Page 22 of Pucking the Team
“I’m holding up.” I glanced at the rucked-up bedding and remembered how I’d cried myself to sleep. It had been real ugly crying with hot, bitter tears.
“You are very brave, and very…what is the word, coolheaded.”
“I try to think rationally.”
He was pouring tea from a pot. “This will help, no?”
“It will. Thanks.” I took the steaming mug.
“And this?” He lifted off a steel dome to reveal scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns.
“That will also help.” My mouth watered.
“Can I join you?” He revealed another full breakfast. “I also slept late. Mornings are not my thing.”
“Sure.”
I drew the curtains, and we sat at the table by the window and dug in.
“Have you just woken up?” he asked.
“Yes, guess I needed it. A long sleep.”
“You always look this good when you’ve just rolled out of bed?” He raised his eyebrows and grinned at me.
Self-conscious all of a sudden, I ran my hand over my hair and then a finger beneath each eye to check for mascara residue. “I guess it’s just how I am.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“I notice you get plenty of female attention. Is that for your handsome face and six-pack or your hockey skills, Eduardo?”
He laughed, an easy sound that rumbled around the room. “Girls can recognize hockey talent when they see it.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
He laughed harder. “Okay, okay, they like my appearance, but that’s only skin-deep, right?”
I didn’t answer.
“It’s what’s inside that counts,” he went on, “in a person’s heart, in their mind, the direction of their moral compass. That’s what’s important. Looks can’t ground a person; in fact, beauty can make some people believe they can defy gravity.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen it in the past. People who go through life knowing that because of how they look things come easy, other people come easy, and opportunities. It is one of the reasons I got so obsessed with hockey. It was all about hard work, skill, keeping it together when shit gets real on the ice. You don’t become a Viper because you’re handsome, you get on the team because you can score goals and help others get goals.”
I liked the way his mind worked, and he’d obviously thought about it a lot. I’d had a similar experience with getting my degree. Achieving a first class grade had nothing to do with my fine bone structure or my forty-one-inch legs.
I stabbed at my sausage. “Ben said you all live close by, in Florida.”
“Orlando, yep, we bought in the same community. We were the newbies. It made sense.
“Do you still feel like the newbies?”
“No, we’ve played a few seasons now, trained five times a week with the team. That is what we are, a team, there is no mention about who joined last.”
“And the captain, Rick, Ramrod, he’s been there the longest, is that why he’s captain?”
“Mmm, he’s been there a long time, but probably Phoenix has been there just as long. But Ramrod is captain because he’s a great leader, always consistent, fair, supportive, do you know what I mean?”
