“Do I look like a fuckin’ liar?” he says, a mix of German and Bostonian accent in there. It’s just as odd as it fucking sounds, listening to him talk. He’s a hulk of a man, slightly bulkier than me and only a few inches shorter, probably around six foot three.
“No, sir.”
“Great, get cleaned up, and get ready for debrief.”
I walk with my skates on, entering the locker room. The last game before winter break was at home, and as badly as I want some time off, I can’t afford to lose any momentum. Thank fuck Eli’s parents are loaded and are letting us stay at their cabin in Vermont. There’s apparently a lake right outside the cabin that freezes over in the winter. The perfect place to make sure we don’t get rusty during the time off. Eli and Anders are probably going to hate me when I make them do skate drills and weight lifting with me. They can complain all they want. We need to stay focused, and now is not the time to forget about our goal. Not when recruiters and agents will choose who they want over the next couple of months. Eli and Anders already have eyes on them. I need to stand out, and that isn’t going to happen by slacking off or getting distracted.
“What did coach say?” Eli asks, his sturdy shoulder bumping into mine as he passes me and sits on the bench, unlacing his skates, and starting to undress.
“Just to control the temper.”
“What’s new?” my best friend laughs. Eli is one of the few people I never get pissed at. It’s really hard to get mad at a ginger who smiles, takes you on vacation, lets you crash at his house, and not to mention is the team captain.
“Yeah, he said if I can get that under control, he might know some teams that are interested.”
Eli smiles in happiness for me before he sighs, and the smile falls. The likelihood of us all ending up on the same team is so slim; the statistics of all three of us going pro are already thin enough. The idea of not being able to see him and Anders everyday leaves a pit in my chest. They’re the closest thing to a family I’ve ever had. The Alpha part of me knows that they’re pack, but the realistic side of me knows that it’s not possible with being a professional athlete.
Part of being a pack is being able to live with each other. No way that’s going to happen. The other part would be finding an Omega who likes all of us. Finding an Omega is hard enough, finding one who likes all of us, that’s like finding a goddamn four-leaf clover in a fucking desert. Let alone that none of us have time for one. That’s something to think about in the future when we’re hanging up our skates in the professional sector. It’s just not heard of, packs in professional sports. You have to choose one or the other.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Eli says, giving me a gentle look. I sigh and sit down. He knows how much this all means to me. It all spilled out of me on a drunken night freshman year. It’s basically when Eli adopted me. His family might be loaded, but Eli needed someone too. Then Anders moved to America with his thick accent and needed some friends and, well, we all just got each other.
Not that I don’t like the other guys on my team, who are all predominately Alphas as well. It’s just that Anders, Eli, and I, we have a bond. We get each other, and it’s a shame that if we wanted to be anything else but professional athletes, we would make that pack come true. The only thing I want almost as much as a career in hockey is a family I can be proud of. But I need to be proud of myself first. I need to prove that I’m more than my namesake before I’d ever be ready to have a pack or a family.
“I’m going to be hitting that lake hard during break,” I say to Eli.
He smiles. He just got a veneer put in a few weeks ago, so he, thankfully, has all his teeth. I have a partial that I take out during playtime, so I currently look ridiculous missing an incisor right now. The price you have to pay to be the team’s enforcer.
“Honestly, I can’t wait to just have some time to clear my head. The cabin is great. You guys will love it.”
When Eli says cabin, I’m not sure if Anders and I will be sharing a bunk bed, or if it will be a mansion and his family just calls it a cabin because it’s their smallest property.
“Your family is really okay with us staying at the cabin for Christmas?” Eli rolls his eyes as he takes off padding and throws it onto the floor.
“You know very well that Jean and Edward don’t give a fuck if they see me at Christmas.” I nod my head and start unlacing my skates. Eli is proof that your parents can give you all the money in the world, not hit you, but you still have no idea if they really love you or not.
Anders is the only one of us with loving parents. They just also happen to live in Finland. From what I’ve gathered, they are considered upper middle class, and his family is extremely supportive of his hockey accomplishments. As they should be, the man has saved our asses on multiple occasions this season. He’s been the best goalie that Boston University has seen in decades.
Speaking of the devil, he walks out of the showers with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Are we leaving tonight or tomorrow?” he asks. Anders’ English is absolutely immaculate. The man knows the language better than I do, but he has a slight accent to most words.
“I figured tomorrow. It’s been snowing further north, and driving through that shit is a nightmare,” Eli replies. Anders lets out a sigh of relief and so do I. As many hits as I dolled out tonight, I took just as many. My shoulder and quads are sore, and I could use a good night’s rest before a road trip.
“What is there to do in Vermont?” Anders asks.
Solid question, but as long as I’m off campus and not back home, I’m content. I don’t care if there isn’t running water and we have to shit in a bucket.
“Fishing, hiking, skating, relaxing. And the town is actually pretty nice, there are plenty of food options. We can’t ski or snowboard, but maybe we could go tubing.”
We both nod our heads. The last thing you want to do is risk a completely avoidable injury this close to finishing the season and the potential of going pro.
“We’ve gotta be ready to kick ass during the Desert Hockey Classic,” I say.
“I do not like Arizona,” Anders says in a monotone voice, and Eli laughs. We can all agree that we like being in New England. The dream would be all being drafted to teams in the area. I would even settle for anything, as long as it’s cold.
Coach walks in, a big smile on his face. He chomps on his gum dramatically with his clipboard in his hands.
“This was a good game against UConn. Those are the types of scoreboards I want to see. Becky,” he says, looking at Eli. His last name is Beckford, and somehow the nickname Becky caught on in his high school days. “Next time we’ll get you that hat trick. Larsen,” he says, looking at Anders. “Excellent goaltending. Defense, that’s how you protect your goalie. I’ll be sending out game footage during the break. I expect all of you to relax during winter break, but to not take this time for granted. Right after Christmas, we’re back on the ice, and then we’re in Arizona. You need to be stretching, lifting, and getting in skate time when possible. John will email you workout sheets, and I expect you to keep logs. Understood?”
There’s a loud chant of understanding from the whole team, and Coach nods his head. We all circle each other, no matter what level of undress we’re in, and put our hands in the middle. A low bark between us picks up until it’s loud as fuck. It might be stupid, but it gets us riled up before we all scream, “Bulldogs!” and throw our hands in the air.
