Page 119 of The Penalty

“Are you?” I shoot back.

“The boyfriend okay?” Cox asks under his breath.

I meet his eyes and nod. “Much better. Don’t ask me how. I couldn’t make sense out of half of what he said.”

“That’s what you get dating a goalie.”

“A goalie? Which goalie?” Wolfe barrels in like the Kool-Aid man again.

“Their goalie is my boyfriend,” I say not knowing what came over me. But I’d already told Logan so I might as well tell the rest of the guys.

Wolfe finger guns me. “You must have great taste.”

“Thanks?” He must mean the goalie thing but I’m not going to clarify.

“You must like scoring on him both ways.” Archangel holds out his fist and I bump it. “Nice.”

“That’s like three gay guys on our team.” Wolfe muses. “That’s wild.”

“And our coach,” Archangel adds.

“Three?” I glance around because Wolfe can’t mean himself. “Who’s the third?”

“Me.” Archangel says with a shrug. “I’m pretty open about it.”

“Sweet. I’m glad this team isn’t a bunch of douches about it.”

“Nah, we’re cool. Who else is gonna handle a stick better?” Seaborn says from the cubby next to mine.

“He’s got a fucking point. If there is an expert…” Wolfe eyes Archangel aggressively. Which is odd, because Wolfe said he was straight.

I tuck that away to think about later.

“Come on guys. We are about to go out on the ice,” Coach Hawke calls.

Cox puts on the Cadieux jersey he wears to spite his father and honor his grandfather and Coach Hawke’s eyes light up. He doesn’t quite smile, but he looks at Logan like he put the starsin the sky. It makes me wonder how the rest of the team didn’t notice they were together all last year.

We get out on the ice, and it feels good. We’re playing at the top of our game, but so is Summerset. The game starts to get aggressive, and I just know it’s going to get like our preseason game with them. I just hope Teddy doesn’t feel the need to defend my honor again.

When Coach Hawke puts me in, the ice feels like magic. I know I’m going to make something happen.

Seaborn steals the puck back and I get around my player and break. He passes up the wall and I catch and turn towards the middle. Oxley gets out of my way, drawing his defender with him. Mines on my ass, so I have to get a quick shot off. I fake a near side shot and Teddy barely moves, narrowing his eyes.

He’s been watching me play.

Motherfucker.

It’s now or never, so I aim at the far upper corner, one place Teddy has a hard time getting and shoot. I hold my breath, veering off to go around the goal as it lights up.

I throw my fist in the air and cry out. “Fuck yes.”

Teddy grunts as I skate back around the front of the goal to my teammates, giving out high-fives as I go. When we line back up Teddy gives me Focker fingers from the goal, letting me know he’s watching me. I won’t get him again that easily.

In the second, Summerset scores on us evening it up.

Neither of us scores in the third period taking us to OT, which means it’s 3v3 sudden death and I just know Teddy is going to take it hard if he loses that way, but I have to push it out of my mind. I need to focus on the game if Coach Hawke puts me in.

No one scores in sudden death. If this weren’t a conference game, they’d let the tie stand, but since we need a winner, the game goes to a shootout.

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