Page 7 of My Virgin Puck

- CHAPTER THREE -

Mason

“Mason! For fuck’s sake!” Coach Best screams. “That’s it! We’re done for today. Get it there and get the fuck out of my sight.”

A clatter of sticks crash to the ice. It’s dead silent on the rink, aside from Jamie’s snide ‘Good one, dickhead’ that he mumbles as he skates past me. Noah slaps me on the back, and I skate to the edge of the famed ice of Viking Arena, down the corridor alongside him and crash down on the bench seat in the cold locker room.

What a fucking day.

And the worst isn’t over yet.

Oh no. Somehow, despite every fibre of my being not wanting to, I’m heading to The Bloody Viking for drinks with the same teammates who have been giving me shit all day.

The word about me jumping the counter to save Madi spread as quickly as a rumour about someone who’s wet their pants does in high school. As soon as the news filtered onto the ice, I was target number one.

That’s all it takes in a team environment. Especially a professional one like this.

When you’re all vying to get that elusive position on the ice, fighting week in, week out to get your place in the team, any advantage is taken to get ahead of the competition.

I received bad pass after bad pass during practice today. I was double teamed every time the puck came my way, and whenever I finally got a chance to shoot, Coach Best would blow his whistle because someone was out of position.

It’s just been one of those days.

I lean back and run my hands through my hair, sighing as Coach Best storms through the locker room without saying a word. The second he’s out of sight, the boys start to come alive again and the chatter returns with me acting as a saviour the main talking point.

“Well, even if we do suck, at least we have Mason to help us when we choke in the playoffs,” Jamie says, eyeballing the corridor that leads to Coach’s office.

Noah leans up on his knees beside me and clears his throat. “We’ve just gotta work harder. We’re all on the same team here, boys. If we want this-”

“Trust Mason to stop a girl from choking… Personally, I like it when they do that…” Jacob winks at Jamie and sticks his tongue between his teeth.

My eyes narrow across the locker room, and Noah does his best to ignore the jibe by continuing his spiel about teamwork. Miles Johnson, the captain of this ‘team’, is too busy grabbing his towel and heading for a shower to do anything.

I do my best to ignore the overly loud conversation Jamie and Jacob are having and pull my gloves and shoulder pads off. The least I can do is head home for a few hours, whip up a decent meal and relax with a book before I’m forced to face the same smug faces of my teammates a few hours from now.

“Hey, Mase!”

But these assholes seem to have other ideas.

I look up to see Jacob’s grinning face. “How long have you fucking her for then? Is that why you sneak off to the gift shop all the time? Quickie behind the replica jerseys, am I right?”

Miles speeds across in front of me and heads for the showers. Noah’s running a towel through his hair and Parker Phillips says something about a new roommate and bolts out of the door as quickly as Coach Best stormed through earlier.

“I’m not fucking her…” I stare down into my bag, trying to avoid the guys.

I know they’re talking about Madi. It’s all they’ve fucking talked about ever since they found out my cooking made her choke.

“Oh, as if! Come on, Big Fella. You can tell us,” Jacob sings.

“Yeah! We wanna know how it feels inside that sweet-”

“DON’T!” I shout. My voice shakes the metallic doors of the lockers and the room falls silent. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

My glare is intense. Noah cups my shoulder with an attempt to calm me down, but I’m done with these jerks.

“Sorry man,” Jamie says. “We just wanna know… She’s sweet looking. Anyone who’s fucking her is a lucky, lucky man.”

“I’m not fucking her. So you can just shut the hell up, ok?” I growl, shooting to my feet and changing into a shirt and jeans as quickly as possible.

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