I was flying in the first period. Two shots on goal, a secondary assist on Jonah's power play tally, and the kind of puck luck that makes you feel invincible. We were up 2-1 and I was on a mission.
And then Volkov hit me.
It happened fast, the way the worst things always do. I was cutting through the neutral zone with the puck, head up, reading the play. I saw the gap and accelerated. What I didn't see was Volkov closing from my blind side at roughly the speed of a freight train.
His shoulder caught me in the chest and the world tilted. My skates left the ice. For a half second I was just floating, which sounds poetic but actually felt like being inside a car crash. Then the boards introduced themselves to my spine and I crumpled.
The whistle blew. I was on my hands and knees, trying to remember how breathing worked.
And then I was up, because screw that, and I was in his face. Volkov stood there looking at me with that same blank expression, like he'd just checked a traffic cone instead of a human being.
"The hell was that?" I shoved his chest. His chest did not move. The man was built like a Soviet-era apartment block.
He said nothing.
"You hear me, Volkov? You want to run me again? We can go right now."
Still nothing. He just looked at me, and for one insane second I thought I saw something flicker behind those eyes. Something that wasn't indifference. But it was gone before I could name it, and then the refs were between us, and Jonah was pulling me back, and the moment was over.
"Easy," Jonah said in my ear. "He's on our team, remember?"
"Tell that to my ribs."
"Your ribs are fine. Your ego took the hit."
He wasn't wrong, which I hated.
We won the game 4-2. I didn't score but I logged two assists and played nineteen minutes, which was solid. The locker room was loud and happy. Guys were spraying water bottles, music was thumping, and somewhere in the chaos Jonah was doing his post-win tradition of eating an entire sleeve of Oreos in under three minutes.
I sat at my stall with an ice pack on my shoulder, watching the celebration happen around me. The hit had been clean, technically. I knew that. It was hard, and the timing was borderline, but this was hockey. Hits happened. That wasn't why I was sitting here grinding my teeth.
I was grinding my teeth because Volkov was across the room, quietly unlacing his skates, and he hadn't said a single word to me. Not during the game. Not after. Not a "nice game" or a "good win" or even a "sorry I rearranged your internal organs in the first period." Nothing.
He pulled his jersey off and I looked away fast, which was a reflex I didn't want to examine. The guy was my teammate now. We were going to have to figure out how to coexist, and that was going to require me to stop wanting to put my fist through his face every time he looked at me.
Or didn't look at me. That was somehow worse.
Jonah dropped into the stall next to mine, half a sleeve of Oreos still in his hand. "You okay?"
"Fine."
"You're doing that thing where you say you're fine but your jaw is doing the angry clicky thing."
"My jaw doesn't click."
"It absolutely clicks. It's clicking right now."
I exhaled and leaned my head back against the wall. "I just don't get him, man. He shows up, doesn't talk to anyone, hits like he's trying to kill somebody, and then sits in the corner like the rest of us aren't worth acknowledging."
Jonah glanced at Volkov. "He's Russian."
"That's not a personality."
"It kind of is, though."
I shook my head. Volkov was going to be a problem. I could feel it in my bones, which were currently aching from his shoulder.
I grabbed my phone and checked the time. It was barely eleven. The whole night was ahead of me and I should've been celebrating with the boys, buying rounds at The Crease, living up the season opener.