He laughed softly. “I mean, you can try.”
“Fine. I loathe you.”
“You can do better than that.”
“I’d happily walk ten times the distance from my house to the rink in a blizzard, with no shoes, wearing nothing but a bikini just to avoid you.”
“Now that I’d like to see.”
“Ugh!” I threw my hands in the air. “Is there any way to shut you up?”
“I can think of one way…”
In the small confines of the truck, he felt so close, and I couldn’t stop my eyes dropping to his lips. My breathing all but stopped. Thoughts of what it might be like to kiss Parker again invaded my head, and I held onto them for a little too long. Just one kiss. The idea was both tantalizing and terrifying.
The sound of Parker’s door opening brought me back to reality. “Let’s go, we’re going to be late,” he said as he jumped from the truck.
I felt a little unsteady as I opened my door. Maybe I’d been holding my breath too long. My brain was clearly deprived of oxygen if I was contemplating a kiss with Parker.
By the time I’d found my feet, he was already behind the truck with both our bags. I quickly took mine from him. Thankfully, he released it without a fight this time, and as wemade our way inside, I kept my gaze looking straight ahead. I didn’t know why I was being so awkward. So what if I’d considered kissing him for a fraction of a second? Intrusive thoughts happened to everyone.
When we reached the girls’ locker room, I was glad to be able to escape inside, while Parker went to join the rest of the team. The moment I was alone though, all my nerves and doubts about the game came flooding back.
I got ready and went to meet the team, but my nerves reached another level the moment I stepped onto the ice and made my way to the net. After a week of training with Parker, I should have been feeling more confident than our last game. But seeing our opposition made me want to run and hide. Were those guys all taking steroids? They were even bigger than the Sharks players. That couldn’t be natural.
Get your shit together, Mackenzie. It’s just a game.
A game where if I take a hit I might literally end up in the bleachers.
“You, okay?” Parker asked as he skated past.
“Fine.”
“We’re going to win this one,” he said. “I can feel it.”
I nodded silently, fearing his optimism was seriously misplaced.
“And don’t worry,” he added. “I trust you.”
He flashed me one last smile before skating over to center ice. All I had to do now was trust myself.
“Don’t let me down,” I murmured to my posts as I readied myself for the faceoff.
The referee dropped the puck between Parker and theChargers center, and it almost seemed to fall in slow motion. All I could think wasplease don’t come down here.It hit the ice, and Parker swept in, winning the puck. Game on.
It quickly became clear that Parker wasn’t messing around today. He was relentless in the first period, and it felt like he’d somehow heard my internal mumblings, because he did a good job of keeping the puck in the offensive zone. On the few occasions the Chargers crossed the blue line, Seth and Jansen defended well, without crowding my crease, but I still couldn’t relax. Not even when Parker scored the opening goal of the game.
Another faceoff, a line change, and suddenly the puck was coming my way. An opposing forward streaked toward me. He was fast and skillful, and he fired off a powerful shot. My legs flared, my chest squared, and I dropped into a butterfly instinctively.Thud. The puck hit my pad. I managed to control the rebound and flick the puck away to Seth.
“Nice one, Foster!” He gathered the puck and took off down the ice.
My heart was racing. One save down. But how many more to go?
As the period went on, I grew in confidence. The sessions with Parker must have been helping. I even managed to shrug off the condescending comments that Chargers players threw at me. I just kept telling myself that none of them would ever come close to being as annoying as Parker Darling.
The second period, however, wasn’t so good. I was starting to tire, and it began to feel like I was wading through quicksand as I moved in front of the net. My legs were heavy, and everymovement felt slower than it should have been. The Chargers scored their first goal after I failed to clear a rebound, and then the forward with the powerful shot scored another. There wasn’t much I could do to stop it. He was seriously good. Maybe even close to Parker.
Now that the Chargers were ahead by one, time seemed to fly by. I could sense the crowd getting nervous, my father’s temper growing, and my teammates becoming more desperate as we tried to find a goal. All of us knew the Devils couldn’t afford to lose another game. It seemed likeoneloss was unheard of at this school. Three in a row would be catastrophic. And for me, it could mean I never got to play another game again.
