“So, Augie, my son, my son, care to fill me in on your new friend?”
I’d known who it was before he even spoke by looking at his feet. Only Mario had the guts to wear the dumbest purple Crocs ever made. I pretended not to hear him and continued my mental walk through the zone. Mario dropped into a crouch in front of me.
“Are you in the zone or just ignoring me?”
“I’m zoning in. We have five minutes before we play Binghamton. We need to win this game if we want to eke past them to clinch the division.” My voice sounded snippy.
Mario nodded his buzzed red head, then slapped my thigh. Up he went. I continued staring at his lilac Crocs.
“I totally respect your zone,” he said as the din in the Cougars dressing room continued to escalate. “If this thing with your new friend is what it looked like it might be, I think we should talk before you fall into his bed. You need to know about STD’s and—”
My gaze flew from his Crocs to his face. “I’m not ten years old,” I snarled. “I’m twenty-fucking-two. I know what I’m doing.”
I shot to my skates and stormed out of the dressing room. I got as far as the water fountain and realized I’d left my mask in the locker room. Hoping someone would bring me my stuff, I stalked back and forth over the rubber padding leading from the dressing room to the ice. The runner had little cat paw prints on it. I counted them as I paced. My mind refused to stay focused. Who did Mario think he was talking to? Some stupid little shit from the boonies who’d never had a serious relationship with a man be— Oh. Shit.
“Here.” I turned, and Mario shoved my mask, stick, and water bottle into the screaming cougar on my chest. “Sorry if I stepped on your toes.” He ran a gloved hand over his short red hair. “Lila is always telling me I have all the tact of a rhino with a fully-charged cattle prod up its ass.”
“That doesn’t sound like Lila,” I replied as I shoved my mask onto my head.
“She uses the word anus.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Point is, if I said something crass, I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt diving into something with a man you barely know.”
“Can we not talk about this here?”
“Okay, yeah, sorry.” Mario looked back at the dressing room door, then at me. “Just take a minute to talk to me before you give your heart to anyone, okay?”
“Sure,” I grumbled.
The rest of the team boiled out of the locker room and engulfed us. My head was rubbed, patted, kissed, and doused with some sort of oil that smelled like fish and flowers. It made my eyes water. Dan Arou said the smelly stuff was ancient Inuit healing oil that his mother’s mother had made, and it would work wonders.
“Clear all the cobwebs out while making your flow soft and supple.” He tossed his dark head like a supermodel. The man had some incredible satiny hair.
“It will also free up a blocked colon when ingested,” Victor interjected as he and the rest of the coaches waded through the Cougars, “and fills in nicely when the tube of Astroglide is empty.”
“And now that we know why Dan smells like tuna and tulips all the time, maybe we can give the game our full attention,” Mike Buttonwood shouted over the guffaws and tawdry comments. We all quieted down to let our captain give us a speech. Mike gave great speech.
“Tonight we’re going to do something that a Cougars team hasn’t done for over ten years,” he said, his gaze reaching out to every player in that packed corridor. “We’re going to clinch a playoff spot.”
A rousing round of cheers went up. Mike clapped, then raised his hands for quiet.
“We got here through team effort. We’ll win through team effort. And we’ll go on to bring the Calder Cup to our community for the first time ever with team effort!”
We all shouted and hooted, then surged out to hit the ice, filled with team spirit and confidence. The Rader arena was packed—sold out, if the reports coming into the dressing room earlier had been right. Blue and gold rally towels whipped over foam cougar heads. My adrenaline spiked. It was amazing how attendance had soared over the past season. From what Victor said, this team had been in the crapper last year. Then he’d come along and given it the jolt it needed, according to him. Other players who’d been there went along with that, to a point. Mike had once told me that Victor Kalinski was like chewing gum: a sticky pain in the ass. Which I took to mean that our special teams coach had the power to hold things together, but you didn’t want him on your shoe or in your hair, figuratively speaking.
My net awaited me like a faithful dog. I put my water bottle in the holder, and stood with my back against the top pipe, eyes trained on the ceiling. It was time to get rid of all the outside life jazz. Eyes drifting shut, I inhaled the smell of hockey and exhaled a distraction. I pulled in another lungful of hockey, then blew out another minor agitation. After several inhalations and exhalations, I let my lashes rise. Steel girders and a couple of blue balloons. That was all I saw. No confusion, no disruptions, no life worries or anxiety.
“It’s time to play hockey.” I flipped my helmet down and plowed up ice with my skates.
No one came near me as the Cougars took one last lap before the anthem. They knew not to talk to me because their words would put one commotion or another into my head. My space was now worry-free. Nothing but hockey resided there.
The lights dimmed. I removed my mask, patted the painting of Augie Doggie and Daddy Doggie, and stared at my skates as a young woman sang the American National Anthem. When she was done, the rink announcer shouted for some noise. The fans supplied plenty. The air was alive with positive energy. It seeped into my skin. Today had been a good day. The best I’d experienced in forever. A flash of deep brown eyes, dark lashes, and sexy sandalwood cologne wiggled into hockey world. I let it linger for just a second, relished the warmth and good vibes the image gave me, and then tucked it into a locked box.
“It’s time to play hockey,” I reminded myself, and took my position in the crease. Knees bent, stick in hand, catcher raised, eyes locked on the opening faceoff.
The action was furious after that first puck drop. Steady play in both ends, both teams managing to find a few quality scoring chances. The first period ended with neither team scoring. Amazingly, it also ended without Mario getting in the face of Bryce Danielson, the Broncos center. Those two had some huge animosity, but Mario kept his cool. I was sitting in front of my cubicle, head down, eyes on my skates. A tap on my shoulder brought my sweaty head up.
“How are you feeling?” asked Dexter Young, our new goaltending coach.
Dexter had come to the team at the same time I had. This was a move up for both of us from the ECHL. We got along well. Dexter was a slow-to-boil type of man. He was happy to spend as much time as needed with me and another new tender, Mitch Adams. The Cougars had gone hog wild with goaltending changes. The changes seemed to be working, because look at where we were now. Tied with Binghamton for our division. Maybe that sounded egotistical, but Dexter, Mitch and me had helped bring the team to this position.
“Good, Coach,” I replied, and gave him a searching look. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, just checking on where your head is at.”
That made me smile. “It’s still on my shoulders.” Mitch, who was sitting next to me, chuckled then returned to nursing his bottle of green sports drink.
“Glad to hear it,” Dexter said, then pushed his ugly old horn-rimmed glasses back up his thin nose.
Coach Young reminded me of some guy from the sixties, with his flattop and ugly glasses. Even his clothes were kind of dated, but his goaltending knowledge was anything but old-fashioned. He had been one of the best when he played twenty years ago. A pioneer in helping to make butterfly goaltending the norm.
“You two are one hell of a duo. Keep your mind on the game. They’re going to come out looking to rattle you and the others.” He always pointed his finger when he talked. Now it was waving at me. I bobbed my head as he spoke, trying to let his words seep into my brain. “Danielson is an instigator. He hasn’t been able to get under McGarrity’s kilt, so I suspect he’ll try to get to you. Do not let him push you.”
“No worries, Coach. I’ll keep my cool.”
“I know you will.” Mitch and I both got a thumbs-up before he ambled off.
The blue-eyed blond next to me slapped my shoulder. “You got this, Miles,” Mitch said.
I gave his shoulder a short pop with the side of my fist in return. “We got this,” I reminded him, then turned my attention to refocusing.
When the clock on the wall showed it was time to return to the ice, we were ready. “We” as in the team. Not just me or Mitch, but the Cougars. We were pumped, hungry, and ready to win. The second period started off with a bang. Coach was right about the Broncos’ mentality. They came out of the away team dressing room with burrs the size of grapefruits under their saddles. I stood in my crease and watched the mayhem breaking out all over the ice. And once the Broncos started ramping up how hard they were hitting, the Cougars starting finishing their checks with a lot more zeal. Bodies started rattling boards, men bounced off glass, and our captain was trucked so hard by a Broncos D-man that his skates left the ice and his ass rolled over the boards. Mike landed in the lap of a Broncos forward, his helmet askew and his green eyes snapping.
That hit on our captain pushed the game from physical into downright bloodthirsty. The Broncos goalie and I had an easy time of it, since most of the action took place in the corners or in the penalty boxes. Aside from a couple of hairy power-play opportunities on both ends, it was all about retaliation and punching. When you’re throwing fists, you’re not trying to score.
When the buzzer sounded, the game was still scoreless but the penalty minutes were stacking up nicely. During the break, Coach Dewey, our head coach, had a few words for us. Many were not nice, but they were needed. We were letting the Broncos get to us, just like Coach Young had warned us tendies about. Now the rest of the team was getting that memo in big, loud, cursing font.
The third period was just as physical but far less sloppy. It seemed as if both teams had been read the riot act, because sin bin time was significantly reduced. The hard hits continued, and the net-crashing spiked into outrageous levels. After I’d been knocked on my ass for a third time, I got a little upset and had a talk with the ref. I explained that I was worried about how impaired his vision must be since he hadn’t seen the blatant goaltender interference happening right under his nose. He told me to get back to my crease or I’d get slapped with a delay of game penalty.
“Blind asshole,” I mumbled as I crammed my mask back on my head.
“I got that dickwad Danielson,” Mario informed me as we waited for a problem with the clock to be fixed. “You just worry about keeping that puck out of our net.”
I gave him a nod. The forwards gathered to my right for a faceoff. Dan Arou, who had been quiet all night due to defensive pressure, won the faceoff, shuttled the puck back to Mario. Mario managed to break away from the glut of players in my end. He broke over the blue line and took a slap shot. The Broncos goalie threw up his glove. The puck caught the edge of the catcher glove, spun up into the air, then landed behind the Broncos goalie right on the line. Mario dove at the crease, his stick extended in front of him. He nudged the puck just enough to send it slowly creeping to the back of the twine. A linesman standing behind the goal pointed at the puck in the net. The goal light came on and the fans went bonkers.
I leaped into the air as well. The Broncos goalie began battering the pipes with his stick. Mario rolled onto his back and three Cougars piled on top of him. When things settled down a bit, we were up by a goal with less than four minutes on the clock. The tension doubled. We all played balls to the wall, the surge of momentum from Mario’s goal infusing the team with confidence and one last burst of energy.
I had to block one shot in those final four minutes. And that was with an extra skater on when Binghamton pulled their goalie. When the final buzzer sounded, I skated as fast as I could from my crease to meet the team at center ice. We laughed and yelled, pumped our fists in the air, and hoisted McGarrity onto our shoulders. Little stuffed Cougars, a promotional item, sailed down from the stands. After Mario had his skates back on the ice, we formed a circle at center ice and raised our sticks in thanks to the fans. Everyone in that barn appeared to be on their feet. The applause felt great. Winning felt great!
“You need to stay around,” Mario said as we piled into the tunnel leading to the dressing room. “You’ll be one of the three stars of the game.”
“Meh, I didn’t really do much,” I told him. He rolled his eyes and held on to my sweater. Shock filled me when I heard the arena announcer call me for the number two spot for blocking twenty-nine out of twenty-nine shots. After a short spin on the ice and a couple of pucks tossed to the kids, I hustled to the dressing room and arrived in time to catch Victor and Dan exchanging a secretive kiss between two soda machines. I averted my eyes and plowed into the madness of happy Cougars.
“You stood on your head,” Mitch shouted to me as I toweled off my face in preparation for the press arriving. “Man, how the hell did you manage to block the deflection with Danielson lying on top of you? That’s a highlight reel save, it is.”
“Just got lucky,” I replied, then sat down to untie my skates.
“Right, luck is what it was,” Mitch chuckled, before playfully punching me in the arm.
I threw a quick look around the dressing room. Almost every player had his cell phone out and to his ear, or they were texting. Coach was lenient about cell phone time after the game. During the game was not allowed, or when the press was admitted into the dressing room. Other than that, he was cool with us touching base with friends and family. My family consisted of my father and mother, both of whom cared so much that at times it felt a little suffocating. The joys of being an only child, I guess. I’d call them when I got home. I had no boyfriend or husband. My buddies were all caught up with their families. Seeing all the men sharing this special moment with people they loved took the sheen off things just a little. But there was no time to mope. The media would show up at any second. Time to plaster on the game face.
It wasn’t until I was on my way to my car that I pulled out my phone to order a pizza to pick up on the way home. Yay. A six pack of Labatt’s, an anchovy pizza, and an hour of Call of Duty to help me come down from the rush of an important win. My personal life was the pits. One lone text message leaped out at me. I climbed into my Mustang, then checked who it was. Shock overcame me as I read the message from Sal.
Heather gave me your number. Congrats on big win! Looking forward to tomorrow night. I’m cooking something special. My address is 8- B North Applegate Apartment Complex. See you at 7 pm.
A tingle of emotion welled up inside me and the night got a whole lot shinier.