Power Play Read Online Free Page A

bowl behind one of the massive bushes near the entrance to the hospital, or something. Couldn’t Mom smell it? It overtook her signature Chanel No. 5 scent. Marijuana might make people happy and mellow, but the pungent pot odor mixed with the classic Chanel made me want to vomit.
    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-weed. Do what you want. I’m fed up with my older brother and his inability to grasp the reality of adulthood. I’m nineteen and I have a full-time job. I could afford to buy the pot I smoked.
    If I smoked it.
    “Hey, man,” Joey said to Drew.
    Drew reached an arm out, offering Joey his knuckles instead of a hug. Joey knocked his fist against it.
    The birth order stereotypes in our family were completely messed up. As the oldest, Joey should be the reliable and structured one on the path to the NHL, and Drew should be the screwed-up middle child acting out for attention by smoking pot and moving to Colorado to be a ski instructor. But Joey had always been a calm kid, into reading and hanging out and my parents started Drew, their high-energy middle son, in a hockey program at an early age and he loved it. Drew had been focused on the game ever since. I don’t even think he drank. Well, he didn’t drink around us. Not even the ever-present glass of wine that the Bertuccis drank with every dinner.
    Joey, on the other hand, had always been more of a gamer—something that irked Papa to no end. Papa didn’t want us kids to sit around in the house with eyes glued to the TV all day. He wanted to lock us outside from sunup until sundown. (Though he never did actually lock us out of the safety of our home, since we lived in an unpredictable neighborhood.)
    Joey didn’t like playing hockey, or rather, he didn’t like the ice-skating part of it. Mom loves to tell the story of his first—and last—skating lesson, where he’d told my mom that the ice was “too slippery.” He tried a few other sports, but never found one he enjoyed enough to stick with long term.
    Maybe he was jealous of Drew’s hockey talent from the beginning. Maybe he was jealous because Papa was ecstatic with Drew’s interest and talent in hockey. Maybe he just wanted someone to notice that his talents lay in areas other than sports. Like the guitar and the piano and, well, videogames. They were the only things that kept his attention. But Mom and Papa pushed him to go to college. After one semester he dropped out, packed up his things, and moved to Colorado. He’d been home only twice in five years.
    And now he was back.
    In Papa’s hospital room.
    Joey inched toward Papa’s bedside, taking baby steps as if he was afraid our father would reach out and grab him zombie-style.
    “Come on over, son, I’m not going to break.” Papa’s low voice filled the awkward silence after Joey’s arrival.
    “How’re you feeling, Papa?” Joey asked. He’d finally taken a full step toward the bed and stood close enough for Papa to grab his hand. A very un-Papa-like thing to do.
    “Save me, Joey. They’re treating me like I’m an invalid.”
    “You had a heart attack, Pop.”
    “A mild heart attack. Very mild,” Papa snapped, shooting angry eyes Mom’s way.
    “Point your dirty looks somewhere else, Giuseppe Bertucci. A heart attack is a heart attack.”
    Papa rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Doctor said I’m going home today. I’ll be back at work next week.”
    “Like hell you will,” Mom muttered.
    “We’re going to take care of everything while you’re resting, Papa,” I told him. “You won’t even have to think about work.”
    “I can do a lot from the computer at home.”
    “Drew moved the computer out yesterday. Absolutely no work for you, until after your checkup with the cardiologist next week.”
    Mom was a brave lady for dropping the no-computer bomb on him. I didn’t think she’d release it until Papa got home. But if he was going to wig out, better to do it at the hospital while under a physician’s direct