Page 31 of Puck Shots
I skate as fast as I can down the ice and slam against Luka, who’s playing on the other side for the training game.
“Dude, that drilled,” he complains as I skate away with the puck.
I scan the stands to find Eli, hoping to catch his reaction, but instead of cheering or even smiling at my hit and steal, he’s watching me with a quiet curiosity instead, his phone raised as he records our moves.
I pump my legs harder, passing the puck back and forth, the cool air rushing past my face, the net getting bigger and bigger. I line up for the slap shot, but I’m going too fast, and my stick comes down a second too late, and I spin to try to regain the puck, but their center collects it and heads right back up the ice. I go after him and catch up just as he sends the puck right into the glove of our goalie.
“So close,” I joke, shoving him sideways as I pass.
“Closer than you, Flash. What was it you got hold of a second ago, oh, that’s right…air.”
“Fuck you, I’ll land that super-speed slap shot soon enough, and then you’ll all be fucked.”
He laughs. “Same team, dude, you land that super-speed slap shot and the other teams will be fucked.”
“Oh, right.”
“Come on, try it again,” Luka calls, sending me the puck, and I take it up to the other end before turning and going full speed again, but the same shit happens when I try for it again. I can make it easy if I slow down a little, every player out on the icecan hit a slap shot. It’s a fundamental skill that we still practice for a multitude of reasons. For most, it’s just to maintain good power and accuracy, but it’s also because practice isn’t the same as doing it for real in a game. The pressure of the crowd, your team, the drive for the win; it all can mess you up. Practicing helps it become automatic. But for me, I’m just going too fast for the puck to keep up when I raise the stick. If I can’t figure this out, I’ll have to slow down every time I want to shoot for the net, and that will suck balls.
“It’s no use,” I complained and stopped at the side to grab a drink. Coach has already left for the day, leaving us some personal time on the ice. I think he secretly watches from the cameras around the place.
“You think your boy can help you land it?” Luka says, joining me, and I shake my head at him again calling Eli my boy. Only the more he says it, the less I hate it.
“Yo, Eli, think you can help Flash out with his suck ass super slap shot?” Luka calls, and Eli lowers his phone and jogs down the stairs toward us, wearing a shirt as green as his eyes and a big smile.
“I think I can. I’ve got some footage now, and I’ve half-written the program already that will analyze the angles and movements.”
“So this is the science genius that’s going to help us win this year?” our goalie, Ferris , asks, stopping at the side with us.
“Eli, this is Ferris, but we all call him Reddy. He’s a goalie, so he’s a little weird, but you’ll get used to him.”
“I’m not weird,” Reddy replies.
“Sure you are,” Luka and I both say and then laugh.
“I’m a physics major. I don’t mind weird,” Eli says, brushing a loose curl behind one ear, and Reddy smiles, pumping his brows.
“Good to know. I’ve been looking for a tutor. Do you think you might be able to help me out?”
“You don’t even take any science courses,” I interject, and Reddy grins.
“Who said I wanted tutoring for a class?”
My heart thumps in my ears. Is Reddy seriously hitting on Eli right now?
“Come on, guys, we’ve got the ice for another thirty minutes. Let’s see what we can do in that time,” Luka says, pulling me away. “You good?” he whispers as we skate to the center.
“Yeah, why?” I ask my chest, filling with the calming cool air it’s come to love.
“You looked like you were about to deck Reddy for hitting on your boy.”
“He’s not my boy,” I say again, only this time I hate the way it sounds because I think I might want him to be.
10
Eli
While normally the frat house is a buzz of energy, guys in every room, noise circling the corridors and finding its way into every corner of the extra-large three-story house, today, it’s relatively quiet. I’ve gotten good at keeping track of most of their routines, at first as a way to avoid Toby and his douchebag friends, but now it’s more so I know how to find the quiet places when it all becomes too much. I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and sit at the long kitchen island as my laptop loads up. Before it can even connect to the house Wi-Fi, I’ve peeled the front label off the water bottle. It’s become an unconscious habit for years now, and as I fold it into the shape of a whale, I can’t help but smile at the relief the tiny thing brings to my mind.
