Page 55 of Replay

And he was off.

There was something wrong with us and it was Coach’s job to figure it out and find a solution, but hell if I knew what it was. We did good in practice, but when the game started, when it counted, we fell apart. It obviously related back to last season, when we’d totally fucked up the overtime in that last important game. But how to fix it? No idea.

Normally practice the morning after a game with a back-to-back happening was optional. Tomorrow it was not. Coach couldn’t work us too hard with another game to play, but he was pissed, so we were skating in the morning.

Once Coach had finished ripping us a new one, Cooper made everyone go out for something to eat. Most of us wanted to crawl back to the hotel and forget the game as soon as possible, but when our captain said we had to meet up, we did.

He’d found an Italian place not too far away and ordered massive quantities of food and beer for us. Once we’d all gathered around some pushed-together tables, he stood. “When these pitchers are empty, it’s water for everyone. Don’t overeat or coach will kill us at practice in the morning. And that is the last we’re mentioning hockey tonight. Anyone who does is paying the tab.”

So, we were team building.

It wasn’t easy to get the conversation going, not when we couldn’t talk about our jobs, which were hockey, or our favorite sport, which was hockey, or what we were doing tomorrow, because, again, hockey.

“Ducky—what were you smiling about to get Coach pissed off?”

I swallowed the mouthful of pasta I’d been chewing. “I wasn’t the reason Coach was pissed.” That rant had definitely been earned by the whole team.

“Warning, Ducky.”

I nodded at Cooper. That was getting close to having to pony up for the food. “Katie sent me a message.” I looked over at our captain. “But I can’t say what it was about.”

Crash elbowed me in the ribs. “Dirty stuff? Or just the thing that cannot be named?”

“Not dirty stuff.” Though that would have been nice. At least the text meant she wasn’t ghosting me.

“But it was still good?”

My mouth twisted as I considered. Not being ghosted was good. But that text was baseline good. Something more friend-y, like asking about getting together when I was back, would have been better. Talking about kissing again would have been excellent.

I shrugged. “Better than nothing.”

Then I felt bad. Anything Katie was good. I was lucky she was giving me a chance to be friends again.

“What’s better than nothing?” someone asked from down the table.

“Ducky’s girl. But we can’t say what it is because we can’t talk about it.”

“Ducky’s girl is better than nothing? You can do better, Duckman.”

I couldn’t let that go. “Katie is way better than nothing. That’s not what we were talking about! She sent me a message, and we were just figuring out what it meant.”

“Did she ask to see your lightsaber?” Oppy asked.

I glared at him. That had been embarrassing. Both times. And was why I didn’t trust my interpretation of texts.

“No!”

“Remember that time the woman got his number and asked that?”

“No. What happened?”

I dropped my head into my hands.

“Ducky was thrilled and asked her over. He invited her to his bedroom, where he has all his Star Wars stuff. She headed straight for his pants.”

Yeah, she’d been using lightsaber to mean something else. But how was I supposed to know?

“So you hooked up instead?”

---