Page 93 of Revolve
Cole slaps a hand on my back. “You doing okay, Mini Cap?”
“Mini Cap?”
“Right, you don’t know about that.” He laughs. “We’ve been calling you Mini Cap since the whole captaincy thing, you know, ’cause it was a small amount of time, therefore,mini.”
I knock him aside with my shoulder, and he feigns an injury on the side of the rink. But his words stay with me, even as everyone else shows up. There’s a dynamic here that I’ve missed, like coming home for the holidays only to find your room was turned into a home gym.
“What’s Kilner’s first name?” one of the guys asks, signing a birthday card.
“I thought it was Coach,” Kian says, scratching his head.
“Donovan, I got good news for you.” Coach approaches us on theice. “You’re back for one game next week against Yale. We’ll need to bring our A-game and rein in the emotions we have for them.”
What he means is,Don’t lose your shit. Before this summer, I never stepped foot in Yale without wearing a garlic necklace. Any girls I know from there came back to our place or stayed as hookups at Myth. After they trashed our campus at the beginning of this year, our rivalry has gotten worse. I got ejected for roughhousing and unsportsmanlike conduct. Bullshit, if you ask me. I couldn’t care less, because that day I was waiting on a call from my mom. To hear her say she left, and we didn’t need to deal with my dad anymore.
It never came.
“Will do, Coach,” I say, my strained voice making me cough. Everyone looks at me.
“Are you sick?” Kian asks, and the entire team is backing up. None of us can afford to be sick, not with the ECAC games coming up. I’m exhausted, but I’d never admit that, or that, for the first time, I’m not excited about a rivalry game.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, giving Kian a look that shuts him up. Coach doesn’t say anything. He blows his whistle and we’re off doing drills.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kian asks, reaching to touch my forehead. I slap his hand away.
“Just tired. I had a long night.”
Kian snorts. “Yeah, I heard. You should have seen my jaw on the floor when I bumped into Sierra as she was leaving. I didn’t know the girl could blush like that.”
I didn’t either. Not until I was buried so deep, she hid her face in my neck.
We’re half an hour in when my vision blurs. I’m swaying, leaning on my stick more than my skates. The whistle blows again, and I think my head’s going to explode.
I see Kilner’s shoes before I hear his voice. “You’re sick.”
“It’s probably allergies. I’m fine.” It hurts to blink.
“You don’t have allergies. And you can barely lift your fucking head,” he barks.
I force myself to stand tall, but Coach watches with that unimpressed look, seeing right through my act. The man’s a wizard.
“Get off my ice and get some rest. Or I’m taking you off the first line for the Yale game.”
“No,” I say quickly. “I’ll go. I just need to tell Lidia before—”
“I’ll tell her. Just leave before you get my rookies sick. They aren’t built like you idiots were.”
That’s true. Freshman year was not for the weak, mostly because of Kian and me.
Kian slides up beside me. “Coach, I should go with Dylan to take care of him. So, I can’t do the laundry today.”
Kilner watches him. “Fine, you both are done for the day. Go home.”
“Actually, Coach, you can keep him—” The rest of my sentence is muffled in Kian’s palm as he shoves me off the ice.
WHY ARE GOODpeople like me punished for our good deeds?
Though even if I had an answer to the question, I would still repeat everything that happened yesterday. More than a few times.
