He’s never been a great morning person, and this is a normal practice time. Early morning skates on game day, he literally has me slap him until he’s fully awake. It’s a routine that has normal people turning their heads, but I have learned to have fun with it over the years. This isn’t a new behavior of his.
“Hurry up,” I mutter before strolling out of the locker room.
Getting on the ice will be good. I need to cool off after thinking of Serena and that night at her party. I went further than I should’ve, broke more boundaries than I’d prepared for.
My blood begins to boil as the image of her hand on that guy’s arm fills my vision. She was taunting me, luring me, and I took the bait so fucking hard.Too hard.
I rewarded her for being a brat and let her come, but I don’t know if I’ll be so generous next time. Maybe when she decides to disobey me in the future, I’ll bring her to the edge over and over and over again until she’s delirious and begging me for it, quivering and shaking for release.
Regardless, I shouldn’t have pulled her into the closet.I got too close, too fast, but,fuck, it was impossible not to. Having her at my fingertips as she looked up at me with those blue doe eyes … I could practically hear her mental pleas for my touch. But I need to be the disciplined one, especially with her playful ass pushing every limit I set.
Stepping onto the sheet of ice, I glide across the freshly Zambonied surface. I inhale deeply, the bite of the air refreshing me, grounding me.
This is my life. Practice. Games. Everything I do revolves around hockey. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that was before Serena entered the picture, upheaving the clear path I had for my future.
Win the Cup by the time you’re thirty.
After that, I planned to add other elements into my life. Love. Family. Hobbies. But not until I lifted that Cup in my hands. That dream almost came to fruition last season.
It was right there in game seven of the finals last year ... one more shot. One more block. One more hit. I could taste the win, feel it humming in my bones.
Then we lost with five seconds left on the clock in the third period to the Florida Pythons. Absolute devastation. That loss was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to get through mentally. I wasthisclose to fulfilling my dreams, and then,poof, it was just gone.
I blame it on the refs, on missing the obvious high sticking call that happened moments before their final goal. It should’ve put us on a power play. We would’ve won. But instead, the penalty wasn’t called, and Kol had to leave the ice immediately because he was gushingblood. As far as the refs were concerned, it must have been caused by the wind.
But I know deep down that the entire game didn’t come down to one single play or lack of a call. It was a culmination of every second on the ice.
So close, but so far away.
I won’t let it slip through my fingers again, but this time, the equation has gotten a little trickier. In the midst of my picking up my broken-athlete heart, Serena entered the picture.
I would like to say that I fought the pull to her. That the initial attraction didn’t sway me from my original career goals. That the moment she walked into that team dinner and locked eyes with me across the room, I wasn’t absolutely gutted.
Gutted because I knew at that moment that she would be mine. Somehow, someway, she would belong to me, and I, to her.
I’m an intense person. Hell, all three of us are—Casper, Kol, and me. We always have been. We wouldn’t be the successful hockey players we are now if we weren’t obsessiveand didn’t havean unquenchable work ethic.
Every second of our youth was spent running drills on and off the ice. Hours every single day. Camps. Traveling teams. World Juniors. We pushed each other as hard as we could every step of the way.
Half-assed isn’t in our nature. It’s everything or nothing.
I can’t havenothingwith Serena. I need it all.
So, I adjusted the goals. Now, I plan on winning the Cup—still by the time I’m thirty—and I intend to do itwith Serena in attendance, wearing my name on her back and my ring on her finger. Maybe with a few marks of my possession hidden beneath her clothes.
It’ll be perfect.
A few of the guys join me on the ice, stretching and warming up. We fall into the groove of things. Eventually, when the time comes and everyone’s on the ice, our coaches enter the bench, and practice officially begins.
We run through a few passing and shooting drills before working on special team drills. Power play lines, penalty kill, breakaways. This practice is a menagerie of drills and skill clinics. After we‘ve run the drills to death, we split into two teams for a quick scrimmage.
Repetition. Consistency. Confidence. That’s what makes a good hockey player. All three things Cas, Kol, and I have in spades. Depending on who you talk to, some announcers or press say we have more of one characteristic than the others, although they usually use the wordcockyin place of confidence. I would agree with their claims, but at least our skills back it up.
Which we prove in the first ten minutes of scrimmage, each scoring against our star goalie, Jordan Worthington. Wojo. Jojo. All the same.
He’s insanely talented. He leads the professional league in shutouts and holds the record for both our franchise and the league for total shutouts in a single season, and we still have months left in regular game play.
When you play against him every single practice, you pick up on things that other teams can’t. We see his weaknesses and openings better than anyone else, and we use them against him.
