Page 41 of Shifting Gears

All the attention in the group suddenly zeroes in on Eleanor. Her spine straightens under the scrutiny.

“I’ve never seen one, period.”

“Are you even Canadian?” Owen asks.

Eleanor actually laughs at that. “I didn’t realize citizenship had a winter-sport requirement?”

“Just for the world’s greatest sport,” Owen says.

Ryan makes a squeaky noise of dissent. When Owen pouts, he sighs affectionately. “Right. The world’s greatest sport.” He pats Owen on the shoulder consolingly, but as soon as Owen turns away to talk to Sarah, Ryan shakes his head.

Eleanor hides her grin behind her hand.

When Dani and Owen leave to set up the nets and talk to the other team, Mila plops down in the vacant spot next to Eleanor. She’s slipping a large glove onto her right hand.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that you played hockey,” Eleanor says.

Mila shoves a slightly oversized helmet onto her head. “I’m the goalie!”

Eleanor frowns, looking between Mila’s thin frame and the large net that Dani is dragging into place nearby. “How?”

Everyone laughs like it’s some kind of inside joke. It’s Sarah who takes pity on Eleanor with an explanation.

“She’s skinny, but Mila’s the fastest catcher I’ve ever seen. She could grab a ball at the speed of light in that mitt.”

Mila shrugs, pulling her helmet’s face guard down. “People underestimate me. It makes it even funnier when I cream them,” she says cheerfully. With that, she stands up and skips happily onto the rink.

Once the game starts, Eleanor sits between Naomi—who claims to be here to support her brother but seems to cheer an awful lot when Sarah scores goals—and Ryan, who spends most of the game sighing dreamily every time Owen so much as touches the ball.

It makes Eleanor keenly aware of what position she’s in here. She’s one of the cheerleaders.

It’s hard not to have fun, even with that knowledge. Dani is a great player—not the best of the bunch, but consistent and gutsy, and she’s entertaining to watch. She does chest bumpswith Owen, lifts Mila up when she makes spectacular saves, and seems to do everything she can do to show off her strength and endurance while Eleanor watches with her legs tightly crossed.

It’s somehow both better and worse than watching Dani fight.

Because Eleanor doesn’t have to worry so much about Dani’s safety this time, she can pay more attention to the details. Details like the way Dani’s shorts ride low to reveal the bare space between her hip bones, which Eleanor wants to follow with her mouth. Or how the sweat seems to bring the angles of her body into sharper definition. How her charming, magnetic smile lights up everyone around her.

Luckily for Eleanor’s sanity it’s a short game. Dani’s team wins by two goals thanks to Sarah’s aggressive offense and Mila’s goalkeeping, and Matthew even gives Dani a respectful nod—tinged with a bit of fear, Eleanor notes—as he heads back to the opposite benches.

When Naomi rises to join Sarah and Owen on the rink, Dani plops down in her empty spot, catching a towel that Mila throws her way and mopping her face and neck with it.

“So, what did you think of your first hockey experience?” Dani asks, taking a long drink from herSpace Jam-branded water bottle. Her throat strains and flexes.

Eleanor looks away abruptly.

“It was exhilarating,” Eleanor says drily, hoping that Dani did not at any point during the game look over and see just how closely Eleanor was watching. Dani just laughs, throwing the towel over her shoulder.

“We’ll make a fan of you yet.”

Eleanor means to fire back—a half-formed quip about Dani needing to score more goals first—but they’re interrupted by a short, sweaty man from the opposing team.

He’s immediately a deeply unwelcome presence, with an uneven tan on his pale chest and a plastic bottle full of murky,brown liquid in his hand. He stands in front of Dani’s seated form, his waist far too close for comfort, and looks down at her with a grin half concealed by a mysteriously huge bump under his bottom lip.

The source of the lump reveals itself when he spits into the bottle, the saliva coming out a revolting brown. Chewing tobacco.

Dani seems just as put off by him as Eleanor is—she sighs, leaning back so as to be further from his belt buckle, and purses her lips. “Shaun.”

Eleanor remembers that name, vaguely. The driver of the truck with the obnoxious wheels. He certainly fits Dani’s description: His hair is slicked back from his face, and his beard is patchy, like he’s trying too hard to grow one on a face it doesn’t suit. Eleanor hadn’t gotten a good look at him when he roared past them that night, but she does remember that he did some pretty shoddy defense during the hockey game.

---