Page 132 of Voices

Ryder slides up next to me as we wait for the clock to wind down.

“What if I accidentally shoot the puck directly behind his knee? That’ll give us at least a week without his bitch ass.”

There’s no padding behind the knee and I know Ryder isn’t serious, but I secretly hope Benji’s stick snaps right as he’s hitting the puck. His temper tantrum alone would get his ass benched.

We get in our spots and scramble for the puck as it’s dropped and knocked loose. Their forward snags it and crosses our blue line. I fall back to protect the house, being sure I’m not in our goalie’s line of sight of the puck. Asher rushes their player causing them to pass the puck. It bounces off the boards and is picked up by Ryder. He passes it up to Benji who skates towards the center line. I rush up behind him yelling for the puck, not sure why he’s stalling, when he looks at me and dumps the puck hard into the other team’s zone. I skate as fast as I can, but the puck hits the boards behind the goalie’s net, resulting in an icing.

I’m hunched over with my gloved hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. As I get closer to Benji I can hear Ryder cursing him out. We have a long change this period and Ryder is the furthest from our bench. I can see him breathing hard, face beet red, with sweat running down his face. The puck drop is brought back to our zone, on the left faceoff dot. Ryder glances at me giving me two quick head nods. We’ve been playing together for so long that we’ve come up with our own signals. This one means he’s going for the puck, so I’ll be defending if the puck clears toward our net.

Benji battles for the puck once it’s dropped. It’s knocked free, landing on the other team’s stick. He skates behind our net while I chase him. I poke-check him, freeing the puck before he gets a shot off. Ryder snags it and clears it the correct way by skating past the blue line and dumping it behind their net, giving us a chance to get off the ice.

I’m pissed at this point.

I take my seat and drill a hole in the side of Benji’s head. Ryder joins but he’s not stopping there.

“What the FUCK is your problem,” he yells. “Who the hell purposely ices the puck knowing damn well his D-line is running on fumes? If they would have scored, that goal would’ve been on you not us.” He thumbs over to me.

Benji ignores him.

“You’re the worst fucking teammate I’ve ever had.” Ryder shoves past him and sits on the opposite end of the bench.

Coach Q comes over and says something to Benji. He straightens up and gives a curt nod. Good. Hopefully, we can get back to playing this game as a team.

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to hold our lead and by the two-minute mark left in the third period, we’re trailing by two…and I’m in the sin bin for tripping the other teams forward. If we kill this penalty, I’ll have twenty seconds left to try scoring another goal.

My knee bounces like a jackhammer as I watch my team struggle to keep the passing along the boards and blue line. Then my heart sinks as I watch their goalie skate off, creating a six-on-four advantage. The guys scramble around trying to shut down as many angles as possible but it’s no use. The other team sets themselves up for a tic-tac-toe play and scores.

I’m let out of the penalty box and skate to the bench with my head hanging. I don’t even look up for the remaining thirty seconds. As soon as the horn sounds, I’m off the bench and stomping down the tunnel.

The locker room is quiet as we strip off our sweaty gear. Once I’m down to my base layer, I sit on the bench facing my locker. We can’t win them all and I know I didn’t cost us the game, but it still stings knowing I couldn’t help my team because I made a careless mistake.

I blow out a breath, rubbing a hand over my sweaty hair. Ryder sits next to me, facing towards the guys.

“We win some, we lose some. You know this. Shake it off. We’ll get the next one.” He holds up a fist and I bump it with mine. “Let’s go shower so we can go home.”

I follow him into the shower. He stops suddenly, causing me to run into his back. I look around his shoulder and see Benji and Jack blocking the entrance.

“What the hell is this all about?” Ryder crosses his arms, mimicking their stance.

“That was a stupid penalty to take right at the end of the game, don’t you think, Captain?”

I’m all out of energy for this shit. Stepping next to Ryder, I give them a bored look.

“It wasn’t intentional. Now move, I’d like to go home.”

Benji shakes his head with false disappointment. “Still believe he’s not lying huh? You’ll see. One minute he’ll be there and the next,” he snaps his fingers in my face, “he’ll be gone without a backward glance.” They laugh and shoulder past me.

“Fucking asshole,” Ryder snaps in the direction they walked off to.

I’m too tired for this.

I quickly wash the game off and dress in my favorite jeans and hoodie. The guys meet me by my locker, and we walk out to the bus. It’s only eight but it feels like I’ve been up for days. As soon as Coach Q does a head count and the bus pulls away, I’m out.

Asher nudges me awake when we get back. We all climb into my truck in silence. On the way home Matt’s stomach let out a loud grumble.

“Feeeed meee!” he whines from the backseat.

Asher snorts next to him while Ryder turns and looks back at him.

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