Page 29 of My Best Bet

Even though my feet were now burning, I didn’t want to take off my skates just yet. If I did, that’d signal another day of practice gone, and that just meant I was that much closer to regionals.

Plus, it was Friday. As soon as I left the rink, I’d be alone for the whole weekend.

My mom left this morning to go spend time back home with my dad. We lived about three hours from the rink, so when Iryna agreed to take me on as a student, Mom and I moved into an apartment right across from Centre Ice. The plan was always for dad to move out this way too, but he couldn’t find a job out here. So now we kind of just lived in this funk where Mom would spend the week here with me, then go back to him on the weekends.

I knew I had absolutely no room to complain about the loneliness I felt over the weekends because it was a sacrifice I had to make if I wanted the opportunity to skate with Iryna and hopefully make the next National team.

I just really hoped I wouldn’t completely blow the opportunity.

Instead of unlacing my skates, I closed my eyes and tried to mentally run through a perfect program. I was just landing a perfect throw jump in my head when someone shoved open the door.

My eyes flashed open to see a hockey player storm in, whip off his helmet, and throw it against the wall with force.

I jumped at the noise. At the violence.

He bit out a curse and whirled around to see me.

It washim.

His tense face went slack when he saw me. His padded shoulders fell. He shook his head and bit out another curse. “I’m sorry. This is…” He lifted a hand to gesture at the room. “Not my locker room, is it?”

I practically held my breath as I shook my head at him.

He grabbed at his damp hair for a second. “Worst fucking day,” he muttered under his breath. Even under all his equipment, I could tell his chest was moving rapidly with uneven breathing. He stalked over to his helmet. “Sorry,” he said again without looking at me.

He was about to storm out of the room, but I didn’t want to let him walk away. Not yet, not when he was like that. “Is everything… okay?”

He paused. He looked so much larger on skates and in his uniform. He looked as big as a man. But his face was the same. The face I couldn’t seem to get out of my head. He dropped his forehead against the locker room door. “No,” he breathed out.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He waited a full minute, then slowly turned and looked around the room, taking in that we were alone. When he finally spoke, his eyes darted around, like he was scared to see what I was thinking. “My coach, he’s… he’s such a dick. He basicallycalled us all pathetic, saying we were giving out love taps instead of real hits. Said he’d bench us if we didn’t start playing rougher. So I threw some hits. Some…” his chest heaved, “big ones. And now…” He clenched his jaw and looked away. “The kid went into the boards weird. It wasn’t…” He shook his head. “And then after, he was holding his arm. It looked bad. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I… God,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut. “I fucking hate when stuff like that happens. Now I can’t play the rest of the game, whatever, but he’ll probably be out for a while, and that just doesn’t feel right. I didn’t mean for that… for that to happen.” His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow and his shoulders fell, like he had no clue what to do with everything he was feeling.

“Can I… say something?” I asked hesitantly.

His wary eyes finally landed on me. He nodded.

“You guys are going a million miles per hour and slamming into each other. Stuff is going to happen,” I said. “It was an accident; you can’t beat yourself up about it. It’s not like you went out of your way to hurt him, did you?”

“No.” He closed his eyes and sucked in air through his nose. He gave a slight nod. When his eyes finally opened, he pointed to the bench next to me. “Can I sit here?”

I gave a quick nod.

He plopped down about two feet from me and leaned against the wall, his long legs sprawled out. He raked a hand over his sweaty hair, making it stick up at odd angles. “So, why are you in here all alone?”

I shrugged.

He glanced at me, then did a double take. “Woah, what happened to your neck?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” I zipped my jacket up further, trying to hide it.

His eyes narrowed. “It’s all red. Did someone hurt you? Did someone…” His face hardened and his throat bobbed with a swallow. “Did someone put their hands on you?”

“No, no,” I said quickly, touching his jersey-clad arm. “Nothing like that.”

He stared down at my hand on him. “Then… What happened?”

“I’m… allergic.”

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