs from when they beat the Capitals to advance to the conference championship. Max was easy to spot. He was grinning and he looked sweaty and triumphant.
Had Misha ever felt that joyful about hockey? Would he, if he never hit Max in the finals, never got suspended, and won the Cup with his team without the guilt? Was he capable of that sort of carefree happiness? He didn’t think so. Playing hockey was never about joy. It was about survival. He liked coaching hockey far more than he ever liked playing it.