Page 6 of Stick It
“Get in the car,or I’m leaving without your sorry asses,” I bellow from the front door, keys in hand. When I don’t immediately hear the thunder of shoes coming down the stairs, I glance at my watch in exasperation. “Guys!”
They know today, of all days, it’s imperative that we are early.
Turning on my heel, I’ve just decided to leave their lazy asses behind when the hurried smack of footsteps against the stairs has me mumbling a “Finally.”
“Sorry, sorry, we’re here,” Jax apologizes, his long legs striding past me as he walks out the front door, duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. Finn is on his heels, gracing me with a remorseless smirk. I give him a deadpan stare in return.
“Where the fuck is Reed?” I growl, already marching out of the house. He’s got until I reverse out of the driveway to get his ass in the car. Otherwise, he canwalkto the damn rink. Well, run, if he wants to make it on time for practice.
The others climb in, and I crank the engine. The final one of our foursome comes jogging out of the house as I start reversing.
“Seriously?” he snarks, practically diving into the back seat. “You were going to leave without me?”
I merely shrug, ignoring all of them as I pull onto the road. Initially, I’m lost in my thoughts, on centering my mind as I navigate the familiar streets toward the Steelhawks’ arena.
It’s the first day of a new year. My final one as a BSU student. My last first day as a college athlete. Yet it’s not nostalgia or longing that I feel as I flick on my indicator and turn into the arena parking lot.
No, it’s ironclad determination. Steely resolve.
To dominate. To win. To succeed.
Failure is not an option—not on the ice and definitely not off it.
“I’m telling you, man, she wasfit.” Finn’s statement breaks my concentration. Doors slam as we all clamber out of the car.
Jax scoffs as we grab our bags from the trunk before walking as a group toward the back entrance. “I still think you’re making the whole thing up.”
Finn makes a noise in outrage, but Reed pipes up before he can protest. “I checked that room before we left, and there was no one there.”
Is that what he was doing when I was telling him to hurry up? Checking up on some chick who was accidentally given our house as her accommodation? My jaw tics in irritation.
“She’s an athlete,” Finn argues. “She’s probably at a team meeting or something.”
“At 6 a.m.?” Reed throws back skeptically. “No one else’s coach is a sadist.”
“It’s not my fault you guys decided to stop at a bar for a beer—without inviting me, by the way—and missed the entire thing.” Finn’s patience wears thin, that fiery redhead temper of his beginning to spark.
“You’re telling me a girl had the chance to spend the nightwith the best of the Steelhawks, and she tucked herself away in a bedroom?” Reed scoffs. “Yeah, I’m not buying it.”
Finn shrugs, but it’s a little stiff. “Not like she gave me enough time to tell her anything. The second she was over the threshold, she asked me where the spare room was and hightailed it up there. She probably had no idea whose house she slept in last night.”
Jax and Reed continue their argument with Finn, but I let their bickering wash over me as we step into the arena and make a beeline for the locker room to get ready for our first practice of the most important season of my life.
The one that will determine whether I get drafted into the NHL or prove my dad right—that I’mnotgood enough—and go crawling back on my hands and knees to his small mechanic business in butt-fuck nowhere, begging for a minimum-wage job.
I shake my head, dispelling that miserable thought.
No. This year isouryear.
It’smyyear.
My year to lead our team to victory. To impress the scouts and be a first pick at the draft. To step up and prove I can be the leader Coach expects. Become the player I’ve been training my entire life to be.
Thisis the year I’ll prove my father wrong. Prove?—
My internal pep talk comes to a screeching halt as I open the locker room door, finding…agirlin my domain. One with a small, upturned nose and high cheekbones that look carved out of marble. Wavy, chestnut brown hair falls past her shoulders, and hazel-green eyes, golden flecks glinting beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, bounce warily over the four of us as she lifts her head at our sudden appearance. Her full lips are pressed into a flat, no-nonsense line, robbing them of any softness.
Nothing about her expression is welcoming, but that doesn’tstop her from being, well, beautiful. Her facial features, somehow sharp and soft at the same time, draw me in as I stare unblinkingly into those emerald depths.
