Page 15 of Unlovable Player

We might not have the communication down yet, but at least Gray is fast to pick up on signals and we manage to make it through the first period without any major disasters, somehow.

We get sloppy in the second, but so do UConn and when their best D-man is sent to the sin bin, UConn pull off a shorthanded goal and that rocks our moral as well as our ego.

Hayes gives the puck away and in a scramble to redeem himself, ends up giving away a penalty and getting into a fight.

Coach pulls Hayes off and puts me in with Donoghue and Gray and Gray wins an offensive-zone draw in the left circle, Donoghue picking up the puck and sending it into the back of the net.

Fuck,the silent communication between those two is something else. I slap Donoghue on the back as I skate past and he doesn’t look like he’s going to bite my head off for once.

We get in front for the first time in the game when Donoghue wins the puck in a battle in the right corner and shoots a nice backhander into the back of the net, leaving UConn’s goalie dazed.

We go into the final period in higher spirits, digging deep to kill the remainder of the game. The hairiest moment coming when UConn win a power play and pull one of their defensemen in favor of an extra attacker. But Olivetti remains a brick wall and we end the game 2-1.

We gointo the locker room pumped, and rightly so. Sure, an easy win feels good, but there’s something about pulling it back from the jaws of the lion that really shows what you’ve got. There’s probably some inspirational quote about adversity in there, but if there is, then my dad never taught me that one. I didn’t exactly grow up around a lot of ‘adversity.’ I’m sure my grumpy, Jersey boy captain would agree with that.

He nods at me from the other side of the bench while he pulls his pads off. His cheeks are that nice ruddy color again and his hair is all sweaty from where his helmet was flattening it.

“Good game Yale,” he says, slapping me on the back as he passes on his way to the shower.

I don’t realize I’m grinning until I notice Hayes giving me the stink eye from his cubby.

AUSTIN

Alot of the team do their homework in the player’s lounge at the rink, but when I really need to knuckle down and get shit done, I go to the library. It’s hard to focus when they’re all talking about hockey and girls and what they’re doing on the weekend. I need to be around the hard-core students. The ones who came to college to actually get an education.

I get myself set up in the library before practise and put my phone on silent for the next hour. Just enough time to get some work done and make sure I actually keep up with the school part of being in college.

I text my ma just to let her know I’m okay. I could hear the stress in her voice after last night’s game. I forgot I’d even been hurt. As long as it doesn’t result in a lasting injury, it doesn’t count. But to my ma, every little scrape and bruise is like someone breaking something important to her.

There’s a message waiting for me from Alyssa, but I ignore it until I’m on my way to the rink. Grabbing something to eat on the way, I wolf down a breakfast wrap and send her a casualheybefore putting my phone away again.

Do I even want to be in contact with my ex? Ma was right, we didn’t end on bad terms, but every time I think about her, it’s like an old wound opening up again.

I put it out of my mind for now and focus on practise. Coach has a lot to say about our disorganization in the first two periods of last night’s game, but he goes surprisingly easy on us.

“Go and rest up,” he tells us after practise. “Be fresh for our game against Harvard on Saturday.”

Yale is uncharacteristically quiet as he changes at the end of my bench. He’s just taking his pads off when I glance over and I get that twisted feeling in my gut I used to get when he’d taunt me over the puck. Grinning and winking at me. Does knowing he’s gay change how fucking annoying that always was?

I think about Gray joking that he must have a crush on me and my stomach drops. If he had a crush on me, there’s no way he’d act like that. You don’t joke about that shit with people you actually like. Surely?

He hasn’t acted that way since he joined the team, but then I guess I’m not the enemy anymore. I try to remember if I’ve seen him taunting anyone else with the winking and shit, but I can’t think of a single one.

He looks over and catches me watching him and I pretend to have my attention caught by something on the wall behind him. He grins and that same bubble of anger resurfaces and I have to remind myself he’s on my team now. I am not allowed to hate him.

Coach asks me and Hayes to see him in his office. Is he chewing us out over last night’s game? Hayes didn’t play his best, and he made a few mistakes, but they didn’t cost us the game.

I might be the captain, but Coach outranks me, and I have to defer to him on this stuff and just be there to give Hayes a pep-talk after if he needs it.

“Take a seat please gentlemen,” Coach says, gesturing to the two chairs put out in front of his desk. I’ve always liked how he calls us ‘gentlemen,’ not ‘boys’ like I was used to being called on junior teams. This school likes to remind us any time it can that we are men now, and that we have to start acting like it.

Coach clears his throat. “We all know our last performance wasn’t up to our usual standard, and despite the win, I’m worried the lines are getting a little stale out there.”

I glance at Hayes, his face bright red. I try to mentally tell him to keep his cool. Blowing his top at Coach isn’t gonna make anything better.

“Captain Donoghue,” Coach turns to me now. “What do you have to say?”

“We had one bad game Coach, but we managed to pull it back, I’m proud of our performance in the end.”

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