Chapter 381: Keaner VII—Watching the Circus

Yeah, Keane didn’t suppose that co-ed hockey would make any serious mark on the landscape as it was, and today’s game could hardly be an ambassador for it. After the jovial novelty of the first period had wore off, something about having females on the same team in such close sweaty proximity seemed to be bugging the other guys and Keane could understand that. One of the reasons why they loved hockey so much was the boy’s club aspect of the game, he didn’t think any of the fellows were ready to suddenly switch that over so they can play nice with the ladies. Plus, as fun as it was to see these lasses get a little sweaty and dirty, the charm of that could wear off fast, and make the girls seem, not so clean and special. Not that he minded sharing a locker room at all with the women, or a bench, or the ice, in fact, but he heard enough gripes about sore limbs and broken nails to last a lifetime, and that wasn’t including the complaints from the women. “So it’s that bad huh?”

“Completely!” Forsberg growled holding his hand out in front of his eyes, free of his glove. “Shit Keane I never noticed this kind of stuff before but dammit this hangnail got loose sometime at the end of last period and it’s been bugging me ever since, Christ it hurts.”

And more importantly, it seemed to Keane that the men just much more prone to whining when there was a woman around, especially a pretty one to coo over the bump or bruise or wound.

“Well don’t pick at it,” Keane grinned, “If you rip it loose it’ll bleed and then get infected. Wait till you can get a nail file or something, you can fix it then.” Still smiling, he looked at Josefina, that sassy, saucy, sexy delicious little pepper. Her luscious mouth turned in a scowl and her expression as she looked at Peter could only telegraph complete and utter disdain with a temper only a woman of Spanish decent could showcase. “How ya doin’ senorita?”

Jo wrinkled her perfect nose. “Well I don’t got any hangnails buggin’ me how you holding up, Babe.” Ah the woman could match him blow for blow, he could tell. Sure she got annoyed but she got hot in the panties much quicker he bet.

“A lot better than Peter the Red here,” he then patted Forsberg on the back. “The pride of your Viking ancestors you are, Pete, keep it up.”

“Shut-up,” Peter mumbled still peering at his aggravated nail. “It stings more than it looks.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Keane replied.

Heh, something interesting this way comes. He leaned over the boards and flashed a smile at Adam Foote who had a whipped, pale, all together disturbed expression on his face as he skated to the bench. He swung his leg over the boards as Peter jumped onto the ice with Jo and this time, Mike Modano. Once Adam sat down, Keane draped his arm over his shoulders. “So what’s up Footer, you can tell Keanes.”

“I’m gonna kill Patty.” Foote said quietly.

“Why he gave up eleven goals, what could he have down that needs more retribution than that aye?” Hoo hoo hoo this is gonna be good! Absolutely pure unadulterated glee bubbled in Keane’s belly.

Foote swallowed loudly and then grabbed a water bottle and squirted some in his mouth, splattering the spit against the boards. He gulped and then those sad, sad eyes met Keane’s and Mike felt altogether confused between pity and joy so he decided to go with a mix of the two. “Mike, he, he told Jonathan. He told his son!”

Mike shrugged. “What?”

Foote leaned forward and hissed in a loud whisper. “Patty freaking told Jonathan about my ‘problem’ with Jennifer! He told him! How could he do that? I mean letting it slip to someone else in the locker room is one thing, hell I’ll even forgive letting it slip to the old lady but to his kid! The boy knows about me! He told the boy!” Foote groaned and dropped his head in sorrow. “How embarrassing.”

Great, Keane thought. He looked on the ice and saw Josefina deliver a pretty decent check on Alex Tanguay to send the kid flying off balance. The women were scoring the goals and getting the delicious hits, and now the guys were crying about hangnails and gossip ruining reputations. He patted Foote sympathetically on the back. “Hey there, it’s not so bad. It’s just a nasty rumor it’ll blow over, no one actually believes these things, eh, that’s why they call them rumors… or something.” Christ how high school was that?

“It doesn’t matter,” Foote groaned. “I’m ruined. For the rest of my life whenever someone looks at me in this league, they’re gonna know me as that defenseman who couldn’t get it up for his own wife. I should just retire now and die in a cave!”

Keane rolled his eyes. “Oh God, okay what did the kid say, it couldn’t have been that bad, he’s a goalie, if he’s anything like his daddy he’s gonna yap and they’ll say anything to get a rise outta ya, don’t blow it outta proportion. He’s just trying to screw with your brain honey.”

“Well it still hurt, that little shit, I’m gonna smack him around or something.” Foote sniffed oh, oh those weren’t tears in his eyes were they? Priceless!

Keaner looked at Foote and held his fingers over his eyes and mimicked a camera lens, “Click,” he said. “Kodak moment.” Foote scowled and Keane stood up and called over the bench to the blonde princess of his heart. “MIMI!”

Michele smiled dully, “Hmm?” Her blue eyes seemed devoid of spark and fire, her face drawn and exhausted. Damn if she didn’t look like a woman after childbirth.

“Footer said he’s gonna smack your boy around later, how about that?”

Michele’s amber eyebrows slid up and some of that fire returned to her eyes. “He what?” Ah and she sounded just on the cusp of anger, purr darling, purr!

Keane nodded.

“Oh shut up Keaner!” Foote snapped.

Michele narrowed her eyes. “Oh just because you couldn’t score on him? You bastard Adam I would never have thought.”

At that moment the crowd broke into tense oohs and ahs and Keane watched the ice delighted to see Jonathan making a string of saves and sending the play away from him with a long rebound. That sent the group back to Steve Hartley’s end of the ice for the kid to show off for himself. Ah, Keaner listened to it, he was certain that the audience had not been so loud the entire game as they were now. Stroke of genius to put the boys in the third period, now everyone had something definite to pull for.

“You don’t understand, Michele!” Adam exclaimed. “You didn’t hear what he said to me! Not a word!”

“Oh and big man gets his feelings hurt by puppy’s yapping yes?” Michele snapped. “It couldn’t have been that bad Adam, I’ve never threatened to harm your babies I will thank you to show me same courtesy yes?” Another dagger glare.

“Eloquently put Meems.” Keaner barked. He laughed quietly to himself remembering that time when Michele still fumbled with any sort of English words that had more than two syllables in them. He would laugh at her heartily and she would claw his ears, but not exactly push him away.

The line change arrived at that moment. Keane rubbed his hands together when he saw the exact same expression that had graced Footer’s face earlier now on Mike Modano’s. As space cleared for the new line change Modano jumped on the bench and Keaner slid up next to him. “Aw what happened sweet stuff?”

“That boy…” Modano gasped. “He’s… he’s satanic…”

“OH really!” Michele snorted as she took to the ice. “He’s just a puppy!”

“Sent from the DEVIL!” Modano exclaimed. “And before he even spoke… those eyes… that cackle…”

“Babies all of you,” Michele sniffed as she and Debbie and Danny skated to the face off circle.

“Mike!” Modano gasped and he turned to Keane with wild, dancing, haunted eyes. “He knows! He looked right through me, his eyes just went right through my forehead and read everything, he knows! He knows about me!”

Keane used a lot of energy to stay solemn. “Oh yeah? And what did he say about you sweetheart?”

Mike swallowed. “First he said… he called.. he said..”

“He said?” Keane prompted and he patted Mike sympathetically on the arm.

Mike gulped. “He called me a fag!”

Keane rolled his eyes. “Look Mikey, hey everyone knows how you ended up here, the kid’s just repeating a common rum…”

“And I told him that!” Modano squeaked, “I said stop repeating stories.”

Keane frowned. “While the play was going?”

But Modano continued as if he hadn’t heard Keane. “And I yelled to shut up cause he was a liar and then I shot the puck and he stopped it under his pad and… and…”

Keane shrugged. “And?”

“And he said that Joe wasn’t a fudge packer like me so I should just stop dreaming!” And Mike’s eyes were full of violated pain and anguish and misery. Keane wanted to laugh.

“He said that?”

Modano nodded. “How could the kid know?”

Keaner grinned. “Hey, he’s good.”

Modano groaned and leaned his face forward, his eyes closed. “Oooo what if he tells everyone else?”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t believe him,” Keane replied and he couldn’t stop laughing.