Page 51 of Puck with Karma
“That’s probably because he’s always in a fight,” one of them giggles, back to their chat about Xander. “There’s always blood everywhere. I can’t believe he hasn’t gotten penalized over it more.”
“He’s a great player,” someone comments. I can’t focus enough to keep track of who’s saying what. “And they all fight. If they all got suspended every time someone threw a punch, no games would be happening unless they only had the third and fourth lines in play.”
“Oh, there’s a third line player that I…”
Just then, all hell breaks loose on ice. I stand up to see better, and I almost die when I see Xander is one of the players involved. Someone is blowing the whistle long and hard, but nobody seems to care about it.
There’s lots of punching and yelling. I slap a hand over my mouth to cover my gasp of shock when I see Xander pulling his arm back and punching another player in the face. The guy goes down in an instant.
Players jump to hold Xander back while others circle the one that’s been hit to assess the damage. In the corner of my eye, I see Coach Harris running alongside the boards, screaming his head off. He gets into Xander’s face, but he doesn’t seem to care much. Instead, he just smirks like it’s no big deal. That only gets the coach going more until he finally leaves the ice.
I look around me in disbelief, expecting everyone to be just as shocked as I am. Instead, I find the group of girls from earlier just laughing and fanning themselves.
“That was so hot,” one of them says. “I want him so bad, I can’t stand it. How do you get to talk to them?”
“I’m pretty sure that would get you fired and banned from working for the organization, period,” another one chimes in.
“What? Lusting after a player?”
“No,” she shakes her head laughing. “Screwing a player.”
I press my hand to my chest, suddenly sick to my stomach. This is not good at all, not for me, not for anyone. How did I not know about this rule?
“How do you know that?”
My voice comes out weak. They all turn to look at me at the same time, eyes in various degrees of surprise. That’s probably because we never really talk other than polite conversation.
“It’s in the handbook,” one of them finally says. “And they talked about it in orientation,” she adds. “What do you even care? Are you shagging a player now?”
They all bust out laughing their heads off, and I feel like I want to die on the spot. They think they’re funny but have no idea how close to the truth they are. I can’t believe I was this stupid. I can’t even process how I missed that one piece of information during orientation. It’s probably because I was daydreaming about Xander. After our weird meeting in the gym on my first night in the building, I couldn’t get him off my mind.
And now, this.
“Abigail!” Laura calls for me from the entrance to where we’re all sitting. “I need you to come with me. Quick! We need to prep for a meeting.”
Without another word, she turns around and just expects me to follow her. Since I don’t really have a choice, I put my head down and do just that.
I feel like I am a lamb being taken to slaughter. Nothing good will come out of this, I can feel it.
Chapter 17
Xander
“Manning, what the fuck was that? Go back!” Coach Harris is screaming from the other side of the rink.
We are at practice, and Noah tried to score a goal, but he lost the puck just as he was about to shoot it.
We are a mix and match of first and third line playing against second and forth. I’ve had great communication with Noah during the entire practice game until the last five minutes or so. And it’s been all my fault.
“Hamilton,” Coach is on me now. “This is not figure skating! Move the fuck along!”
My blood boils in my veins at hearing his words, but, for once, I try not to get into yet another fight.
We have people out there on the bleachers today, which is not out of the ordinary. The arena is open to the press during practice, and sometimes fans are allowed to attend as well.
Today, my father is here.
That in itself is not that big of a deal. He attends a lot of my practice sessions, always has. But today is different. Heis beyond angry with me. Our last meeting was two days ago, on that day when I moved into Abby’s apartment, which also happens to be after the day I actually met her.
