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She went to the Olympics. Okay. She was a reserve member of the US Women’s Figure Skating team. She was great, but not perfect. And she was 18. She didn’t make the cut. She didn’t even get to take the ice. But he’s seen a few photos of pretty girls holding up medals, Baker in the background still in her warm-up outfit just in case.
Five years later, the girl who had her hair plastered to her head in a ridiculous bun is now throwing down her hockey stick, whipping off her gloves and shoving the massive left winger of the Kings with all her might. She manages to move him a few feet, Butch is already lumbering forward, and when Mike glances over at the bench, they’re all leaning forward ready to pounce. Al’s shouting, but what Mike can’t hear over the screaming in the stadium.
“Blip! Heads up!” he calls to his right, Blip’s head nods. His feet twitch towards the altercation that’s about to spill out across the ice.
“Already there.” Blip yells back. Mike’s eyes dart to the puck securely in the net of the Kings, the sirens signaling the goal are still going off. They’re up one goal in a game that’s been dragging on forever.
But some defensemen had to knock Baker into the boards behind the goal. And because she can never leave well enough alone because she has to assert herself on the ice, number 43 shoves a hulk of a man over a foot taller than she is.
He shoves her back. Of course he does.
And it’s on.
The refs are blowing their whistles, mostly skirting around the edge of what will turn into a warzone.
It takes Mike the longest time to get there in his heavy goalie padding, but he makes it there eventually along with Blip, Johnny, and Sonny and the rest of the other team.
By the time he gets there he’s furious, at the other player, at the refs for not calling a penalty on the guy, and at Ginny. Because she can never leave it alone. She’s gotta be aggressive. She’s not afraid of getting hit. She tells him all the time, nursing huge bruises in the ice bath while Mike tries to regain the feeling in his calves.
Fists flying, hands grasping at uniforms, Mike wades into the fray for Baker. Because dammit, she’s the fastest in the league across the ice, but she’s also so small and her teeth look better in her face than on the ice. She’s got the guy by the jersey, a tiny hand clenched in the fabric while the other arm tries to wrestle him into a headlock. Under the visor of her helmet her eye are narrowed and furious. She’s still got her mouth guard in, thank god.
Her legs go out from under her and they both go down in slow motion, the player from the other team landing on her, knocking the wind out of her chest.
He’s probably pulling his punches, a giant like him. But she’s lightning quick and she can hold her own, it takes her a second to get her bearings, grappling for dominance. Her fists flying, the guy holding her off with both hands on her shoulders.
Mike’s sweating so much he’s amazed it’s not blocking his vision. In his mammoth pads he’s slow, lumbering along. All the muscles below his navel are screaming in pain. This is literally the last thing he needs.
Black and white uniforms skirt the edge of the scrum, beginning to wade into the fray. Mike leans down, grasping Ginny’s jersey with both hands and hauling her away as hard as he can. The guy lets her go, making eye contact with Mike with the eye that’s not swelling shut. She’s still throwing ineffective punches as Mike pulls her away.
“Baker! Knock it off! Do you want to get thrown out of the game?” Mike asks, his arms straining to set he back on her feet. In a practiced move he guides from away from the fight that is beginning to die down a few feet away.
She tries to shrug him off, but he’s got a good hold on her jersey. “Don’t even think about it.” He tells her. It wouldn’t be the first time he let her go only to have her jump back into a fight.
Ginny holds up her arms, shaking her head, the braid sticking out under her helmet moving back and forth. Nonetheless, a lock of curly hair has escaped her efforts to tame it and is now plastered to her forehead under the shield of her helmet that covers her eyes.
“I’m good. I’m good.” She tells him, speech garbled around her mouth guard. “I just-“
“I don’t want to hear it, rookie!” Mike barks at her. Far from backing down, she narrows her eyes again and looks like she’s sizing him up.
The refs arrive to take her to the penalty box, as she skates by the bench, the team leans out to pat her on the back. Mike’s sure the words ‘Brawling Baker’ are up on the Jumbotron as they usually are when Ginny gets into it. Which is far too often in Mike’s opinion.
“Back to the goal, Lawson.” A ref tells Mike, pointing at the opposite end of the rink.
He slowly makes his way back to the goal as the refs announce that Baker and the guy who checked her into the wall will be facing time in the penalty box. She’s damn lucky she hasn’t been thrown out yet.
He looks over, through the Plexiglas window into the penalty box where Ginny’s putting her gloves back on, taking a drink of water from a green bottle, and checking the laces on her skates. She looks over at him, smirking.
Now she’s really trying to piss him off.
They struggle through the rest of the period, with Ginny out for the penalty they’re down a center for the next two minutes. The Kings send a volley of shots their way, with Mike having to nearly get into the splits to block the puck from crossing the line. The horn sounds, signaling the end of the period—that god. Mike makes a horrifying grunting noise as he picks himself up off the ice, his knees throbbing at the effort.
They’re all cagey in the locker room, they’re up by one goal, but with one period left Mike’s sure that the Stars are going to get desperate and more aggressive.
Ginny’s sitting across from him on a bench, taping up her knuckles, one of which looks like it’s swelling. After her second attempt to wrap her hands Mike’s had enough. He drags his tired body over to her and sits down heavily beside her.
“Do you want to have a career?” he asks her, taking her hand probably more aggressively than he meant to. She winces, not pulling away. “Because you’re going to break something serious and it’ll be a full season of recovery. And by that time we’ll have a dozen more girls on the team, so you’ll have to work on the Ice Crew.”
“Mike.” Ginny says in a warning way, going to snatch her hand back from him. “Shut up. Let me do what I need to do.”
Mike concentrates on taping the second knuckle on her left ring finger. He stares at it silently for a second. “I need you whole on this team, Baker. I can’t have you fighting someone every time you get checked.”
The side of her mouth tightens. He knows that look. It’s the look Ginny does when she’s presented with the wrong order in a restaurant, the one she gets when someone calls her a great player for a girl.
“What is it?” Mike asks, leaning in. Al’s chewing out Johnny and everyone else is watching. They have a moment.
She sets her jaw, leveling him with a hurt look. “He said he liked the photos.”
A boiling rage fills Mike as his eyes go wide and his hand tightens around hers involuntarily. “Ow!” Ginny gasps, wrenching her hand out of his. “Mike, it’s fine. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“I’m gonna kill him.” Mike tells her in a low voice, running a hand through his beard, longer now that they’re in the playoffs. He imagines it vividly.
Now it’s her turn to tell him off, “Don’t you dare. We need your glove out there.” She punches him lightly on the shoulder.
“Okay. Okay. “ He tells her, holding up his hands in defeat.
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They throw Mike out of the game for sucker-punching the guy the second he’s within range in the third period. He makes a dull-thudding sound as he hits the ice and then Mike is on him.
“I know what you said.” Mike yells between blows. The guy realizes at that moment he is well and truly fucked. “If you so much as say a word to her again you won’t be able to drive a Zamboni.”
“Whoa!” Blip tries to intervene. But it takes three refs to pull them apart.
Ginny stands ten feet away from Mike when they make him leave the ice. She bangs her stick against the ground twice, her mouth curling into a smile around her mouth guard.
“Not bad for an old man, huh?” He yells back at her. She cocks her head to the side, considering him.
They’ll have words about this at home later.