Page 45 of Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny

On second thought, having Lindsay and my dad at the same game seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.

Not that I planned on their paths crossing—and she hadn’t even fully committed, giving me a shaky maybe. But with my luck, if she showed, Dad would somehow know there was a girl out there distracting me the tiniest bit from hockey, and it’d be a disaster.

Thinking about it only added more pressure to the stress of the upcoming game. Our record meant we had a bye for the first round, but now quarterfinals were here, and there was a lot riding on the next sixty minutes of play time.This is it. The game that’ll determine if our season ends early or if we get to keep on playing and fighting for our chance to defend our title.

The game that’ll show Coach that I can stand the pressure of a big game, or make him think twice about his decision to start me.

A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. I rushed into the bathroom locker room, praying for it to pass. I’d never gotten this nervous before a game.

Sweat formed across my forehead and I was too cold and too hot. Once I was sure my lunch wasn’t going to make a reappearance, I went back out to where the rest of the guys were preparing for the game. Judging from the other pale faces, I wasn’t the only one experiencing higher-than-usual nerves.

“Bro, you look like you’re going to ralph,” Dane said.

“I’m fine,” I said, wiping my forearm across my forehead.

He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Megan just texted. Lindsay’s with them.” Texting right before games was frowned upon—to put it lightly—but Dane didn’t seem to care about rules very much, and he seemed just as chipper as usual.

She came. She actually came.The pressure weighing me down and turning my stomach into a tangled mess of nerves lifted, even though some of it had been worrying about her. Just having her there would help center me. It meant she cared enough to show, and happiness over that pushed everything else to the background.

For once, I was glad that Dane didn’t care about the rules.

Coach walked in and called our attention to the front of the room, going over strategies and plays. I exhaled, mentally preparing for one of the biggest games of my college career, telling myself this was only the beginning.

…

“That was a close one,” I said, but then I let the grin spread across my face.

Hudson and Dane slammed into me, our helmets rattling as they knocked into each other, and we patted heads and backs.

The air of victory hung in the air, and we basked in it for a few minutes, reliving a couple of our best plays before hitting the showers. I dressed as fast as I could, my thoughts on Lindsay.

Unfortunately, when I exited the locker room, the first person I saw was Dad, front and center, arms crossed. You’d think he’d look happy considering we just won a big game, but the same stern look he always wore hardened his already sharp features.

As the rest of the guys stepped out of the locker room behind me, several girls surged our way shouting their congrats, patting backs, and giving out hugs—and at least one of them was into smacking butts. I pushed past them, muttering “thanks” over and over. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lindsay standing away from the crowd.

She smiled at me, and my heart soared.

Then a hand came down on my shoulder and I turned to look at my dad.

“A few of those blocks were pretty sloppy, son. You need to be quicker to the corners, too—keep those feet moving.”

I gritted my teeth. “Itwasa good game. Thanks for noticing.”

The lines in his forehead deepened as he frowned at me. “Are you saying you played your best?”

“No, sir. Just enjoying the fact that we won.”

“Well, if you want to win the next game, much less the championship, you’re going to need to make your blocks count. Give the offense more time to score.”

Hudson, Dane, and Beck didn’t seem to have much problems scoring. They’d put six points on the board. We’d had to fight hard during every single play, but we’d pulled it off, and I just wanted to enjoy the high for a few minutes. To take some time to kiss my girl and properly celebrate our victory before I analyzed everything I could improve on.

“Plus, you let that show-off from the other team score in the last minute,” Dad added.

Letseemed extreme. Yes, he’d slipped past me when his defensive man set a pick and slammed into me, but my teammate had been right there to guard him. The guy had still managed to score, giving them a total of four points. A minute later the clock ran down and we won by two.

The urge to look at Lindsay again was strong, but I knew if I did, Dad would notice. Then that paths-crossing thing I’d been stressing about would happen, and I worried he’d say something mean to Lindsay. No, Iknewhe would. He’d probably call her a distraction straight to her face, and I wouldn’t blame her if she went back to fleeing in the other direction.

“I thought we could go to dinner,” Dad said.

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