Dasan is about halfway through the pack. He meets my eyes with a playful smirk. Instead of taking one off the top, I give him the separated one that has a card to my room in it.
“Thank you, Coach,” he says like everyone else.
I incline my head in acknowledgment as I’ve been doing to everyone, but my heart races. There’s always that chance of a fuck-up, like if I somehow gave that room to someone else and that’s just some random keycard.
Logically, I know that’s not true. It’snottrue. I was so damn careful. He has his room on the second floor and a key to mine on the tenth.
My heart continues pounding wildly even as I hand over room cards to Reno and Mina. It feels as if they can see my heart pounding out of control in my chest.
Dasan and I didn’t make plans for tonight, so this is me trying to hint that I want him to come over after the game. Since we only have an hour before we need to get on the bus and head over to the Colorado Thorns’ arena, there’s very little time for anything now. Just long enough to drop our shit, change, and maybe get a drink.
We haven’t set up a routine yet. There’s no schedule of any kind in place for me and Dasan except our text check-ins and daily phone calls. I need something physical. I hope I’m not being too forward with slipping my card in there.
The buzzer fills the arena,signaling the end of the game. I know the score, but my eyes flick to the clock anyway. Tied 3-3. All my players on the ice skate to the bench while I study Colorado. I’m not a fan of pulling my goalie. That’s a vulnerability we don’t need to take.
“How you feeling, Arivitis?” I ask.
“As in you ask I stay on ice or take bench?”
I grin. “No. Are you feeling good about defending if I put three offensives on the ice?”
Marion looks at his teammates. “Yes. We will work it out.”
From choppy English to a mostly proper sentence. I love the way he messes with everyone. One of the Russian players from another team, who speaks very clear English most of the time, started pretending he didn’t know English whenever an opponent tried to insult him. Marion witnessed this once and has since gone in and out of “understanding English,” to all of our amusement.
“Good. Ukiah, Morris, Willow. Take us home.”
Tove’s eyes widen. Dasan grips his shoulder in encouragement.
“You got this, Tove,” Felton says.
Tove nods, though he doesn’t appear entirely sure.
“Alright, let’s get on with it, so we can get back to the hotel and rest. It’s been a long game, and you’ve fought hard.”
“Aye, Coach,” several of my players say.
Dasan isn’t looking at me, but I study his profile, wondering if he’ll join me in my room tonight. Taking a deep breath and letting the hints of icy air fill my lungs, I turn my attention back to the game.
My men head out to the ice and get ready for puck drop. “Come on, come on, come on,” Zenia mutters as he leans forward.
As soon as the puck hits, it’s a mad rush to take control. It immediately heads for Marion, and I clench my teeth. Denny is decent at defense, which is why I almost always put him in during overtimes if I can help it.
Yes, Tove was maybe a wild card. This is his first year in the NHL, and I’ve watched him take risks that our more seasoned players don’t. That’s why I wanted him on the ice. He’s willing to push more radical moves, moves that might be showy, but those are the exact moves that the other team isn’t expecting, which is why some of them work.
Marion blocks a shot, and Denny takes possession of the puck. The players race to the other end. Denny loses the puck to Colorado number eight, but Tove takes the puck from him. He brings it around their goal, and I swear, sometime behind the goal, the puck disappears.
There’s half a second’s confusion, and in that time, Tove slaps the puck into the goal. My team cheers. Denny and Dasan sandwich Tove in a hug. Like most of the arena, we’re all looking up at the replay to find that Tove scooped up the puck so it sat on the end of this stick, but he was moving in such a way that his stick looked like he was just carrying it along.
“Fucking magic,” Willits says, laughing.
We win in overtime, 4-3. My team is ecstatic, loud and rambunctious, as they celebrate on their way to the locker room. I spend a few minutes congratulating them on the win and Tove on his spectacular shot. His cheeks are pink as he beams at me.
The bus ride back to the hotel doesn’t quiet down. If we were home, I imagine that the team would go out to celebrate. Dinner and drinks, maybe. At the hotel, they’ll likely remain in the bar for a while, encouraging the bartender to put on Sports Spot because weknowthat Tove’s shot is going to be replayed at least a dozen times tonight.
I don’t race upstairs because that would be suspicious. I make sure my entire team heads upstairs first. They’re in good spirits, which is to be expected after we win. It was a close win, though. I think Felton might have been in his head tonight, and based on how Ren moved around him during breaks, that assumption feels pretty close to the truth.
Felton’s family is officially banned from all our games. That’s not to say they can’t randomly show up anyway. It would be impossible for the security staff of all thirty-two arenas to memorize their faces. I have to think that they’re smart enough to stay away given the restraining order Felton took out on them.
