Chapter 21
“So he said, ‘Look, you little punk, if you don’t want your brains splattered all over the ice, you’ll stay the hell away from my goaltender.’”
Leaning forward, Oriana gave a sharp inhale. “Thornton? From Minnesota? He’s what, almost a foot taller than you? Weren’t you worried that you’d get creamed?”
Vanek draped his arm across the backseat and toyed with Oriana’s hair. “Naw, I knew I could take him.”
“So what did you do?”
Sloan couldn’t help but grin as Vanek embellished the tale. The tension between him and Oriana had grown slack at some point between Vanek’s excited minor league chatter and his colorful retelling of his first days as a pro. The boy made it very hard to stay in a bad mood.
“. . . well, then Thornton picked my pocket and shot toward the net. Giroux had h
