Page 20 of The Poster Boy
“I’ll do my best.”
Coach might have more to say about it after the game, but for now he slid his gaze away from me and looked at Myers.
“And you. Do you think you have five more minutes of magic in you? They’re going to throw everything they have at you. Watch your stick side. You’re not as solid there, and they’ve picked up on it.”
The little critique of Myers’ performance went a long way to soothing my own bruised ego. I didn’t much care what Myers thought of me, but I had to admit to being a bit pissed that he’d called me an asshole in front of a guy from the other team. It might have contributed to how many penalty minutes I’d accrued after that.
It was all water under the bridge now as far as I was concerned. Our two minutes were up. Five fresh minutes went on the clock, and we won the first face-off. It was Boone, Vasily, and me on the ice for the first shift. We’d managed to eke out a couple scoring chances, but Calgary wasn’t easy to beat.
Momentum shifted in their favor, and they battled in front of our net. A shot ricocheted off the post and back into play. Myers stopped an easy shot and dumped the puck down their end. I was back on the ice again with more than three minutes of overtime already gone. I knew we had to give everything we had.
With less than a minute left, we tried to get the puck back down the ice for another shot at their brick wall of a goalie, but Calgary had some kind of rabbit’s foot up their sleeve because we couldn’t make shit happen no matter how hard we fought. The puck stayed in our end.
Coach had warned Myers about his weak stick side. About Brayden’s skill at faking one direction then snappingthe puck somewhere else. I saw it all unfold as it happened. Brayden pretended to go stick side, and Myers prepared for it, but at the last second, when it was too late for Myers to readjust, Brayden flicked the puck the other direction. It sailed over Myer’s glove and hit the back of the net.
We fucking lost.
Myers stared up at the scoreboard like he couldn’t believe he’d let that one slip past him. He’d been so focused on his weak stick side that he’d easily fallen for the last minute fake-out.
Calgary cleared their bench. Everyone hit the ice and skated to their net to celebrate with their goalie. Our guys were on the ice with a little less enthusiasm. Except for Andrew, who was the first one over to Myers to bonk their helmets together. I watched him pat him on the head like a little kid before the other guys followed suit. Boone skated past me and gave me a little shove in the right direction.
“Make nice. He did good.”
“I am nice.”
“Is that what you call it?” Boone’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Talk to Myers. He’s the one who called me an asshole.” What was I? Five? Sticks and stones and all that. Names shouldn’t hurt. Couldn’t. But it bothered me that Myers thought I was an asshole.
It pissed me off that we lost. Not because it was anyone’s fault, but because we’d had a win within our grasp and losing it after being so close was a hard pill to swallow.
Boone shook his head and skated away from me. Fair enough. I didn’t want to be around myself either. But I made nice and skated up to Myers. I clapped him on the arm and his head spun around, his expression turning fiery when he realized it wasme.
“Good game,” I told him, trying my best to get rid of the asshole tone from my voice. Not that I was capable of that, as I discovered, because my words came out more bitter than I’d meant them to sound. But it was the look on Myers’s face. He looked at me like I was a piece of dogshit that he’d stepped on.
He didn’t respond. Maybe that was better. If we were going to butt heads, the less we interacted, the better off we’d be. We filed off the ice after the customary handshake. Brayden gave me a saucy wink and promised to kick our asses even harder next time.
The mood in the dressing room was a lot better than I’d expected. The guys seemed to be jazzed, even though we’d lost. Maybe because right up until that shot went in, we’d thought we had a chance. And we fought like it.
Myers was the last one to make it to the weight room. He dropped down onto an exercise bike next to Andrew. He started off slow while he stuffed his face with an orange.
“What took you so long?” I heard Andrew ask. Before Myers could get a word out, he continued. “Ah yes, the fans. What did they want to know now? They must know everything about you by now.”
I didn’t catch Myers’s answer because I stuffed my earbuds in and turned my music on. For the rest of the workout, Marek Myers didn’t exist.
He didn’t exist until we were loading onto the bus to head for the airport. The game in Calgary had been an early start, and the flight to Minnesota would only take a couple hours. We’d be tucked up in our hotel at a decent enough hour.
Boone saved me a seat near the middle of the bus, and I dropped down into it.
He chatted away with Vasily, a center born in Russia but raised in the States, about a sweet shot he’d taken.
“Too bad it didn’t go in.”
“You’ll get the next one,” Boone assured him.
“Man, we were so close tonight.” Vasily bounced in his seat like an energetic puppy.
Boone reached into his bag and fished out a package of trail mix and handed it to me. “Eat up, buttercup.”
