The season was over.
The mood in the locker room after the game was funereal. I walked through the room, lightly touching arms and whispering words of encouragement. I felt soprotectiveof the players after a full season taking care of them, and hated seeing their dreams crushed.
“You should make a speech,” Rhett was whispering to Cole.
“I’m bad at speeches.”
“You’re the captain. It’s your job.”
“He’s not wrong,” I told him.
Cole’s gaze hardened. “All right. I’ll say a few words.”
“Oh, so you’ll do it if June tells you to, but not me?”
“Correct,” Cole said. “I trust her opinion significantly more than yours.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” Rhett complained.
Cole cleared his throat, then began to step up onto one of the benches to give his speech.
But before he could, Elias clapped his hands over his head a single time, causing everyone in the room to look in his direction. He swept his gaze across the room slowly, meeting every eye, before speaking.
“Life is short, and the hockey season is long. Sometimes, it is easy to forget how far we have come. I forget this quite often. One month into our season, we were suffering a great many injuries. Rhett missed several weeks with a damaged shoulder. Cole’s knee was a constant issue. I spent the first half of the season hiding an oblique injury.”
“You hidwhat?”Coach Jay said.
“And yet, we persevered through these injuries,” Elias continued. “We healed. We practiced. We improved individually, and as a team! We made it to the playoffs as the number two seed. Yes, we hoped we would go farther than the second round. But at the beginning of the season, we would have been overjoyed to learn that we would make it this far.”
His voice boomed with confidence and leadership.
“We should be proud. We should be happy. And we should be hungry for next season, where we will come back and win the Stanley Cup!”
Everyone cheered. I glanced at Cole—he looked as shocked as I felt.
“Didn’t know he had it in him,” Cole said. “If I ever get traded, I think we know who should take over as captain.”
Elias moved through the locker room, hugging each player and kissing them on the cheek. “Since when did he get so affectionate?” O’Malley wondered out loud.
Rhett elbowed me in the ribs and smiled.
After everyone had left, I stayed in my office to finish up all my paperwork. As we transitioned from the playoffs to the off-season, there was an entire new database for me to upload everything into.
Coach Jay knocked on my door. “I need to see you in my office, when you get a chance.”
I quickly finished up what I was working on and then joined him. “Take a seat,” he said, gesturing.
I tried not to feel anxious as I sat down. “Sorry about how things ended, Coach.”
“Me too. But Elias was right. We did better than our pre-season expectations. On a selfish level, I’m happy my job is safe.” He closed his laptop and turned his attention to me. “And speaking of jobs… you were only hired by the Reapers on a one-year contract. Technically, your employment terminates at midnight tonight.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d forgotten all about this. When I signed all the paperwork last October, I was just thrilled to be working for the team. I hadn’t even thought about the future.
“So… are you going to renew my contract? For another year?”
“We are not,” he said.
I felt my heart deflate. I wasn’t ready for this job to end. It had only just begun!
