Page 8 of The Game

The entire conversation is beyond ridiculous, so I scoop a puck off the sidelines and send it down the ice to practice shots on the empty net.

I let one fly at each corner of the net, retrieving it after each shot. The last one flies wildly off my stick, ricocheting off the bar with a metallic clang after something catches my eye. Golden hair hanging over the purple shoulders of a long-sleeved shirt with the distinctive gold Lightning logo on the front.

She waves at me as if there’s any chance in hell I’m going to be happy to see her.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter under my breath.

Everything inside me is screaming to just ignore her, but I can’t do it. She’s got me all shaken up already and practice hasn’t even started.

The normally relaxing feeling of smooth ice under my skates does nothing to soothe my agitation as I speed over to the glass, yanking my helmet off my head. “What are you doing here, Charlene?”

Her smile doesn’t dim a single watt under my glare. Seeing that smile used to brighten my mood after a crappy day at school, or a losing game. Now it has my stomach pitching and bile burning the back of my throat.

“I came to watch you play.” She keeps on smiling, waggling her fingers over my shoulder at the rest of the team.

“You’re not welcome here. Please leave.”

“I was told Lightning practices are open to students. I’m a student, so here I am, and look.” She spins around, tossing her hair over her shoulder to reveal the back of her shirt. Fuck that.

“Take it off.”

She turns back around, head tilted to the side, cunning eyes gleaming. “Sure. Wanna come back to my place?”

Unfuckingbelievable. “No thanks. But I don’t want the rest of my practice fucked up by thinking of you with my name on your back. I want you to leave, and I never want to see you in this arena again. Ever.”

That smile finally dims a bit, slipping into a pout. “Fine. I’ll leave today, but I won’t promise not to come back to the arena. That’s crazy. I’m going to be here to watch your games. I’ve missed seeing you play so much, baby. You don’t understand. You haven’t given me a chance to explain what happened. I was messed up, Cole. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

My eyes travel up to the high ceiling, and I have to drag in a deep breath to keep myself under control. The urge to punch the glass is trembling down my arm. She can’t do this to me. She can’t mess up my second chance. I’ve been doing fine here. Away from her and him. My old team that I used to love. No way. I can’t be thinking about her at every game when I need to be proving myself.

“Get out.” All the rage comes roaring out of my mouth, since I would never use my fists on her.

She jumps as the words echo across the ice, and everything goes silent. The swish of skates, and crack of sticks comes to an abrupt halt.

“Fine.” I lift a single eyebrow at her when her mouth falls open, as if she thinks any words are going to get her out of this situation.

There’s not even any satisfaction at the sight of her retreat since I have to see my name on her back when she turns around.

I lift a shaky hand to brush a lock of hair off my forehead, sighing and turning around, trying to salvage this practice. Everyone is staring at me, eyes wide, mouths open. Great. I can see them all reassessing their opinion of me. Apparently, I’m now the guy the neighbors “Never would have believed was capable of that.”

I throw up a hand to ward off the comments that are about to come flying at me. “Can we please just get this practice going?”

The way they all hurry back into action is alarming. They really think I’m a psychopath now. Great.

My skates are practically vibrating when we hit the ice, so I push myself past my usual speed, blasting by my teammates. I’m a sweaty, shaking mess after we’re finished with our warmup laps. Coach divides us into small groups to run some drills as I rip my helmet off, running a hand through the dripping strands of my hair.

Great, of course I’m paired with Grant and Hail. The freshman was clearly the star of his junior team, but he let it go to his head, and is unbearably cocky. Didn’t even bother to show up for practice on time. At least he missed my blowout withCharlene, but Coach is going to hand him his ass after practice. Probably won’t do anything to shrink that ego of his. Doesn’t seem to matter how many times he gets taken down by one of the senior members of the team, he always bounces back with a heap of sass. My mind is in way too much turmoil to deal with the rookie’s attitude right now.

We’re doing a one touch passing drill facing off against Dev and two of the younger D-men. Assistant Coach Bauer drops the puck, blasting his whistle as soon as we’re in place on the face-off dot. I push off, snagging the puck and driving forward to take a shot before defense descends on us. Our second line goalie isn’t prepared for my immediate assault, and it slides in right under his stick.

The piercing whistle from Hail slices right through my eardrum.

“Fuck, dude! Too loud.”

He just laughs at me, chasing the puck that’s back on the ice. The play is fast and furious and gets rougher with each reset.

Hail seems to have made it his personal mission to get the most goals, even though this is supposed to be a teamwork exercise. Not that I was setting the right tone when I took off with the puck as soon as we started. Any semblance of calm and control that I got from skating myself into the ground during laps is decimated by his obnoxious comments every time he scores a goal.

“I bet you wish you handled your stick as well as I handle mine, Schaeffer.” He skates backward, shaking his stick at me, and the little voice on my shoulder is telling me to snap it in half.

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