Chapter 3 Checking from behind
Mishka's pov
I live a routine life. Score goals. Win awards. Fuck pretty women over the island table.
Boring stuff.
Like right now, I have a woman bent over my table. But today is not boring, no, because I have not one, but two pretty women on my kitchen island.
It is the only way I stop thinking about the shitty game last night and shitty Shevchenko trying to mock me.
“Fuck, Mishka,” the blonde one moans. She has a nice body and nice skin. She is from Mexico, I think. Or Brazil. I forget. I grab her hair and pull, and she groans as I ram my cock inside her.
“So tight.” I lean in to whisper into her ear before I bite her ear lobe. Tears streak down her cheeks and ruin her makeup.
She shivers against me and laughs, breathless.
“Do I make you feel good?” I press her shoulders flat onto the table and hold her there, and she arches for more.
She hums and thrusts back into me. “So good, so good.”
The words send a thrill down my spine. I ram into her faster. The other pretty woman moves behind me and touches my arms. My chest.
I am close. I can feel it. But I am not there yet. Something is missing.
I angle her hips higher and slow down my pace. Moving at a pace that I know drives her crazy. I pull her hair back and she moans, her cheeks flushed.
“How does it feel?” My hand slaps her ass.
“Good,” she cries out. “So fucking good.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. When did her voice turn deep? I no longer hear a pretty woman's voice but that of the call operator. Shit. Shit—
Good boy
My hips still and I cum into the condom. My body shakes and I grip the sides of the table to stop myself from collapsing.
It was two nights ago. Why am I still thinking about him?!
She groans when I slide out of her and I stand there and stare at her back. The other woman comes and rolls the condom off and throws it in the bin.
“My turn.”
“No, no, no.” I push her off. “I am done for the day. Go home. I pay you still.”
She pouts like a child but goes to help her friend.
I do not sleep.
The women leave. I sit on the couch in the dark with my phone face down on the glass table, and every time I close my eyes, I hear it. Two words. Low and rough. Pleased with me.
Good boy.
“Fuck!” I yell, and punch the glass table.
It is not real. It is only in my head.
By morning, I am still awake. I drink my coffee standing up, because if I sit down I will think. Then I drive to practice and put on my skates like the hockey player I am.
Coach starts with passing drills. Just two lines, long passes along the boards. Boring. Something I could do when I was eight years old.
My first pass goes behind the man. My second hits the boards. The third I do not even see leave my stick.
“Volkov,” Coach calls. “Your head is not in this practice.”
Yeah, no shit. “Is fine, Coach.”
“No. It is not fine. Come back.”
Next is three-on-two rushes. I take the puck at the blue line and cut right, like always, but the defenseman reads it before I finish. This never happens. I try left. I lose the puck. I try again and lose it again.
Coach blows the whistle and skates over slowly. “You played like this at the last game too. I do not know what is wrong. But whatever it is, leave it at home. Understood?”
“Yes, Coach.”
He looks at me for a long time. Then he leaves. Everyone around pretends not to watch.
At the water break, Marcus—but everyone calls him Mack—Johnson skates up next to me. Captain. The only man on this team who is not afraid to talk to me.
“Coach is right,” he says. “You played like shit last game.”
“We won.”
“You played like shit and we won.” He shrugs. “Everyone saw it, Volkov. And everyone saw you grab Shevchenko.”
My jaw tightens. “He put hand out. I not want it.”
“You sure? From where I stood, it looked like you grabbed him like you wanted to kiss him or kill him.” Mack grins. “Could not tell which.”
Mack is a jokester, he jokes about everything. So I know he is joking about this too.
But my body does not know it. Heat goes up my neck. My heart is loud in my ears. And in my head, over and over, the voice again.
Good boy.
But I am not gay. And Mack chose the wrong day to joke with me.
“Say that again,” I tell him.
“Relax, man. It was a joke.”
“Say it again.”
“Volkov—”
Coach whistles and the drill begins. It is practice. No contact. That is the rule, and everybody knows it. Mack takes the puck along the boards, back turned to me, easy, not even looking.
I do not decide. I only see his number and I am already moving.
My shoulder hits him at full speed.
The sound is wrong. Not the sound of body on boards, but sharper, like a branch breaking. Mack goes down hard and does not get up. His glove drops on the ice. His face goes white.
“Fuck,” he gasps. “My shoulder. Fuck.”
I hear whistles and shouting, and the trainers run across the ice. “I am sorry,” croaks out of me, but nobody looks at me.
I stand with my stick in my grasp. My hands are shaking.
Mack lifts his head and finds me through everyone's legs. He is not angry. I do not get it. Rather, he looks confused, like he is waiting for me to explain.
“What the hell, Volkov?” he says quietly.
I open my mouth but my English is gone. My Russian is gone too. Nothing is there.
“Goddammit, Volkov, what is wrong with you?” Coach Mitchell yells. He makes his way to Johnson and my legs are already backing away.
Heart is too fast. I try to count it and cannot. My chest is tight. I pull air in but it does not reach. I pull again. Nothing.
I hear Coach say something like “And just when the season started. Now I have to find a new replacement.”
But I am not sure because I am already leaving training rink. To the one thing that calms me down. To the one thing I swore to stop.
