It’s Mother-Pucking Christmas!

29. Dakota

29

DAKOTA

“ O h my gosh!” Gracie exclaimed as the huge men on the ice collided with each other.

Rich pulled the Avengers player off, yelling something about monkeys, then the Icebreakers scored their second goal.

“Whoo!” Gracie cheered.

I was furious.

“What they hell are they doing? They’re attacking Ryder instead of playing the fucking game. If they harm one hair on his fucking head I swear to fucking god…” I swore, hauling myself upright, holding onto to the handrails as I toddled my drunk ass down the steep stadium seats.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Gracie raced behind me.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of that fucker Wagner.”

“Ooh my gosh.” Gracie hurried after me, followed by her pugs.

“Yeah, you tell ’em, Dakota!” Granny Murray whooped. “I got Mace too.”

“How did you get that in the stadium?” Gracie was apprehensive.

“I told them.” She shrugged as I staggered down the steps to the Arctic Avengers penalty box. “I told them I had Mace up my snatch but that they’d have to dig in there. The security guy was hot. Too bad he didn’t want to go spelunking. His loss.”

“Excuse me. Excuse me ,” I called to the Arctic Avengers coach.

He ignored me.

“You come to show me your tits?” One of the players leered at me.

“Don’t talk to her like that!” one of my cousins, not Gracie—apparently I’d attracted quite the crowd of my family—screamed back at him.

I addressed the coach. “Hey! Asshole in the purple tie.”

That got his attention.

“Yeah, you,” I hollered. “I have been a longtime fan for years, and you need to get your goddam players under control. They need to play hockey and stop trying to start fights we all know they won’t win.”

Gracie tried to grab me. I shrugged her off.

“You all have sucked for the past year, and you’re not going to go after Ryder because you can’t train your fucking players.”

“Fucking uppity cunt,” the coach yelled at me, cursing as Ryder scored another goal, tying the game.

“What the hell did you say to her?” My female family members crowded around, itching for a fight. Aunt Gianna took off her hoop earrings.

I tuned them out.

I wasn’t thinking, probably had too much to drink to think, when I saw the two Arctic Avengers defensemen, known for dirty fighting—that’s why we loved them—barreling toward Ryder.

If there weren’t the tall wall behind him or he weren’t in all that gear, he might have been able to get out of the way.

“They’re going to hurt him!” Gracie cried.

“The fuck they are.” I jumped into the Arctic Avengers penalty box. Ignoring the angry curses of the hockey players, I barreled through them and leapt onto the ice

“Motherfucker!” I screamed, holding my Stanley cup high. It came down on the nearest purple-shirted player, crunching into the soft part of his face under the helmet as the other player spun away from Ryder to attack me.

“Bitch!” the first player wailed, blood spurting out of his nose. His fist collided with my face.

I didn’t even feel it. I just brought the Stanley cup down on his collarbone with a sickening crack. One of the purple-shirted players grabbed my arm, twisting it and taking me to the ice, knees on my chest.

“You motherfucker!” I screamed. My fingers were trapped in the handle of the cup, twisting.

The player flew back as Ryder slammed his hockey stick into him, sending him flying. My female family members, who had swarmed the ice at this point, jumped him, causing more players to abandon the game and throw down their gloves and sticks.

“Dakota?” Ryder’s anxious face appeared in my vision. “Why are you on the ice?”

“They were going to hurt you,” I croaked. “I can’t watch you get hurt.”

Seeing motion, I grabbed the front of his jersey and hauled him to my right, just in time to catch a hockey stick to the teeth as more purple-shirted players jumped us.

It was an out-and-out brawl. Players and the rest of my family were swarming the ice.

I scooped up my Stanley cup and swung it in front of Ryder while he begged me to please stop and tried to defend me with his hockey stick.

One Arctic Avengers player tried to headbutt me and probably would have knocked me out if Ryder hadn’t bodychecked him hard.

“Don’t hit my daughter. Were you raised in a barn?” My mom was there swinging her purse, which I knew held a thousand pounds of sodas, snacks, and alcohol she’d snuck into the stadium.

It connected with the player. He went down on the ice hard.

Another Arctic Avengers player knocked into me, and I slipped on the ice and fell in a heap. A round, confused pug slid past me as I was trying to scrabble up.

Beer and blood was all over the ice. Half the stadium was screaming and throwing things, fighting with security in the stands. People were yelling for the police. Someone threw a chair.

My aunt in the announcer’s booth was yelling at her brothers to “Fucking fight! I know I taught you better than that! My twelve-year-old daughter fights better than you assholes!”

“Dakota!” Granny Murray hollered. “Down!” She pulled out the biggest can of pepper spray I’d ever seen and pulled the trigger. It took a second to register. There was a hissing noise, then a fine red mist descended over the ice.

I took a breath then doubled over, wheezing as the red fog expanded.

“How?” Gracie coughed next to me as the chemical warfare was unleashed in the stadium. “How did she get a mortar round of Mace up her vagina?”

“Because I have birthed eight children!” Granny Murray hollered as both teams, the refs, the coaches, and the fans unfortunate enough to have rink-side seats all doubled over coughing and wheezing. With tears running down my cheeks, I crawled, choking on my own snot, to Ryder. His eyes were red and watering.

“Are you okay?” I wheezed.

“No.” He wiped at my face with his gloves. “Are you?”

“I’m dying.”

“Same.”

I curled up in the fetal position next to him. “I’m glad I’m dying next to you though.” I coughed at him, trying to crawl inside his jersey.

He choked out a laugh.

“Get off him!” muffled voices yelled as gas-masked police officers slipped and slid on the ice, pulling me and my family members off the hockey players.

Handcuffs were snapped on my wrists.

“Wait.” Ryder grabbed at me.

Paramedics also wearing masks pulled him back.

“Dakota, I—” He doubled over coughing, and the EMT sprayed something in his face.

“Ryder!” I choked out. “Wait! Ryder, I’m sorry, and I love you.”

“Hey, isn’t that the Crusher?” one of the officers said and pointed, voice muffled behind his gas mask.

“He’s my future grandson-in-law! You can’t stalk family!” Granny Murray yelled.

The handcuffs came out. “You are in violation of your restraining order.”

“This is a fucking circus,” the police chief, who also happened to be my mom’s second cousin, raged. “I’ve never been so embarrassed by this family. Defending an Icebreakers player?”

“It’s Dakota’s boyfriend!” Mom yelled at him. “Some of us want grandchildren. And I can’t believe you put us in jail. Your own family. And on Christmas!”

“For shame!” Granny Murray shouted.

“You committed multiple felonies!” the police chief shrieked.

“They were trying to maim Ryder!” I shouted at him. “You should arrest the Arctic Avengers defensemen.”

“I’m not arresting any hockey players!” he yelled. “It’s already a fucking clusterfuck. I have the news media parked outside of the station. There a guy speaking Swedish talking about the Arctic Avengers fans that tried to ruin a big NHL team’s number one pick.”

“I was saving him,” I said stubbornly.

“Don’t speak to the pigs without a lawyer present!” Granny Murray yelled.

“I thought I was your favorite nephew?” The chief of police was hurt.

“You want to keep that title, sonny? You better let us out.” Granny Murray whipped off her shirt and started chanting in the crowded cell, “Free the people!”

A figure in black appeared in the doorway, scanned us, and made a disgusted noise.

“Hudson!” Gracie cried. “Did you pick up Pugnog and Kringle from animal control?”

Hudson opened up the backpack he wore to show two sneezing pugs.

“Can you let my wife out, Chief?” Hudson asked, his mouth a thin line.

“What’s in it for me?”

“How about my company offers extra security for the Christmas parade.”

The police chief wrinkled his nose. “The city council was up my ass about that.”

“If you want to come for Christmas dinner, you better let us out,” my mom warned.

“Fine, but you have to stay away from the hockey stadium.”

“Fuck no.” Nate crossed his arms. “I’d rather stay in jail.”

“I’ll cook all your favorites,” my mom promised the chief. “Dakota will make you your own personal pan of lobster mac ‘n’ cheese. No one else can touch it, and you can take all the leftovers home.”

“And an extra lasagna!” my mom’s sister wheedled.

“Fine,” the chief grumbled. “But it better be a big pan.” His keys jangled.

My family all pushed their way to the cell door.

Gracie rushed into Hudson’s arms and kissed him. “I’ll help you with parade duty.”

“Nah, I’m going to make Anderson do it. Fucker owes me.”

“Brothers.” I hauled myself up off the floor, forcing down the nausea. I wasn’t puking in the jail cell toilet; I was puking outside in the bushes like a goddamn American.

“They confiscated my Stanley cup,” I said to no one in particular as we were herded out of the police station. My nose, my mouth, and my eyes throbbed. I was pretty sure I had a broken finger, and my arm hurt.

It was worth it, though, because Ryder wasn’t critically injured. He could still skate. He’d sign a seven figure contract, go to a big NHL team, meet a nice girl who didn’t fuck him over, and have the family he’d always wanted.

I stumbled out behind my family, half propped up on Granny Murray.

“Atta girl, Dakota! You gave those boys what for. They won’t think about fucking around and finding out with you anymore, no, ma’am.”

My grandmother dragged me out into the numbing cold. If my ribs weren’t making that weird popping noise, I’d bend down and grab some snow to numb my hand.

“Next time,” Granny Murray whooped, “I’m packing boxing gloves. Man, what a night.”

“Dakota.”

“Ryder?” I croaked.

His eyes were still a little red, but he’d changed jerseys. He looked worried. “You got out of jail. Good.”

Granny Murray went to complain to a nearby cop that she wanted her things back on account of she had a bottle of alcohol and a thousand dollars of cash that she knew someone in there was planning on taking home and that violated her constitutional rights.

Ryder gingerly cupped my face. “Are you okay?”

I blinked up at Ryder in the dark. He was looking at me like I was something precious, like he loved me.

I shrugged. “Yeah. I’m good.” I looked through the tangle of my hair at him. He was so perfect.

I did not deserve him.

“You do love me.” He gave me a crooked smile. “I heard you.”

“I do,” I admitted, “but we can’t be together, Ryder.”

“But why?”

I started crying, even though it made my nose hurt. “Because you deserve someone better than me, nicer than me. Someone who will appreciate you and love you like you deserve.”

“You’re the only one I want. I’m in love with you, Dakota.” His eyes searched mine. “Besides”—he gave me a small smile—“we had premarital sex, and that means I have to marry you and make an honest woman out of you.”

“I can’t,” I sobbed. “I’m sorry I screwed up your life. Goodbye, Ryder.”

I hurried off.

He ran after me. “Dakota!”

We rounded the corner and were immediately confronted by a thousand camera flashes and swarmed by reporters, who crowded around Ryder. They were asking about the game, about the fight, about the stalker, about the dog, and about the New York team.

He was swallowed by a sea of media, separating him from me forever.