Rink

chapter five | judging

GARRETT HALE

She is so cute. That blush on her face after a simple kiss on her head.

To put it lightly, I'm fucked.

I pass the puck to Austin who hits it right into the net, past the goalie.

After a few more minutes we win, like always. Not to be a cocky bastard, but we don't lose. I don't answer any of the questions that reporters are yelling as my whole team makes its way into our locker room. It's a home game, so we didn't have to fly or drive anywhere.

I walk out the back door of the locker room not wanting to deal with any reporters.

"You fucking left me to the wolves!" Daniel screeches as he runs out to my truck. I just raise an eyebrow at him. "The reporters, obviously. I mean, I know that they are obsessed with me but come on I have a life too." He says and fixes his hair.

"Why is it that dumb shit comes out of your mouth every time it opens?" I rhetorically question and turn on my car when I see Austin coming towards my car.

"One of those stupid ass reporters knows that Kay is pregnant," He almost spits out. "This is going to come off in a very dickish way, but most of the time they find out way sooner. You should probably be happy that it took this long for them to find out," Daniel says from the backseat.

"Yeah. I know that but I don't want her to be stressed out over anything, especially not right now," He sighs, running his hands through his hair.

"How did they even find out?" I question, knowing that he and Kayla were not telling a lot of people until after, just to avoid the stress.

"Look at this bullshit," I pull up an article that just came out.

NHL NEWS
Rookie, Alejandro, confirms teammate Austin's future child is on the way. Austin's wife Kayla is a soon-to-be mother!

"I'm going to fuck up his face," Austin almost growls out and goes off running back into the arena. I pull my keys out of the ignition and follow him inside, along with Daniel.

I'm not going to stop him from getting in a few punches, but after that, I'll make him stop. I watch Austin hold Alejandro to the wall by the throat, and then start throwing punches.

After his eyes and lips are swollen, and I hear a crack in his nose I decide to cut Austin off. "Enough," I say, pulling Austin back. There were dozens of reporters swarming in so it seemed like a good time to stop it.

Our coach was also rounding the corner to walk in. "What the fuck, Austin?" He sneers out. Austin has never been someone that Coach likes, but coach keeps him around because he is a phenomenal player.

"Keep control of your rookies, coach, tell this little son of a bitch to keep his mouth shut about things that have nothing to do with him." Austin yells at him.

"What could he have possibly done that you decide to do this for?" Coach asks, still fuming while pacing up and down the hallway.

The reporters are going to have a field day with this one. I can already see it now.

Coach of nhl team yelling at players for fighting.

No, they tend to make the older guys look worse then the rookies.

Rookie, Alejandro on nhl team gets beat up by veteran, Austin for an unconfirmed reason.

Yeah, that's more like it.

I give Austin a light shove into the locker room and Alejandro a rough shove to follow him. I go in behind him.

No reporters can get into the locker rooms so it's not that big of a deal what goes on in here. Coach follows in a minute later, but by then they are already done.