Wait. Hold on. I park a hand on my hip. “Did you just want to make me sweat?”
His smile turns victorious as he waggles the green leaves in his hand. “Or maybe I wanted the kale. I need to make a smoothie after all. I’ll be in touch with details.”
Bending down, he strokes Simon’s head, and my little dude eats up the affection, even as Ford says, “Let’s keep you out of air jail.”
Then he heads back inside and shuts the door.
6
THE GOOD STUFF
FORD
The penguin’s almost there. One more corner in this maze, and I’ll get him to the end. But the maze fucks with me, shifting ninety degrees on the screen.
Ha. I won’t go down that easily.
I readjust to the new spatial orientation, maneuver the penguin through the last turn, and send him safely out.
I punch the air.
“Dude, how fast were you today?” Wesley Bryant, one of our star wingers, asks from across the locker room as he tugs on his shoulder pads.
“Thirty-two seconds,” I say proudly as I stretch in front of my stall and toss my phone into the cubby.
Our goalie, Max Lambert, wiggles his fingers from his stall. “Gimme. I can beat you.”
I scoff. “You wish.”
He taps his temple. “I’ve been training my brain for a long time.”
From the other side of me, Tyler Falcon snorts. “Might want to see if you can get a refund next time,” says thedefenseman, who became a fast friend after joining the team a couple years ago.
Max strides over, half-dressed in his chest protector and shorts. “I will kill it in this penguin game,” he declares. “I do eye exercises all the time.”
“Yeah? Then use your eyes to look it up on your phone. It’s called—hold on,” I say, waiting as he doubles back and grabs his phone, presumably opening a search bar or app store. As he looks back at me, I finish, “The Penguin Maze That Ford Devon Owns Your Ass In.”
Max glares at me like he wants to murder me in my sleep.
It’d be a long, slow, painful death.
I’d probably deserve it.
I flash a closed-mouth grin as I pull on a yellow undershirt. “Look, I’m happy to wipe the floor with all you clowns in the brain-game department,” I say.
I’ve only been playing them my entire time in the pros. Anything for an edge.
Anything to prove I belong here.
When I was younger, so many people said I didn’t. Well, the facts said it too. I went undrafted. After college, I had to claw my way up. I went to a training camp for the Miami team as a free agent and impressed them, but I got sent to the minors. Then I landed a shot at the Phoenix training camp. Same deal—I was an undrafted free agent too, only older. But I played hard, worked harder, and finally snagged a slot on the roster. Didn’t log ice time in my first NHL game until I was twenty-four.
Nearly ancient by this sport’s standards.
Definitely an anomaly, as sportscasters pointed out. Hockey pundits figured I’d be an afterthought. The playerwho’d spend a couple of months in the pros, fill in here or there, and disappear.
I defied the odds.
I stayed for twelve.
