Page 6 of Puck Me Thrice
I slammed into the boards, breathing hard, pressing my face against the glass, searching her face for signs of injury. She stared back at me with an expression that might have been surprise, might have been amusement, might have been secondhand embarrassment for my complete abandonment of basic hockey strategy.
Behind me, Coach Williams's whistle could have shattered glass.
"Jones!" His voice could have awakened the dead. "What in the sweet holy mother of hockey do you think you're doing?"
I turned slowly, skating back toward the center of the rink where Coach stood with his arms crossed and his face the color of a ripe tomato.
"The puck was going toward—"
"I don't care if the puck was going toward the president of the United States! You do not leave your net! What happens if someone shoots while you're playing hero? What happens to your team? What happens to our season?"
I had no good answer for that, mainly because he was right.
"Twenty laps," Coach said. "Now."
I started skating, my ears burning. Behind me, I could hear my teammates being less than subtle with their commentary.
"Aww, look at Logan being all protective," someone cooed.
"Does someone have a crush?" another voice said.
"I think Jones needs a moment to collect himself," Nolan said loudly. "And maybe his dignity."
"Does anyone else smell something?" another player called out. "Or is that just Logan's dignity burning?"
Through the glass, Mira was still staring at me. I couldn't read her expression, which was somehow worse than if she'd been laughing.
I skated my thirty laps in burning humiliation, my mind replaying the moment over and over. What had I been thinking? I hadn't been thinking. That was the problem.
After practice, after I'd showered and changed and seriously considered faking my own death to avoid facing anyone, I found myself gravitating toward the video review room.
I told myself I was just checking the footage from practice. I told myself I needed to analyze my performance, identify areas for improvement. I told myself I definitely wasn't looking for the pretty figure skater with the notebook and the judgmental eyes.
I was lying to myself on all counts.
Mira had set up in the video review room like she owned the place. Her laptop was open, surrounded by approximately seventeen different colored pens organized by intensity. She was watching game footage with the kind of focus I usually reserved for playoff games, her eyes tracking every movement, her pen flying across the notebook.
I lingered in the doorway, trying to look casual rather than pathetically curious about what she'd written about me.
She noticed me immediately—of course she did—and gestured me in with a brisk efficiency that felt like a teacher summoning a student.
"Jones," she said, not looking away from the screen.
"That's me," I said, because apparently my brain had shut down and left my mouth to fend for itself.
She didn't mention my spectacular display of poor judgment during practice. Instead, she pulled up footage of my saves from our previous game and began pointing out tiny technical inefficiencies I'd never noticed.
"Here," she said, pausing the video. "See how your butterfly position angles slightly left? You're compensating for a hip flexibility issue, which leaves your glove side vulnerable."
I leaned closer, fascinated despite myself. "I've been working with the same goalie coach for three years, and he's never mentioned that."
"That's because he's probably not analyzing frame-by-frame footage with biomechanics software." She clicked forward. "And here—your glove hand drops about an inch when you're tired. It's minute, but at this level, minute differences matter."
She was right. I could see it now, the tiny drop that I'd never noticed before.
"How do I fix it?"
"Core strengthening, specifically rotational exercises. Figure skaters use their cores differently for balance during spins. I can show you."
