I can’t get that hopeful expression of his out of my head, though. He has been very nice to me since I came here, even if I’ve only seen him a few times. I can feel Nana giving me the stink eye from Heaven. She’d tell me to man up and go brave thecold for someone who has gone out of their way for me. He’s the reason I even have this room now.
Dammit, Nana.
I’m going to have to go to this stupid hockey game.
Throwing off the covers, I get up and grouch my way to the bathroom for a shower.
No one had better give me one foul look if I end up coughing my head off or sneezing until the sun don’t shine while I’m there.
CHAPTER 9
Hutch
“Hutch!”
I wince when Coach screams my name. Everyone looks up, startled. The locker room has been loud and boisterous up until this point. What the fuck did I do? Is he going to switch me up to the second or third line? Panic hits fast and hard, but I do my best to school my expression so I don’t show it.
“Mendoza, Wilson, get your asses in here too!”
The small intake of breath from Collin says it all. What the fuck is wrong?
The three of us trudge towards Coach’s office where he’s waiting with a glower on his face.
“Is that little spitfire of yours in the stands?” Coach asks, his voice dropping to a soft murmur.
“I don’t know. She’s sick. Got a fever. I took her meds, but I told her she didn’t have to come if she’s not feeling up to it. Why?”
“The owner of the Raptors is here. He came by earlier to get my take on you three. He’ll be in the stands watching tonight’s game. I wish that girl of yours was here.”
Coach is just as superstitious as the rest of us so I don’t understand why he told us the owner of the Raptors is in the stands tonight. It’ll only put more pressure and stress on us.
“You three are starting tonight. Don’t fuck this up.”
We all nod and wander back to our lockers in a bit of a daze. I expected scouts, sure, maybe even the head coach, but the owner? Owners rarely scout players. They have other shit to do.
This is big.
“What do we do?” Carson whispers.
“We play like it’s our last game. We show up and put up. We make this ourbestgame.”
What if I’m not fast enough?
Nope. I’m not going there.
“We play for us, for our love of the game. We forget the fans, we forget the scouts, hell, we even forget the other team. We simply play for the sheer joy of being on the ice. It’s the pressure and the stress that will make us fail. We just need to focus on what we love about the game and not think about the rest.”
“Easier said than done,” Collin mutters.
“I did it yesterday and I beat my best time.”
They both stare at me, shocked. I’d been fighting all month to get my time back up and nothing worked.
“What the hell? How?”
“I brought Daisy here to show her why I love hockey. Why I love the ice. Girl can’t skate for shit by the way. She called her skates weapons of mass destruction. She wasn’t wrong.”
They both laugh.
