Page 35 of No Rhyme or Roughing
His words loosened something in my chest. I hadn’t realized how much I needed his support, even without giving him my reasons. “You wanted to skate-dance across the ice?”
Xavier Reed, one of our defensemen scoffed. “That’s how he plays with his fancy-ass moves.”
No one else said a word. Not a single syllable.
Coach Grimshaw practically stomped into the room, stopping in the center, right over the Guardians’ crest on the carpet. His eyes scanned the team. We waited, watched.
He opened his mouth, probably ready with the usual between-periods speech about how we were still in this. Instead, his mouth snapped shut, and he shook his head before turning on one heel and marching back the way he’d come.
Teddy whistled. “Someone’s in trouble with Daddy.”
Coach Frankie, leaning against the wall, scowled atTeddy. “That man is your coach. Act like it.” Then, she left too, and Coach Remy followed, leaving Sullivan as the only coach remaining.
He hadn’t taken his eyes off me, but I refused to meet them. Mr. Mac must have told him about the team’s struggles, so he knew why I’d suddenly gone off script. For once, Sullivan didn’t look angry or irritated. Instead, something like gratitude shone in his gaze.
The world was fucking ending.
Five minutes remainedin the game, and we were still down two to nothing.
The team played like shit, frankly.
“We still have time,” Coach Frankie said as we huddled near the bench. She’d drawn up a play on her tablet, one designed specifically for me and Teddy. She’d named it “Twinkle Skates.”
Ha. Ha.
It relied on what the two of us did best—outskate our opponents.
Teddy bent down to take the faceoff, his stick sweeping the puck back to me. As I took off toward the opposite end of the ice, Teddy flanked me, skating right into the path of a defender heading straight for me. I easily veered away, remembering how it felt to be out here alone on the ice with everyone watching.
The adrenaline.
The confidence.
The goal horn blared to life. The light flipped on. I’d scored. How, I wasn’t sure—my mind had beenelsewhere—but it didn’t matter as my teammates mobbed me, yelling, “One more!”
On my next shift, Teddy was thrown from the faceoff circle, so I crouched down, my center of gravity low. He won the puck, but I immediately charged his opponent, deftly lifting the puck from his stick and slipping through the neutral zone.
Passing it through my legs to Teddy, I sped up and positioned myself near the net for the tail end of our give-and-go.
The moment the puck hit my stick, I shot it straight over the goalie’s shoulder.
I wasn’t finished.
Thirty seconds to go, and I was out there with Julian and Theo. No overtime. We were finishing this.
When the puck hit the net a third time, the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game.
My team mobbed me at center ice, almost knocking me down. The dance was all but forgotten as they slapped my back, hugged me, and even pressed a sloppy kiss to my cheek. Well, only Teddy did that.
I wiped away his slobber, still grinning as we headed toward the locker room. The laughter returned, along with our comfort with each other. Someone turned on a Taylor Swift banger—probably Teddy—and Rowan and Vasiliev belted it out, their voices off-key in multiple languages.
I stripped my jersey off over my head and yanked my soaked Under Armour shirt away from my skin.
Coach Remy lifted one brow at the team’s shedding of clothes. “You all realize you have media availability before your showers?”
Teddy, now down to tiny shorts, shrugged. “It’ll just be the same small-time blogger it always is.”
I had to agree. Media availability meant little when there wasn’t much media showing up. We just wanted to shower and get out of here to celebrate.
