Two For Tripping

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Chapter One

Tanner

“Number 29, New Haven, two minutes for high sticking.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say, already gliding toward him. “My stick barely left the ice. He skated into my hands.”

The ref keeps his arm up. “That’s enough Roarke.”

“I didn’t get him up high.” I tap my visor. “He’s totally selling it.”

“Back off,” he says. “You want to keep talking, I can make it four for unsportsmanlike.”

My jaw tightens. “That’s not a high stick, and you fucking know it.”

He skates backward to hold the gap. “Last warning. Next word, you’re sitting even longer. Keep going and we’re talking a ten-minute game misconduct—or you can hit the showers.”

The crowd swells, hungry for it. My pulse matches the noise.

“Roarke.”

Our team captain and star center, Sergei Petrenkov, is there, steady and solid at my side. A gloved hand closes around my elbow. Not a grab. A stop.

“Let it go,” he says quietly. It’s an order, not a suggestion.

I hold the ref’s gaze one beat too long, then peel away.

“Box,” the ref snaps. “Now.”

Sergei shadows me for a stride, steering me toward center ice like this is standard stuff. Like I didn’t almost blow it.

“Next shift.” He pats me on the shoulder. “We need you.”

I skate to the sin bin, mentally cursing myself for losing my cool barely five minutes into our first home game of the season. I’m not a superstar like Sergei who can get away with arguing his case for an extra few seconds. Not that our captain would ever push it that far. He’s the poster boy for discipline. Say your piece once, then move on. Lead by example. Always.

But me? I’m a journeyman third-line defenseman. A guy who fills a role and keeps his head down when he’s smart enough to remember that’s how he stays employed.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t get to the NHL if you can’t play. I’ve earned my spot. I block shots, clear the crease, make life miserable for anyone who gets too comfortable in front of our net. I’m the one who drops gloves to protect our goal scorers, the guys who actually put pucks in the net, and I make sure nobody forgets it. That’s my job.

But this is only my second year with the Narwhals, and I don’t have the kind of leash stars get. One bad reputation, one too-many-minors label, and suddenly you’re not “physical,” you’re “undisciplined.” Suddenly you’re the problem.

I don’t need help making myself expendable.

I get to the box expecting to see Charlie, the gray-haired sexagenarian who’s been the penalty timekeeper for the Narwhals since the beginning of time—or at least all of my tenure with the team—holding the door open for me with a patient, nodding smile and a roll of tape in one hand. Instead, there’s a much younger guy. Late twenties, maybe. Lean, pen tucked behind one ear, black quarter-zip with the arena logo—an abstract iceberg in varying shades of blue—instead of the rink-issued jacket Charlie used to wear.

He’s cute in a slightly disheveled librarian kind of way, with his rumpled, dirty blonde hair, a dusting of freckles across his nose, and warm hazel eyes that don’t flinch when they meet mine. Not that I’m noticing as I come to a stop outside the box, my skates biting into the ice.

“Hey.” He opens the door. “I’m Milo. Tough call.”

“Tanner,” I say automatically, even though odds are he already knows who I am. Then I add, brittle, “You saw that?”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “Hard to miss.”

He waves me in. “Two minutes. I’ll let you know when you’ve got thirty seconds left.”

I take a seat on the cold aluminum bench and fix my attention on the clock. Time seems to slow when you’re in the sin bin. Every second my team’s a man down seems like an eternity.

I sit there and sweat it out, elbows on my knees, visor fogging with every breath. You feel useless in here. Too close to the action to forget it, too far to do anything about it. The crowd roars every time the puck clears our zone, groans when it doesn’t, and every sound hits sharper through the glass.

Milo doesn’t hover. He stands off to the side, eyes on the ice, one hand resting loosely on the latch like he’s done this a thousand times.

I glance at the clock again. A minute gone. Still plenty of time left for them to score.

Pittsburgh sets up in our zone, and my stomach freefalls. This is my fault. I should’ve kept my stick down. Should’ve swallowed it when the ref blew the whistle. Sergei will never say anything—he never does—but I know better than to give teams a free look at our goalie. Even if Erik Nilsen is one of the best in the league.

“So far, so good,” Milo says softly, like he’s reading my mind.

I grunt, not trusting my voice. The puck rims around the boards and clears. The crowd cheers, and something in my chest loosens.

I catch myself looking at him then. At the way his attention never wavers,  how he’s close without being intrusive. There’s something reassuring about it, and that’s new.

“Thirty seconds,” he says, just like he promised.

I give him a quick nod in acknowledgement, already shifting forward, muscles coiling. When the clock finally hits zero and the Legend of Zelda get item chime booms over the PA to signal the successful end of the penalty kill, he opens the door. Cold air rushes in like a valve has just been released, and I’m on my skates and gone, shaking off the penalty and everything else.

I manage to keep my ass out of the box again until halfway through the third period. We’re up 4-2 when one of Pittsburgh’s defensemen levels Lucas Varga, our top-line right winger and our second highest in points last season after Sergei, with a brutal hip check.

It’s a clean hit, but but Lucas doesn’t pop right back up. He slides hard into the boards and stays there, one knee down, glove pressed to the ice like he’s checking whether it’s still real.

The building goes quiet, the crowd frozen in their seats. I’m already moving before the ref’s arm stays down. Clean or not, you don’t admire your work when one of our guys is slow to get up. You don’t stand over him. And you definitely don’t turn away like it’s nothing.

Pittsburgh’s defenseman—big, rangy, proud of himself—takes three strides before I get to him. I don’t even think. I grab his jersey, spin him back, and drop the gloves.

He’s ready for it. They always are. This is the part everyone pretends not to understand, even though they all do.

We trade a couple that land, a couple that don’t. The crowd roars. The bench is on its feet. I hear sticks clapping against the boards behind me, sharp and approving. That sound tells me I did exactly what I was supposed to do. Message sent.

The linesmen jump in before it goes too far, hauling us apart while I’m still breathing hard, staring my opponent down. Lucas is on his feet now, skating gingerly toward the bench, and that’s all I need to see to know the penalty that’s no doubt coming my way is totally worth it.

The ref points at me. “Five. Fighting.”

Like I said. Totally worth it.

I skate back toward the sin bin with my heart still hammering, adrenaline buzzing under my skin. Sergei meets me at the boards this time, taps his stick against mine, then turns back toward the ice. It isn’t praise or a lecture. It’s acknowledgment. And that’s enough.

When I get to the box, Milo’s already got a hand on the door latch. His eyes jump from my face to my knuckles—red, scraped, and swelling fast—and something crosses his expression before he smooths it away. Concern. Or maybe curiosity.

“Welcome back.” There’s the hint of a smirk on his face as he opens the door but it’s playful, not mean-spirited.

I step inside, and for a moment the world outside the glass feels distant. Milo’s leaning back against the narrow ledge along the wall, one knee bent, stopwatch clipped to his belt. His gaze lingers on me long enough to feel like a choice and one eyebrow edges up, like he’s already figured out that I notice him noticing me.

“Five minutes,” he reminds me as if I’m not already fully aware of my sentence.

“Do I still get my thirty second warning before I’m sprung out of here?”

“Of course.” He lets the latch click shut and steps back, giving me space to drop onto the bench. The hard metal bites through my pads. “Nothing but top-tier treatment for our hometown boys. Especially ones who protect their own.”

I snort. “Glad my reputation precedes me.”

“Occupational awareness,” he shoots back, sitting on the opposite end of the bench. He reaches underneath for a squeeze bottle and hands it over. “Water?”

I take it, drink deep, feel the cold cut through the burn still riding my bloodstream. When I lower it, his attention shifts. Not to my face this time, but to my hands resting on my thighs.

“Sorry.” He gestures to my knuckles. “Wish I had something for those.”

“I’ll live,” I say with a shrug. “As long as we keep them off the board.”

A corner of his mouth curves. “I’ll have to pretend I didn’t hear that. As part of the off-ice officiating crew, I’m supposed to remain neutral.”

“Noted.”

Charlie would’ve just grunted at me. Maybe slid the door shut a little harder than necessary. He’d been efficient, invisible, the kind of guy who treated the penalty box like a waiting room you weren’t meant to get too comfortable in.

Milo, on the other hand, is present. Engaged. Like he’s actually watching the game—and me—at the same time. It’s disarming in a way I don’t have a word for, and I don’t love that I’m already clocking the difference.

And I really don’t love how much time I have to study him. If I thought two minutes in the box was purgatory, five is a lifetime. A lifetime in which I catalogue the tilt of his head when he leans against the wall, the long fingers that flex idly over the edge of the bench, the curve of his jaw under the scruff of stubble.

I adjust my gloves. Jesus Christ, I’m a fucking idiot. Ogling the penalty box attendant when I should be paying attention to the damn game. I’ve known that I’m gay forever. But that doesn’t mean anyone else knows it, beyond a few anonymous hookups. Not my family. Certainly not anyone in the NHL, which isn’t exactly known for being particularly LGBTQ-friendly.

And if I want to keep it that way, I need to keep my focus—and my eyes—on the ice. Not on a member of the rink staff. Someone I sure a fuck shouldn’t cross lines with.

The glass in front of the box rattles as Sergei crushes a defender into the boards shoulder-first. My head snaps up and the game comes roaring back, every one of my nerves on edge. I’m usually on the second penalty kill unit, but with me in here my defensive partner, Kyle Hanratty, is taking my place. I hold my breath the whole time he’s out there, letting it out only when the first unit hops back over the boards to finish things off.

The seconds crawl. Sticks clack, skates hiss, the crowd swells and drops like surf. Milo leans back against the wall beside the door, his posture easy and relaxed, apparently unaware that we’re sitting in a pressure cooker with plexiglass. He watches the play, not just the puck but the lanes opening and closing, the way Pittsburgh tries to cheat a man high.

He’s good at it—tracking, anticipating—and I don’t know why that surprises me. Most off-ice officials have logged their hours somewhere in the game. Played junior, reffed lower levels, worked rinks since they were kids. So that awareness seeps in whether you’re on skates or not.

“They’re loading up on the half wall,” he says, almost to himself.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’s their look.”

A beat passes. Another. Kyle blocks a shot and limps to the bench, and I wince in sympathy.

Milo glances at me. “You look like you’re about to jump through the glass.”

“Comes with the job,” I say. “Sitting still isn’t really my thing.”

“You don’t say.” He gives me a brief, sideways look. It’s gone almost as soon as it’s there but I swear there’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes. I try to ignore the split-second jolt it sends through me. “I’ll add that to the scouting report.”

The first unit clears the zone again and the crowd roars its approval. I exhale, shoulders finally dropping a bit. Milo checks the clock mounted above the box, then his watch, precise and intentional.

“Thirty seconds.” He twists the edge of the lanyard holding his ID badge between his fingers. “Don’t say I never do anything nice for you.”

I push up off the bench, palms already itching for my stick. “Top-tier service,” I tell him, echoing his comment earlier. “I’ll leave a review.”

“Please don’t,” he says dryly, reaching for the latch as play swings back toward our end.

The Zelda chime blasts again, and Milo swings the door open. I launch myself out of the box, muscle memory taking over as I put everything I’ve got into my next shift. The rest of the period blurs by in a series of blocked shots and dumped pucks, our bench loud and locked in. We hold them off, the horn mercifully ending things before they can tie it up with their goalie pulled and an extra attacker.

4–3. Home opener in the books.

I peel off my helmet on the way down the tunnel, sweat cooling fast, the rush tapering off. In the chaos of handshakes and fist bumps, I forget about the box. About Milo. About everything except the win.

Until I don’t.

I catch sight of him near the end of the corridor by the rink doors, credential lanyard still around his neck, talking with one of the linesmen. He laughs at something, and for a second it hits me again, that sideways pull. Easygoing. Quick-witted.

And dangerous. Especially for a guy like me.

I look away first. Whatever that was in the box, it stays there. He’s rink staff. I’m a player. Home ice doesn’t mean home field advantage when it comes to limits you don’t push. I’ve built an entire career on knowing when to keep my mouth shut and lay low.

This is no different.

I head for the locker room with the rest of the guys, skates clomping, sticks rattling, already telling myself the same thing I’ve told myself a hundred times before.

Some things are easier left alone.