Page 12 of Halftime

I shook my head. “No idea. The coaches are going to take this seriously.”

“I wonder if they drafted the teams or picked players randomly?”

I considered that. “Coach would never go for random.”

“So his team will have the best of our team, and the worst of the women’s team.” That was simplistic but probably close to the truth.

“Let’s find out where we are.”

The team listings had been emailed out to us. Cooper had his phone out first, so we opened up the attachment and looked for our names.

The players were listed by position, so we started with Coach’s team. I was surprised to see Coop and I were both there. We were the second defensive pairing, but if Coach wanted us… I looked up at the forwards. Yeah, he had his top line there. His top defensive line was with Coach Cray. Coach Keller was going to lean on offense. Coach Cray was going to have the stronger defense, so she’d want to have Faith on her team. Tension I hadn’t been aware of leeched out of my shoulders.

Not great, but the better of two options.

Faith was a secret weapon. I’d heard from Cooper how well she’d done at that first rookie practice, but Coach Keller hadn’t been on the ice then, so our coach didn’t know how good she was. It wasn’t like he was going to study up the stats on players who weren’t his to draft for an exhibition game team. I wasn’t prepared when I looked at the goalies for our team and saw Faith’s name.

That was good for our chances, but that meant Faith and I were playing together. Both on defense. That was going to screw with the mutual ignoring strategy we’d been following.

Fuck. Me.

* * *

Faith

I’d been doing such an excellent job of pretending Seb didn’t exist. Now, we were going to play on a team together. We’d had an unspoken agreement to pretend we didn’t know each other. At least, I thought that was what we were doing. The few times we’d seen each other in the workout room, Seb hadn’t come to say hi.

Not sure what I’d have done if he had. A year ago, a heavy weight to the groin wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibilities. Actually, I’d pictured that a few times. Fondly. Now I didn’t know. I wasn’t going to hurt him. I hoped I could treat him like any other teammate. Any other cheating scumbag… Okay, I wasn’t completely over what he’d done.

Still, big picture, he’d done me a favor. I wouldn’t forget the lesson. Avoid athletes, at least when it came to dating. There were athletes who could be faithful, and there were cheaters who didn’t play sports. Obviously. It’s just that the odds were better that the athlete would be faced with more temptation and be told that it was okay to mess around. Boys would just be boys.

I wasn’t surprised that Coach Cray didn’t keep me on her team. She hadn’t said they’d drafted the teams instead of drawing names out of a hat, but it was obvious. Our top offensive forwards were all on Coach Cray’s team, and so were the second defensive pairings.

I got the message. I could play with the men.

It didn’t change how I was going to play. Whether I was playing for Coach Cray or the guys’ coach, I was going to bring my A game. Eventually, she’d have to accept that I was good. Wouldn’t she?

I was one of the first players on the ice for the co-ed practice. There were too many players for us all to be on the ice at the same time, so Coach Keller and his patched-up team had the first slot. I was calling that a lost coin toss.

The women were standing together, and so were the guys. Separate groups. I was on my own. As goalie, I had my own warmup, and I was the only female goalie on this team. I was stretching by myself when the two men’s goalies came over and joined me. We were the oddballs on the team anyway since we warmed up differently. I appreciated them reaching out. They’d heard about the freshman shoot-out. We talked a bit about that. They were interested in where I’d played, and I asked what I should know about the skaters we’d be facing. They didn’t ask about the women, and I noted that. They didn’t seem to be too worried about the women who’d be taking shots on them. I’d already had shooting drills with the women in practice, and these guys were in for a surprise.

Coach blew his whistle, and we skated in to hear what he had to say.

With the game tonight, this practice was mostly a chance for the team to figure out how to play together. No one wanted to leave all their best stuff on the ice before the game. Each goalie would play one period during the game, and the three of us would take turns in the two nets during the practice.

Seb was there, and so was Cooper. They were teamed up on defense. Coach Keller put me in net from the beginning. He wanted to know what I could do. I showed him. I knew Zoe and Rocky, the women’s defense pair on this exhibition team, and we’d worked well together in practices. There was no problem communicating with them, and they picked up any rebounds I sent them quickly. Coach Keller appeared to approve of us.

Then I was playing with Seb and Cooper. I had to be more alert. I wasn’t sure how we’d work together. Ignoring Seb was not a possibility, not when we were teammates. I knew Seb would be the guy to hang back when play headed to the other end of the ice. I’d watched him play for years, knew his game almost as well as he did himself. Still, he was slow to join in the first rush our practice team got, which meant he didn’t want to leave me back here alone. That indicated to everyone on the ice that he didn’t think I could cover on my own.

Oh, hell no.

“Move your fucking ass, Seb!”

I hadn’t thought, just yelled it out by habit. I didn’t need him to babysit me back here. My girls knew I could take care of myself, and I could already see the problems snowballing from these guys not trusting their female teammates. Seb skated ahead and had just gotten into the offensive zone when a missed pass brought everyone back down to me. Fortunately, Cooper had legs and got to the puck soon after it crossed the blue line. He shot it back down ice, and Coach blew the whistle.

Everyone piled back into our zone for a faceoff. Seb was in front of me, waiting for the puck drop, but Coach was talking to a couple of forwards. I didn’t think again, just spoke the words that were waiting on my tongue. “What the fuck, Seb? I don’t need a babysitter. Do your job.”

I didn’t need him hovering over me like a granny, giving Coach Keller the idea I couldn’t handle myself. I was a freshman. I had a lot to prove. Seb might be a cheating scumbag, but he didn’t need to make this game tougher for me. Seb didn’t look at me, but I saw him shrug.Fine, just play your damn game, Hunter.

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