I nearly rolled out of my bed and onto the floor the next morning in an attempt to silence my chirping phone. I checked the time out of instinct even though I knew what time I’d set the alarm for. The morning light was blinding through the curtain-less window, casting a spotlight on my roommate who was sitting cross-legged on top of his bed with mussed hair and sleepy eyes. He was blinking furiously and clearly trying his best to become a functioning member of the human race once again, which is, assuming he had ever been one to begin with.

“Sorry about the alarm,” I said, stretching out my muscles. “I have practice in half an hour.”

The other man wiped his nose against the sleeve of his T-shirt and regarded me with suspicious eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked. His voice sounded like sandpaper. It was hard to believe that he’d been sleeping even longer than I had.

“Carter Haynes,” I said with a little wave. “I live here.”

His eyebrows creased.

“You mean like the underwear brand?”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“No. Haynes with a ‘y’.”

My roommate nodded and loudly cracked his knuckles.

“Well, I’m Steve,” he said. He didn’t offer his last name.

“Right.” I nodded. “Good to meet you.”

We both stood there awkwardly. I was debating whether or not I should say anything about the girl from yesterday. Steve was eyeing me as if challenging me to do just that. Eventually, I figured there was nothing really, I could do about it. Who he fucked and where he fucked them wasn’t really any of my business. I decided to just let it go for now and started getting ready for practice. I kept it simple, figuring I’d be spending most of my time getting fitted for new pads. I put on a solid blue rash guard and matching jock shorts, both of which clung to my muscles, putting them on full display. When I turned around, Steve was staring at me.

“You’re going to practice, you said…”

I nodded and crouched down to retrieve my skates from under my bed. I placed them on top of my desk for Steve to see. He eyed the skates with even more suspicion than he had me.

“What the fuck are those?” he asked.

“Hockey skates,” I said, digging out a pair of socks to go with them. Hockey socks were thick and long and specially made to stretch over your shin pads. They also had little velcro straps at the top to help keep them from sliding down. “And yes, this school really does have a hockey team,” I added before Steve could ask my least favorite question.

Steve kept quiet, but there was a newfound cautiousness in the way he was carrying himself, almost as if he was afraid of me. I felt a stab of satisfaction over it. Being an intensely dedicated young athlete did come with a certain set of perks, namely rock-solid abs and thighs. Most people my age could barely manage flat stomachs. 

I dumped out my backpack onto my desk, letting the various notebooks and textbooks scatter. I replaced them with my socks and skates and slung the bag over my shoulder. Somehow it was heavier instead of lighter. I grabbed my phone and threw on some baggy basketball shorts over my athletic wear. Then I left the room with Steve staring after me.

After that, I headed down to the communal bathroom where I brushed my teeth and applied deodorant and paused to look at myself in the mirror. I looked more or less the same as always. Dark brown skin and eyes. Long nose and strong jaw that was complemented by my shaved head and just a tiny bit of baby fat around the cheeks. Even tired and unshowered, I wasn’t too hard on the eyes.

I splashed a little bit of water on my face to wake myself up and then headed down to catch my shuttle to the rink. Though not exactly connected to the main campus, Silver Lake Arena was the Coronado fixture I was most familiar with, seeing as it had been the focal point of most of my many tours. It contained some of the best ice I’d ever had the privilege of skating on. It was huge, favoring the international standard of two hundred by one hundred feet rather than the much smaller rinks typically found in North America. Compared to all the ice I’d skated on in juniors, it felt like an endless, wide open dream. I’d been eagerly anticipating the day I’d get to skate on it again ever since my last visit.

Today was my lucky day.

I entered the arena through the propped open side door near the concession stand. I knew where the changing rooms were, but even if I didn’t I could have just followed the sound of rowdy young men until I got to where I was supposed to be. I paused outside of the open door and awkwardly waited to be noticed. The walls and cubbies were Coronado red with a big yellow viper emblazoned on the floor, slightly off center.

“I’m telling you, man,” someone was saying. “She was a ten at the very least.”

“Ten out of what?” asked someone else, sounding genuinely curious.

“Dude. He’s fucking lying anyway. What does it matter? We don’t need to know about your personal life.”

“Ten out of ten, my man,” said the first guy. “Chris is just mad because he hasn’t gotten laid since freshman year.”

“At least I actually got laid,” said Chris under his breath.

“Could you idiots do me a favor and shut the fuck up?” This request came from a burly redhead right in the center of the room, directly in my line of vision. I recognized him from one of my last visits. Matty Anderson. Number 34. Defenseman. Last year he’d been the team leader in hits but failed spectacularly at everything else.

Seeing a familiar face eased the tension in my stomach a bit. I was just working up the nerve to go in and talk to him when a hand landed on the back of my shoulder, scaring me half to death. I turned to see Vipers’ captain Salvador Hernandez staring back at me. I hadn’t formally met him, but he was easy enough to recognize. At five-foot-three, he was likely the smallest man in all of Division 1 hockey. It was also his spectacular leadership and powerful shot that had earned the Vipers the Division 1 title in the first place. It was clear from the way he was looking at me that he recognized me as well.

Salvador shot his eyes toward the men in the locker room, none of which had noticed us yet, and then nodded his head to the side signifying that he wanted me to follow him. I did so without question.

We ended up standing face to face in an equipment room. Salvador crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked me over in a way that made me feel naked and small even though I was nearly twice his size. He was already suited up, the crisp white C emblazoned on his chest practically glowing at me, which didn’t help.

“So, you’re the new guy, right?” he asked.

I nodded.

The captain nodded back and stuck out his hand. I took it in my own slightly sweaty one and gave him a firm shake.

“I’m Salvador, but everyone calls me Sal or Sally,” he said.

I let go of his hand. “Carter. Carter Haynes.”

He raised a brow. “Like the underwear brand?”

I did my best to not let the irritation show. “No,” I said quickly. “It has a ‘y’.”

Sal shrugged. “Whatever, man. Just so you know, they’re still probably gonna call you Undies or something like that.”

Great.

Sal turned his back on me and went to examine a rack of sticks. He dug out an extra small one that I could only imagine belonged to him.

“So, Coach says you’re pretty good,” he said after a minute or so. He gave me a second to process what he’d just said before turning back around to face me and adding, “Is it true?”

I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I had to defend my game to anyone, much less this skeptical midget.

“I do all right,” I said drily.

The silence in the room was thick and palpable as we stared each other down. Sal then cracked a huge smile and clapped me on the shoulder.

“You better. This is my last year and I don’t want this team to fall to shit after I’m gone, you feel me?”

I nodded, still reeling from the rapid tonal shift.

“Good,” Sal said, smiling once again. “Let’s go introduce you to the team.”

The Vipers men’s hockey team was among the rowdiest rosters I’d ever been a part of. Including me, there were exactly twenty guys total. Barely enough for us to qualify to play by league standards, leaving no room for injuries or substitutions. I guessed the coaching staff was planning on crossing that bridge when they came to it.

I was the only newcomer this year—Sal let it slip that it was because all of the scholarship money that usually would’ve been divvied out between all of the incoming freshmen had been given to me, which made me feel both honored and guilty—so the lines were already mostly established. They were sticking me on the first with Sal as the right winger and a decently talented junior named Henry Shaw as the left. Henry, or “Shawser” as everyone liked to call him, seemed nice enough. He was really cute in an endearing man-child sort of way. He had a strong Californian accent and bright blue eyes and a nest of curly blond hair that completely engulfed his beefy head. From the games I’d watched and stats I’d read up on prior to being recruited, I knew that he was a pretty streaky player. He didn’t score too awfully much, but it was best to keep him close to the action just on the off chance he got fired up. He was also evidently a really huge part of our power play unit.

“How come the new guy gets to be on the top line?” Danny Stohl, notorious team show off and king of the unnecessary spinorama, complained under his breath. He’d said it just loudly enough so that he knew I would hear him, but I didn’t rise to the bait. I just sat by the cubby that had my name written in felt-tipped pen on top of some masking tape and started putting on my new gear. I was expecting to have to go through a couple of different sets of pads to find ones that worked for me. It had always been that way back in juniors, but everything that had been provided fit like a glove. I assumed Dr. Casey’s meticulous muscle measuring the day prior had something to do with that.

I fished my socks and skates out of my bag and took my time securing and tying them. I saved the jersey for last. There were three of them hanging in my cubby. They all had the number fourteen and the name HAYNES written on the back as well as the same viper that was painted on the floor plastered across the front. One jersey was maroon with yellow lettering and one was white with maroon lettering. The third was white on solid yellow, which I assumed by its sheer ugliness was only for practicing. I slipped this one off its hanger and pulled it down over my pads. It too was a perfect fit.

I glanced down at myself and examined the viper in closer detail. It was a mean little thing. The way it rested on the fabric made the sharp needle-like teeth look like they were stabbing into my abs, injecting me with venom and killing me instantly. I glanced over at Sal who was sitting next to me. He clapped me on the back.

“You’ll get used to the color eventually,” he said. “Plus, it makes game days extra exciting because you get to stare at something other than blurry gliding bananas for a few hours.”

I blinked a few times. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Luckily, Assistant Coach Arthur McAvoy took that moment to come waltzing in with his clipboard swinging at his side like a deadly weapon.

“Look alive, kiddos!” he shouted. He came to a stop right in front of me and stuck out his hand. “Welcome aboard, son.”

I shook his hand and gave him an uncomfortable smile. “Happy to be here, sir.”

McAvoy laughed good-naturedly. “I highly doubt that, but we’re glad to have you here anyway.”

McAvoy was followed shortly after by the man who had been so determined to get me on his team, Coach Charlie Hawthorne, former Olympian. He didn’t share McAvoy’s sunny disposition. In fact, the two of them were exact opposites, but he was an incredible talent with a wealth of knowledge about the game. It had taken me all of about two-tenths of a second of interacting with him to realize that.

The whole room went quiet as Hawthorne stood before us in all his glory. He didn’t bother with niceties or introductions, he just confirmed the lines we already knew and told us about our home opener next week against Colorado. He ended his speech by congratulating us on our Division 1 status and expressly stating, “You worked hard to get here. Do not fuck it up.” And with that, it was time to hit the ice.

It was just as smooth and wide and glossy as I remembered. I took to the warm-up laps with glee. This was my sixth time skating here and the novelty still hadn’t worn off. Within minutes I had already lapped my teammates twice over with only minimal fatigue. Then we took turns rapid-fire shooting on goal. At one end was our starting goaltender, a huge Italian guy named Gabe “The Monster” Monson. He had long black hair that spilled out from under his mask and a large hulking frame that filled up almost the entire net. On the other end was his backup, a quiet and sullen senior named Andrew Gibbs who would have been our main guy if it hadn’t been for a devastating lower body injury halfway through last season. Even though his reflexes were markedly slower than they used to be, he still wasn’t half bad. I felt almost bad for scoring on him.

And score on him I did. Five times in under three minutes. I could practically see Andrew’s practiced apathy morphing into direct hatred underneath his mask.

I skated over to the other end of the ice to score on Monster instead. Nobody on his end of the ice seemed to be having any luck. He wasn’t easy to get through with that big frame, but after two experimental test shots, I realized he tended to reach out with his right glove more than his left, regardless of where the shot was coming from. I pulled back to center and went rushing toward him, waiting for the signature tense-up. Then I sent the puck flying at his left glove side and it ended up in the back of the net. I looped back around to the lined-up pucks at center ice and scored on him three more times in less than four minutes. 

After my fourth goal, I screeched to a stop in front of the home bench, spraying ice and smiling like an idiot. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. Part of me was afraid of what I’d see if I looked back at my teammates, so I met Coach Hawthorne’s stern eyes instead. We stared each other down for what felt like hours until he finally set down his pen and clipboard and stuffed his fingers inside his jacket pocket. Then he gave me a rare and genuine smile.

McAvoy laughed and whistled through his missing teeth.

“This is going to be fun.”