Page 165 of Branded
So, this game was going to be intense.
Redemption for the team. Keeping their feet on the gas for the Sierra. And close enough to the playoffs that both teams wanted the two points badly enough to battle for them.
It began right at puck drop—which I won, damn right—and immediately my hands stung because I got slashed to shit for my trouble. But I ignored the burn, ignored the pain, and broke free of the lockup, shoving against the Sierra’s captain, Lake Jordan. A pretty son of a bitch who had a wicked wrist shot and a penchant for making players pay if they lost a face-off.
Free of the hold, I charged into the opposing zone, Marcel carrying the puck over the blue line, trying to connect with Theo, who was playing on the other side.
I wasn’t a natural center or hadn’t been until Marcel had hurt his wrist earlier in the season and had missed two games.
I’d stepped into the role, had found a newfound knack for face-offs, and Marcel had slipped back into playing left wing again, and since Theo had done some time as a center himself—in fact, the team was stacked pretty effectively in that position—the three of us had found that we had even more good juju playing together. We knew where each other would be, we could all cover for any defensive holes that might appear, and since we’d all done time as centers, we could be flexible and get creative.
It was fucking fun playing together.
And our line’s stats showed it.
Tonight, we weren’t lucky enough to get a goal on the first shift of the game, but we got some solid pressure, a shot that went wide, and then a face-off in the zone when it deflected off a stick and hit the netting.
I wanted to stay on the ice.
I wanted to play longer.
A face-off in the o-zone? Pressure already on a team that had gotten the better of us before?
Fuck yeah, I wanted to stay.
But…this was a team sport, and we were successful because we worked together. So, I paused at that whistle, and I moved to the bench, letting Walker’s line hit the ice.
Still sitting and now watching impatiently as Jackson led his line out for a shift.
Then even more impatiently as Flynn—the former first line center who was battling back from a knee injury—took his boys, two rookies, out for a turn about the rink.
Flynn peeled off the rush, headed for the bench.
And, fucking finally, it was my turn to get at it again.
The world shrank down to the rink, to the ice, my teammates, the puck.
It was fucking glorious.
It was everything I’d ever wanted.
I moved to take the face-off. Lost it. Got the puck back, started hauling ass up the rink.
And as I skated, as I carried the puck up and managed to hand it off to Theo—who buried it in the back of the net—I could almost convince myself that it was all I’d ever wanted.
Fourteen
Beth
I was sitting with Hazel and Oliver, along with a plethora of girls from the team he helped coach, watching the Breakers play.
The girls were awesome, and somehow, I’d gotten seated next to one named Hannah, who was all fire and excitement and intensity.
Her gaze had been locked on the ice during every second of play.
But before the game had started and during any stoppage, including the longer pauses in the match that coincided with commercial breaks from the television feed, she’d been peppering me with questions.
Surprisingly, about makeup and clothes.
