Page 11 of Pucking Sweet

Most of us are in the changing room attached to the showers when Coach Andrews pops his head in. “I wanna see all the defensemen in my office before you leave,” he calls out. “Gerard, Compton, Novikov, Morrow, Hanner, Woodson—let’s go!”

“Compton’s not here,” says J-Lo.

“Find him,” Andrews shouts as he walks away.

The mood in the room quiets as we all glance at each other.

“Well, here we go, boys,” Novy says. “Moment of truth.” He claps Gerard on the naked shoulder. “J-Lo, no hard feelings if I take the left-side starting spot over you, eh?”

Gerard tugs on a shirt and punches Novy in the arm. Novy just laughs, leading the way out of the room. We run into Paulie and Woody in the hallway. Once we enter Andrews’ office, I see Compton is already there, leaning against the desk. He’s smiling from ear to ear.

“What the hell happened to you?” J-Lo asks.

Compton spreads his arms wide. “Just call me Buddy the Elf because I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it.”

Gerard sinks into the chair by the door. “Lord, help us.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve already fallen for Hot Doc,” Novy says, perching his ass on the arm of Gerard’s chair.

“Oh no. What happened to the girl from Seattle?” Woody asks, snagging the other chair.

Compton mimes zipping his lips, his eyes flashing with barely contained glee.

“Bud, wake up,” Novy says at Woody. “The Seattle girl was fictional.”

Compton bristles. “She wasn’t fictional, asshole.”

“Yeah, I gotta admit, that always sounded a bit too good to be true,” says Paulie. “It’s good you’re moving on, man.” He pats Compton consolingly on the back.

“Wait—who’s Hot Dog?” Gerard asks.

“HotDoc,” Novy corrects. Leaning in, he cups Gerard’s ear with his hand and shouts. “Doc, as in doctor. Jeezus, J-Lo, get a hearing aid there, bud.”

“The new Barkley Fellow,” I add over the guys’ laughter. Then they all start talking at once.

“She’s a total babe—”

“Did you see her tattoos?”

“Hey, asshole, she’s a doctor. She’sourdoctor now—”

“Is she married?”

“I thought she was a physical therapist—”

“She’s a smoke show,” Novy says, leaning around me to show Woody a picture of her he snapped on his phone earlier.

Woody’s eyes go wide. “Whoa.”

Paulie leans in too. “Okay, yeah…ten outta ten. Do we know, is she seeing anyone?”

Compton snatches Novy’s phone. “Dude, stop taking pictures of our doctor.”

“She wasn’t our doc yet,” he teases. “She was just ‘woman at coffee cart.’”

“Well, now she is and you’re gonna knock it off,” Compton warns. “And I’m deleting these.”

“Easy there, Jakey.” Novy snatches back his phone. “She doesn’t need you playing bodyguard. Besides, she’s so far out of your league—”

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