I threw my phone down on my bed, narrowly missing Mitts, who hissed at me again. Our classmates could worship him all they wanted. I was committed to doing the exact opposite.
Chapter 10Parker
Considering how bad our loss was on Friday night, I felt like quite the celebrity come Monday. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention. The smiles, the giggles, the way girls went out of their way to brush past me in the corridor. It was great. I’d only had a few classes so far today, and I already had five new numbers in my phone.
“Maybe I should walk around naked more often,” I said to Seth as I followed him onto the school bus. We had a science excursion to some museum, and I was lucky Seth had asked the bus to wait for me because art class had run way over.
“Please don’t,” he groaned. “I’ve seen enough videos of your ass this weekend to last me a lifetime.”
“I can’t help that my ass went viral.”
“No part of you should ever go viral. Your ego can’t handle it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about; my ego is loving it.” As I made my way down the aisle to find a seat, a girl wiggled her fingers at me flirtatiously. I couldn’t remember her name, but she was cute, so I flashed her a smile.
Seth groaned again and I glanced over my shoulder at him. “What?”
“You’re just proving my point,” he said. “But at least everyone’s distracted from the game.”
That knocked my ego down a few pegs. Did he really haveto bring up the game? With Reed and Grayson visiting, I’d also been forced to finally tell them I was yet to be named captain, and probably never would be. I just wanted to forget the whole evening. Hell, I’d even give up my ass’s new celebrity status if I could go back in time and get another shot at that terrible game.
Unfortunately, I had little reason to believe the next one would be any better.
“Did you see this?” Seth asked as we took a seat at the back of the bus.
I shook my head as he handed me a poster. It was enthusiastically advertising hockey tryouts for tomorrow night—Coach Foster was looking for an additional goaltender.
“I know it saysadditional,” Seth continued. “But I think we all know this means Coach won’t be letting us suffer another week with Anderson. He wants a new starter until Elliot is back.”
“I guess so,” I agreed, placing the poster on the empty seat next to me. The bus rumbled to life and took off from the curb.
“Who do you think they’ll pick?” Seth asked.
“No idea. We already had tryouts and apparently, other than Elliot, Anderson was the best we could find.” Coach Foster had missed the start of preseason, so I assumed he was hoping some hidden talent might have been overlooked during the previous tryouts. Or maybe he was banking on someone who played another position stepping into the role. Neither felt likely to happen.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Seth said optimistically.
“It’s going to take more than luck to find someone goodenough,” I replied. “These tryouts are really going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. We need a miracle or we’re screwed.”
“We’re not screwed yet. I’m sure Coach will figure something out.”
I pointed at the poster. “If this is his solution, then I’m quickly losing the little faith I had left in him. Maybe it’s up to us to do something.” I couldn’t just sit by and watch my senior year season go down the drain. Even if I wasn’t going to be named captain, I still wanted to win.
“If you’re about to suggest strapping on the pads and taking up the challenge, I don’t think losing our best offensive player is the answer here.”
“Obviously not. That would be stupid. We just need…” My voice trailed off, as some students started shouting and laughing from the seats in front of us. A few of them were cheering and pointing out the window of the bus.
“Mackenzie?” Seth suggested.
“What?” I turned to him to check I’d heard right.
“Mackenzie,” he repeated.
Had he lost his mind? “Uh, that’s not quite what I was thinking…”
“No,” he continued, nodding at the window. “That’s Mackenzie. Everyone’s heckling her. She missed the bus.”
Kids were streaming into the aisle to peer outside, and I leaned over to get a look too. Mackenzie was sprinting down the sidewalk after the bus. She was surprisingly fast, and I was impressed to see she was actually keeping up. Most kids would have given up a long time ago or not bothered to run at all. No surprise that Mackenzie was too stubborn to let our school busget the better of her.
