Read Fair Play for Free Online Page A

time to the music blasting from the locker room sound system. “We were starting to wonder if you forgot how to get here.”
    â€œOr if you forgot to set the alarm before you took your afternoon nap,” added rookie van Dorn. “I hear you old guys need lots of sleep.”
    Pointedly ignoring him, Michael went to his locker, peeled off his street clothes and began frantically dressing for the warm-up. But by the time he was done, the stragglers who had still been putting on their uniforms when he came in had already left. Grabbing his stick, he headed out to the ice to join the rest of the team. Their captain, Kevin Gill, just shook his head when he spotted Michael. Ty Gallagher stood behind the bench clutching his ever-present clipboard.
    â€œYou’re late,” he called out as Michael hit the ice, skating slowly and deliberately to give his body a chance to warm up, even though he was pretty sure anxiety had pushed his resting heart rate up a notch or two already.
    â€œSorry, coach,” he called back.
    â€œGet over here.”
    Michael skated to the bench. “Yeah, coach?”
    â€œYou owe me fifty bucks,” Ty informed him.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFifty bucks for every five minutes you’re late. We talked about it last week.”
    Michael frowned. “Right.” He remembered it now that Ty mentioned it. Otherwise? Zip, gone, out of his head. Jesus. Wasn’t he a bit young to be going senile?
    â€œStop taking the subway and start using the car service, Mike. That’s what it’s there for.”
    He toyed with massaging the truth and telling Ty he was late because he’d been going over plans for the restaurant with Theresa—plans that would benefit his wife, Janna’s business—but then decided against it. The reason he was late had nothing to do with the subway, and everything to do with Theresa’s parents, who could talk the ears off a brass monkey. They were lovely people, welcoming and warm, but trying to get out of that house was like trying to escape from Sing Sing. Three times he’d tried to politely make his exit and three times they managed to detain him. By the time he hit the subway, he knew he’d be late. Even so, he was glad he’d gone to visit them. Very glad.
    â€œYeah, all right,” he muttered, joining the parade of players already circling the ice.
    Muscles loosening, he headed toward one of the pucks scattered on the ice and began practicing his stick handling. He’d been at it less than a minute when van Dorn sidled up to him and stole it, seemingly under the mistaken impression that the fans and little kids gathered around the Plexiglas were there to see him, so superior was his expression. Schmuck. They couldn’t care less about you. Michael waved to a couple of familiar fans, and grabbing another puck, flipped it over the glass to one small girl in particular who looked completely enraptured. It was a feeling he remembered well, one he always tried to tap in to when he was out there, that sense of magic.
    Michael looked around at the rapidly filling arena, where a sense of anticipation was beginning to build. He could still remember exactly where he sat that first time his pop took him here for a game: high up in the blue seats, or the “nosebleeders” as Pop liked to joke. Back on the ice, Dallas’s players were starting their own warm-up.
    â€œHey, how ya doin’?” Michael called out to a former teammate from Hartford, Duncan Lee, who’d been traded the same year as Michael.
    â€œDoin’ good,” Lee replied. “Yourself?”
    â€œNo complaints. Give my regards to Andrea.”
    â€œWill do.”
    Once the game started, all notions of friendship would be put aside as each team focused on winning. But for now, during the warm-up, players who were once teammates weren’t averse to a little catching up as they circled opposite each other. Picking up