Page 11 of Lucky Laces
Coughing the puck up.
Now the Sierra have a breakaway with Lake Jordan—underwear model, face of a big vodka brand, and all-around pain in the ass—leading the charge.
“Fuck,” I hiss, digging in my edges, sprinting forward, giving chase even though I don’t have any hope of catching up, not in time to stop that first shot, anyway.
But I don’t stop chasing.
I can’t—not on this one simple fucking thing I can do: the backcheck.
I tear over the blue line, the red line, the opposite blue line, skating hard into our defensive zone.As expected, I don’t make it anywhere near in time to stop the first shot.
Or the second.
But I manage to tie up the trailing forward’s stick in time for Rhodes to get back and scoop up the puck, clearing it out enough for me to haul my sorry ass off the ice.
Coach Dee glances at me as I haul myself over the boards, and I’m not surprised in the least when my ice time is significantly reduced for the rest of the game.I’m a fucking liability and even though my fuckup didn’t directly lead to a goal—tonight—that doesn’t mean I should be back out there putting the team’s lead at risk.
Hell, part of me is starting to think that I don’t deserve to be back out there at all.
And Christ, how pathetic is it that these thoughts are winding their way through my mind, clinging to my confidence, dragging it down and just generally fucking with my head?
Toogoddamned pathetic.
I need to focus.
I need?—
“Huddy,” Coach Dee calls and I jump, head whipping in her direction.
Her gaze locks on mine and my heart skips a beat at the intensity in her green eyes.
“Ready?”
I hope the fuck so.
But I keep that thought in my head and just nod at her.
She nods back.“With King and Cam, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The whistle trills and we hop on the ice, skate down to the opposite end of the ice, into the offensive zone.Where I should, theoretically, be less of a liability.
Except, that worked so well earlier, didn’t it?
“Hey,” Cam mutters, pausing in front of me, his eyes full of concern as they search mine.“Easy, yeah?Just do it exactly like we practiced the other day.”
Practice.
Christ.
Because that’s been going as well as the games.
But I nod instead of saying that.
“Just drive to the net,” he murmurs.“King will do the rest.”
Great.
