Bronwyn
Coach barely looks at me during intermission. What he does do is deliver a very stern, stomach-clenching lecture to the whole team about how we play.
“We do not play dirty, we do not play rough. We play hard, we play smart, but we don’t play to hurt. Next person I see check one of the opposing team’s players with the intent to injure, you are out of here. And I don’t mean for the game. I mean for the duration of the SIGs, and if I have anything to say about it, I won’t see you on any of my benches in the future. You understand me?”
We all mutter “Yes, Coach,” and I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling like I’m going to hurl into my helmet. Especially because a bunch of my teammates are giving me looks. Some ticked off, some sympathetic. They all make my insides roil. The really shitty thing is that I knew this would happen, and I did it anyway.
Yes, we’ve managed to score twice since twenty-three went out, but I don’t feel good about it. I’ll regret that hit for the rest of my life.
When it’s time to head back up to the ice, we all file past Coach Levenson. I usually go last, and nearly always I get a pat to the arm and a nod with a small upturn of the corners of his mouth. I don’t know what it is about that, but it always makes me feel good. I like the way his pale eyes smile, too. But instead of offering that small encouraging gesture, he looks over my shoulder at the cinder block wall, and I want to cry. This is what I was afraid of. This is what I didn’t want. Why did I let Brody talk me into this?
“Perry, you’re benched for the rest of the game. No arguments, or you’ll be benched for the next one, too. And if you ever, ever, pull something like that again, you’re off the team. That was badly done. ‘Disappointed’ is not a strong enough word for how I feel about you right now. Your eyes will be glued to the ice for the last period so you can help with analysis afterward, but after that, you will be thinking about the kind of player you want to be and whether that’s compatible with the expectations I have of the women on this team. Are we understood?”
The lump in my throat is choking me, and it’s only when he turns his piercing gaze on me with the expectation of an answer that I can force the words out. “Yes, sir.”
No touch, no acknowledgment, no softening of the blow he’s dealt. Nothing. He just walks up the rubber mats, back out to where the crowd is waiting for us to finish up this game. I for one can’t wait for it to be over, but who am I kidding? I’ll be feeling shitty about this for weeks. Even when the memory fades and I don’t worry about it quite so much, the mistake will crawl up on me at my most vulnerable moments and tell me: you are a disappointment.
Riding the pine for the rest of the game is the opposite of fun. With twenty-three gone, it’s not an easy win for us, but it’s definitely easier. Even after the last buzzer sounds and we’ve won, I feel like the crowd’s cheering is muffled and I have to work to get any excitement up, but my teammates deserve it. We all worked hard, but they didn’t compromise to get here. I did, and it’s killing me.
Brody’s going on and on, pointing at me and accepting pats on the back and other forms of adulation. God it makes me mad. It’s stupid, because I did it to my own self—it’s not like Brody forced me to ram twenty-three into the boards—but I feel used somehow.
He gets all of the glory, none of the guilt, and what am I left with? A heavy conscience, a coach who’s pissed at me, and a team who’s treating me like a pariah, however they felt about the actual hit. This, this is the absolute pits, and I have to endure at least an hour of forcing smiles for pictures and questions from the press before I can go to the locker room and get out of my gear.
Before I can strip and wash at least the outward grime off myself, Coach wants to go over the game, and then gives us a chaser lecture lest we forget exactly how badly one of us screwed up. Yeah, because I would’ve totally forgotten otherwise.
After I sit through that little acid shower, it feels especially good to get in the actual shower and try to wash some of my sins away. But once I’m dressed with my gear bag slung over my shoulder, I still have to get on the bus to go back to the village. Luckily, I usually sit in the back, so it won’t look like I’m hiding—which I totally will be.
Ash
Brody Hill has got some nerve. He’s leaning against the team bus, chatting up some of the girls. I want to grab one of the sticks from the gear storage under the bus and beat him with it. Knock out the teeth he has left. Yes, Bronwyn is an adult, and yes, she made the choice to execute the hit, but she never would’ve done it if he hadn’t put the idea in her head. If I know anything about their relationship—and I feel like I know far too much—he didn’t just plant it like a seed and leave it to grow. No. Brody can be kind of a bully, and I bet he poked at her until she felt like she had no choice.
Did he think it through? Not just the immediate consequences of a penalty and Bronwyn potentially getting into a fight—which, to be honest, doesn’t worry me all that much, either; girl’s tough as nails, and it wouldn’t be the first time she got into a scuffle on the ice—but the long-term implications. I know she’s gunning for one of the new women’s pro teams after she graduates, and will they want her if she pulls shit like that? Or will they think she’s more trouble than she’s worth?
Still more problematic . . . I know her. That hit might’ve won us the game, but she lost a little piece of her soul doing that. Did Brody even think of that? Bronwyn’s not like him. She doesn’t play for the violence, doesn’t enjoy that part of the game, because it isn’t part of her game. That hit is going to haunt her for the rest of the SIGs, if not the rest of her life. I hate him a little bit for that. So when you add all the other shit, I hate him a lot.
I should get on the bus. I should get on the bus, not say a word, wait for the rest of the girls, and go back to the village. This is what I should do, but what I’m actually going to do is something else entirely.
Brody sees me coming and gets this smug-ass look on his face that makes me even more committed to my ill-advised plan. The girls he’s talking to turn around and part, looking at me like I’m a wild animal on a rampage. Close. If I were a wild animal, I’d have an excuse for what I’m about to do. As it is, my conscience is screaming at me, and for once I’m not going to listen.
“Ladies, get on the bus.”
My command is followed by a chorus of “Yes, Coach,” and a shuffling of parkas and snow boots. Then it’s just me and Brody, face-to-face, and hell does it piss me off that I have to look up at him. I need to start carrying around a soap box, ASAP.
Get on the bus, Levenson. Don’t start something. Get on the goddamn bus, because all the girls are watching you.
And yet . . .
Instead of doing what I ought to, I shove Brody. Hand to his shoulder, and then his back is meeting the cold metal of the bus.
“What the—”
“I know what you did, and you better not do it again. I don’t want to ban you from the arena, but so help me god I will if you don’t stay away from Bronwyn during games. This is my team, these are my players. They are going to play my way or not at all. Think about that the next time you start filling her head with this shit. You are not to speak with her during games anymore. Not a fucking word, do you understand me? Now get out of here before I do something I really regret.”
The corner of his mouth kicks up and my hand curls into a fist. Yes, punching him is something I would regret, because it’s a terrible idea. For about eight thousand reasons, the least of which is that it feels far too much like I’m a knight defending my lady’s honor. . . . Yep, a busted-ass knight fighting the queen’s own king? I’ve got a romantic soul, but even I find that eye-roll inducing.
Brody holds his hands up and tips his head to the side, still with that smile that makes me want to wipe it off his face with my fist. “Hey, man. No need for the threats. But maybe I wouldn’t have to tell Winnie what to do if you were doing your job. You were getting creamed out there until she took that girl out. You should be thanking me for helping out. Maybe dedicate that W to me.”
Can blood literally boil? Because I feel like I should have scarlet steam coming out of my ears. “I would have rather taken the loss, gotten knocked out of the SIGs, and been fired for it than encouraged one of my players to deliberately hurt someone. Especially Bronwyn. There are women on this team who itch to fight, who would be better suited to playing on a men’s team, but that’s not her.”
A cruel smirk comes over Brody’s face, and he looks way too much like those handsome douchey guys in movies, the ones who have the girls at first and then lose them. God I’d like for him to fall out of Bronwyn’s good graces. “You think you know Winnie so well? You don’t know her like I do. Maybe you’ve seen her in the gym and on the ice, but I’ve seen her naked. Been inside her. All of her. Had her on her knees. Bet you didn’t know that girl loves to suck cock, did you?”
Of all the things for him to say . . . What the hell does that have to do with anything? But my idiot brain is being pulled in a million directions. Anger, protectiveness, disgust, and, yeah, a sticky bit of jealousy I wish I could scrape off like gum from my shoe. But I can’t, quite. Instead, an image flickers in my mind: Bronwyn hovering over me, her dark hair wrapped up in my fist while she lowers her head to lick the head of my cock, looking up at me with those golden eyes before she swallows me down.
Luckily, only one of those emotions gets on the line to my mouth, and it’s an appropriate one. “That is incredibly tasteless, and you need to shut your face right now. That’s the woman you allegedly love you’re talking about, and I can’t imagine she’d want you sharing details of her personal life with me or with anyone else. Show your girlfriend some respect.”
“I’m going to show her more than that,” he sneers. How is it that Brody, who has dryer lint for brains, is capable of pretending to be a decent enough person that Bronwyn is willing to be in his bed? Because there’s no way in hell she’d put up with this shit if she knew about it. This odious motherfucker . . .
But before I can haul back and land what would probably be my only punch before Brody beat the living shit out of me, Brody’s face changes from a leer to a smile and he looks over my shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Winnie?”
Son of a bitch.
When I turn around, there she is; her equipment bag slung across her shoulder, and with the world’s most defeated look on her face. Her hair’s in long plaits that fall down the front of her parka out from under her close-fitting hat, and she’s so frigging adorable I want to die. That or hug her until she doesn’t look so sad. One of those things is impossible, and dying isn’t an option.
Bronwyn looks at Brody, curiosity wrinkling her brow and her chin. “Hmm, what?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
After Bronwyn tosses her bag under the bus, Brody hauls her under his arm and plants a possessive kiss on top of her head. It’s not even loving. In fact, it looked kind of uncomfortable. Not a gesture of affection, but of possessiveness. It’s a pissing match masquerading as a kiss. Add that as reason number 2,075 that I hate this guy.
“’Kay. What are you guys doing out here, anyway?”
“Waiting for you.” Well, that was an embarrassing chorus if there ever was one. And Brody beats me to being next to speak. “Just wanted to congratulate you on your win again before I headed back to village. I’ll see you there?”
He kisses her on the cheek while he watches me, and the steamworks have started again. But I hold my tongue.
“Yeah. See you there. I should get on the bus, though. Team’s waiting for me, I’m sure they want to get back, too.”
They’d probably chat more if I weren’t standing there, but I am. Brody forces an awkward peck on the lips and I feel like kind of a dick for standing there and making it so goddamn uncomfortable, but I can’t find it in myself to care right now. I want her away from him as soon as possible, and this is the only way to do it. So, fine, I look like a jackass. I don’t need her to like me, I just want to keep her safe.
Which is why I grumble along with my let’s-go gesture. “On the bus, Perry. Now.”