Deke: Taken from the word "decoy" a deke is a fake by a player in possession of the puck in order to get around an opponent or make a goalie move out of position. To deke, you move the puck or a part of your body to one side and then in the opposite direction.
"I slept with Kathy." Elliot kept his eyes trained on the puck being shuffled between the black skates advancing on him as he glided backward across the ice. No sooner than the words had left his mouth, the stick in the hands of his longtime friend Aidan Murphy jerked suddenly, flipping the solid disc of rubber up and toward his head. He made a quick dodge to the right, nearly causing himself to lose his footing, saved only by a sideways skid to a stop. His blades sent a flaky shower of shaved ice into the air as they carved a place to park. Murphy, for his part, had stumbled forward at Elliot's admission, thereby causing the involuntary chip of the puck. He recovered quickly, sliding to a stop facing his best friend. The two men turned their heads simultaneously to watch as the black disc came to an eventual stop across the blue line down the ice. "Jesus Christ, Murphy! The hell was that?" Elliot found himself bringing the palm of his left hand—his stick still in his right—to his temple, where he'd feared the puck would graze him.
Murphy stared evenly at his friend, leaning all of his weight casually on the stick in his right hand, using it as a crutch to prop himself up. With his left, he made a sweeping, open-handed gesture to demonstrate the level of his incredulity. "Seriously, Stabler? You're asking me what that was?" At Elliot's non-responsive expression, he continued, "You just drop the news on me that you slept with your ex-wife like…" He paused to jut a pointed finger in Elliot's direction the instant his mouth had opened in protest. "Don't even start, man. You slept with your ex-wife, and that is what she is: your ex-wife. The papers are signed, sealed and delivered. And now you went and slept with her? Just what exactly did you want me to do with that information?"
Elliot furrowed his brows. "I don't know." And he didn't. "Practice a little puck control, maybe?"
"Oh, no no no, don't you talk to me about puck control." Murphy cut his blades into the ice, skating away to retrieve the errant puck. Still facing Elliot, he called out, "I think it's you who needs to practice a little fuck control."
"Fuck control? What the hell is that?" Elliot hollered back.
Skidding to a stop in front of his friend, Murphy sighed. "Okay, let me explain this to you, man." He paused momentarily to drop the puck between them, initiating a face off. Elliot snatched the puck with his stick, heading up the ice. Murphy skated along backward, still facing Elliot, attempting to steal the puck away as he spoke. "See, what happens when you sign divorce papers is you become single. No longer married. Available. To other women." Neither man moved their eyes away from the puck, but Murphy could sense the mocking expression on Elliot's face nonetheless. "Now, as a single man myself, I know a thing or two about availability."
Elliot snorted. He removed a hand from his stick and quickly brought it to his mouth, coughing the phrase "man-whore" into it before replacing it just below the tape on the handle.
Murphy grinned to himself. "Dude, as a single man, you are in charge of your own sexual destiny. It's all about having control. You say who, you say when…"
"Christ, Murphy, how many times have you seen Pretty Woman lately? Next thing you're gonna be telling me I get to say 'how much', too."
"How many times have you seen Pretty Woman lately?" Murphy countered.
"Only that one time overseas when someone sent the unit that care package full of VHS tapes."
"Yeah, no shit. I know about that time—I was there. But if you think I'm gonna believe that you remembered that line after seeing the movie one time that many years ago, you've got another think coming, m'friend."
"And you'd never remember it enough to use it after all these years only having seen it once, Murph. Spill it," Elliot ordered.
Murphy narrowed his eyes. "Alright, fine. I may or may not have watched it on a date with that PR rep last week." Elliot smirked, prompting his friend to add, "What? Come on. Chicks dig that shit." The smirk dissolved into laughter. "Yeah, you laugh now, but…" he took the opportunity afforded by Elliot's amused state of distraction to reach out with his stick, hook the puck away and skate off in the opposite direction.
Elliot, forced to perform a quick change of foot, circled back around in front of Murphy, trying to retake the puck. "Okay, I may or may not have watched it again before a slumber party Maureen was going to have when she was twelve and wanted to play it for her friends. Parental approval and all."
With a snort, Murphy made a swift move to one side, pushing the puck into the net with a casual wrist shot. He slid to a stop, Elliot doing the same next to him, bringing them shoulder to shoulder. Murphy looked to his right, casting Elliot a doubtful stare. Even with only a view of his profile, Murphy knew his friend could sense his eyes on him by the way the left side of his mouth was curling up in a sly grin. "Yeah, you were never gonna let 'em watch it, were you?"
Elliot threw the full grin at Murphy. "Hell no."
Murphy shook his head, laughing at the mental image of his then twelve-year-old goddaughter asking her Catholic cop father if she could show a movie about a Cinderella-esque prostitute at her slumber party. Elliot had skated the short distance to the net to retrieve the puck and Murphy fell in next to him as he made his way back to center ice. "Now, as I was saying, fuck control is…"
"Jesus, Murph, you're not still on that?" Elliot rolled his eyes for effect.
"Damn straight I'm still on that. That," he jabbed Elliot in the upper arm with a pointed finger a few times, "is a very important part of your bachelorhood education."
"I'm not a bachelor," Elliot insisted.
Ready to face-off, in more ways than one, Murphy stopped at center ice, waiting for the special victims detective to come around across from him. "You're single. You're a man. That makes you a bachelor."
Elliot dropped the puck to the ice between them, gave the man from homicide a resigned glance before returning his eyes to the black disc and uttering, "Go." He snagged the puck away from the middle, Murphy casually gliding backward in front of him, more consumed with making his point than taking possession.
"Your sex life is like the rest of your life, Stabler. It's all about choices—having them and having the self-control or fuck-control, as the case may be, to make good ones. Allow me to explain."
"Oh, please do," came the sarcasm-coated reply.
"Example number one:" Murphy released a hand from his stick just long enough to brandish an index finger at his friend, "the one night stand. Prostitute…" Elliot's stick faltered, though he recovered quickly, "…bad choice. Hot bartender at O'Brien's…good choice."
"Classy, Murph."
The comment went ignored.
"Example number two:" he repeated the release with the addition of a second finger to the hand sign, "the instance that you are attempting to create or build on a relationship. Ex-wife who you finally divorced after two years of separation…bad choice. Sinfully gorgeous and…"
"Don't say it, Murphy," Elliot cautioned, his voice low and venomous. Any time the word "sinfully", its root, or any of that root's derivatives spill from Murphy's mouth, Elliot knows instantly that he could only be referring to one person.
Always one to believe that caution was best when being carried away by the wind, Murphy, of course, said it. "Sinfully gorgeous and single partner who you lose your mind without…good choice."
"Murphy, I swear to God…" Elliot pushed the puck to one side, Murphy stopped in place, rotating his body to watch Elliot take a frustrated swing at the puck.
The stick connected with the sort of resonating crack that Murphy imagined would be produced by the same stick connecting with his skull. Or perhaps that would result in more of a thud. Either way, he figured that taking a stick to his head was a consideration Elliot had coursing through his mind at that moment. If there were a little man inside the brain in charge of operating one's mental-to-verbal filter, Murphy was pretty sure that his just now shrugged and remarked that it wouldn't be the first time Elliot would have considered such action. In fact, he was relatively certain that his microscopic filter operator spent most of his time sitting on his ass reading dirty magazines.
Go figure.
Of course there was the occasional time—probably when the operator was jacking off somewhere—when the whole system would get fucked up and stuck in the "on" position, furiously trying to ebb the flow of any and all inappropriate comments on their way to the vocal chords.
These were the times when Aidan Murphy just shut up.
This was not one of those times.