“It was!” Abel protests like a child he is. “I’m going cross-eyed from splitting them every time.” The idiot proceeds to cross his two index fingers in opposite directions while making his eyes twitch theatrically. “I played the puck like you said.”
“Oh, really? Well, why didn’t you say so?” Coach Hill throws his hands up and steps onto the ice, marching toward my net like a man on a mission. “Minaev, move out of the net,” he orders when he’s in front of me, and as I slide out he proceeds to peer into every corner, walking around it a few times, inspecting it like he’s looking for the door that leads to Narnia or some shit, all while not making a sound.
“Um, Coach?” Zlatan asks, bending over and looking into the net next to our coach. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, what am I doing?” He points theatrically toward himself, jabbing his thumb into his chest as his brows arch comically high. “I’m looking for your puck.”
Abel scrunches his forehead. “Um, but it’s not here.”
There is a beat of silence and then Coach’s booming voice bounces off every surface and right into Zlatan’s ear. “Exactly!” Zlatan slaps a hand to his ear, but the show is not over. “Now, I’ll ask you again, where were your eyes?”
“It’s not my fault! Goram is too fucking good, what am I supposed to do?”
“Jesus, I don’t know?” Coach throws his hands up again. “Maybe play hockey? You’re in the motherfucking NHL! What do you expect? And this isn’t even Quinn defending the goalpost. And as much as we may not like it, the other teams have great defensemen, and if you can’t make the fucking goal, what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Look at him! He’s like a wall, even if my eyes do the fucking splits, I still won’t get past the Hulk!”
“Then become a fucking hummingbird and find a butt crack to slip into!” Coach grits out before hollering, “Again!”
“Mm-hmm,” Zlatan murmurs, “I’ll get past the Hulk, only to run into a brick wall.” He means me, and a rare half a smile grazes my lips. “What does he expect me to do? Become a freaking Harry Potter with an invisibility cloak? How is it my fault we have such a good team.”
I can’t with this guy. He’ll blame the whole world but not himself, and the thing is he’s not even doing it out of maliciousness or to make excuses for himself. He’s genuinely clueless, thanks to his golden boy upbringing.
We were born into similar families, yet couldn’t be any more different because while his was an actual family, mine was one never-ending business meeting.
We run the drills for another hour before Coach calls us over.
“Listen up.” He speaks up again and we all draw our attention to his board. “This next game against Silver Hawks is not going to be easy. They are at the top of their division, and they are more than comfortable on the offense. So, Goram, Zlatan, Makeev you need to enter their zone faster. Same goes for the rest of the forwards. Play with their defensemen. They are empty-headed hulks so you have to outsmart them. Show them the puck.” He draws his offense lines on the board. “Then quick pass over and it’s a done deal. Pass, pass, pass, confuse them. Be the team I know you all can be. I like what I saw today during practice. Keep it up and we should see some silver blood on our ice.”
Inspiring, I think with quiet amusement, but if it got the team going, I was all for it.
“Minaev.” Coach’s eyes meet mine. “I have the extra tapes you asked for from Balle’s games with the other teams. Come to my office afterward.”
I nod in acknowledgement, and he goes back to point out a few more things before letting us go.
Balle is Silver Hawks’ highest scoring player, but he hasn’t been with them for that long. So I asked Coach to find his previous games prior to playing with them to study his moves better. I never go into games unprepared. I like to cover all of my bases.
It’s almost a life motto at this point.
6
The winds are changing
Aurora
DoyouthinkifI lie here unmoving, he’ll think I’m still asleep?
Nope. No such luck.
“Mommy, your eye just moved,” Emett whispers. His warm, slightly sweet breath from marshmallow toothpaste fans across my face, because, of course, my son is hovering over me an inch away from my face. “It totally moved,” he murmurs, and I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
I may’ve only gotten four hours of sleep and would love to stay in bed the whole morning, but I’ll never miss even a minute of the time I get with my son. Just the sound of his sweet voice fills me with energy I didn’t know existed.
“It totally did,” I confirm, prying my tired eyes open.
“Yessss!” He jumps up on my bed, his little fist up in the air in a victorious salute. “My Superman powers worked. They totally worked!” he exclaims happily, that toothy grin on full display.
“Oh? And which ones did we unlock today?”
