Page 18 of Scoring Position

But Ryan got sucked back into what she’d said earlier. He’d hardly let himself process the words at first. Now they were reverberating in his head. “Did you mean it?” he asked abruptly. “When you said I don’t try?”

That was damning. Ryan didn’t like to think of himself like that.

To her credit, Tara didn’t try to pass it off. “You didn’t put yourself in the draft,” she said instead.

What did that have to do with it? Ryan frowned and crossed his arms. “If you remember, Mom and Dad encouraged me to go the college route.” What was he supposed to do when his own parents thought he couldn’t cut it?

“Yeah, they told you to apply because they wanted you to haveoptions. Abackup plan. So that you wouldn’t be stuck with nowhere to play at your level.” She stared at him. “You don’t remember this?”

Did he? He didn’t think he did. He could’ve sworn….

Well, it didn’t matter anyway. He was here now.

Suddenly he was exhausted. “Can we stop poking my ego with a stick for a bit, please?”

She softened. “Yeah, of course. Here.” She picked up the phone. “Come with me to my closet. You can help me pick out a dress for this wedding I have to go to next weekend.”

Thank God. “Only if I can help pick out your shoes too.”

“Oh please. As if you know anything about shoes.”

THE FUELplayed Calgary at home the last week of October, and for whatever reason, this matchup always resulted in “witty” wordplay in the media.

Calgary Ignites as Indianapolis Runs Out of Fuel. That kind of thing.

Needless to say, Nico hated playing Calgary. If some hack journalist called him “gassed” in the third in one more article, he was going to… what? Do yoga about it, probably. Not that it would help.

He had just finished dressing for warmups when Wright snapped. “All right, did someone die?”

“Notyet,” Nico muttered.

Two stalls down from him, Grange muffled a snort.

Yorkie took this as his cue to give a motivational speech about how he believed in the guys in this room, and they could beat any team when they played their game, and blah, blah, blah. Nico tuned it out. He saved his attention for Vorhees, because he did actually need to know what set plays they were running and if Vorhees was going to mess with the lineup. He didn’t.

He left the room, and they filed onto the ice for warmups.

Despite his unease, despite that vague prickling sensation on the back of his neck that told him everyone was watching him and waiting for his next inevitable fuckup, everything went fine until the shootout drill.

By rights, Nico should have hated shootout drills. He’d never scored in a shootout. The media brought it up every time a Fuel game went to one and Coach didn’t send him out—or he did and Nico fucked it up.

Except Nico was really fucking good at shootouts… as long as they were drills. Everyone figured that would translate eventually.

It never did, so Coach didn’t send him out unless things were dire.

At least the drill was a familiar routine he could sink into, switch his brain off for a few more minutes. Maybe it would help ease some of the energy jittering under his skin.

Grange grabbed his puck and advanced on the net. He went five-hole, but Greenie was onto him. It was a good shot and a good save.

It should’ve been Nico’s turn next. Nicoalwayswent after Grange, had done since his first week at Fuel training camp.

But today Chenner was in the lineup, and he’d somehow gotten in line ahead of Nico.

Greenie caught the puck and called something teasing out to Chenner, who shook his head and yelled back. Nico didn’t hear.

He swallowed, grabbed the puck, and took his turn. Greenie was already in position, tracking Nico’s moves. The way Greenie always took Nico’s shootouts seriously was one of the few things Nico was proud of these days.

He swept to the net, deked right, and shot left, high—

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