Page 77 of Her Goal
“Not with Leah. She hates me.” I point to my tooth. “I didn’t lose my lateral incisor on the ice.”
Mikey arches an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me she …?”
“It was during hockey. Street hockey,” I say.
“Leah knocked your tooth out?” Pierre barks a laugh.
“The guy was spitting Chiclets. Chick-lets. Get it?” Liam roars with laughter.
Everyone shakes their heads. The grump is still getting acquainted with humor.
“Cap, the pre-game pep talk was decent, but stick to what you’re good at,” Vohn hollers from the other side of our wooden locker stalls.
Liam glowers.
Grady claps his shoulder. “He just means that becoming a stand-up comedian isn’t your future after you retire.”
Liam grumbles.
And Leah is not in my future.
Apparently, the conversation about us isn’t over because Redd says, “You’re not talking about her like you hate each other.”
I shrug. “It’s a one-way thing.”
Cue the round of, “Oohs” from the guys.
“So you like her.”
My shoulder lifts again.
“I shouldn’t be into her.”
“Why not?”
I point to a scar on my arm. “She also gave me this.”
“Ooh. A gnar scar. Sketchy.” Pierre studies the gnarly scar that runs up the back of my forearm like an angry red seam. There are even pale stick marks like Frankenstein’s monster from the stitches.
“Did our goalie let a girl beat him up?” Grady asks.
“It happened when we were nine. Riding bikes.”
Mrs. Smith came by every day to make sure it was healing okay. Hunter inhaled all the Dr. Pepper and ate snacks she left. The greedy jerk.
Jack asks, “So she was always one of the guys?”
I give a non-committal nod.
“Either you’re crazy about her or there’s something you’re not telling us,” Beau says in a rare show of involvement in locker room conversation.
“Both,” I murmur.
“At some point, she decided not to be a tomboy anymore.”
“Don’t tell me Leah went boy crazy,” Redd says.
“She went Hunter crazy. Started only hanging around with my brother.”
