“Uh, I think it’s just daughters of the coach.”
“Our dad’s a little overprotective when it comes to Kenzie,” Max explained. “He’ll come around.”
Yeah, right.
“Are we going to play, or what?” Parker asked.
He’d been hanging back from the group, skating back and forth with a puck on the end of his stick. He didn’t even look up as he spoke. I was somewhat relieved for the interruption though. Maybe playing a little casual pond hockey would take my mind off my failures in more competitive games.
We broke into two teams. Max and I joined up with Cammie, who seemed eager to face off against her brothers, while the Darling boys teamed up with Paige. At first, four on three appeared slightly unfair, but it turned out to be quiteeven. Paige was not a strong hockey player, and Grayson kept getting distracted as he made sure she was okay.
I was a little out of my comfort zone without my goalie gear, but my brother was in his element. Cammie was also an incredible skater, and surprisingly lethal with a stick. She was fast and nimble, if slightly abusive when it came to her older brothers.
“My grandma can defend better than you!” she yelled at Grayson, after she’d just darted around him to score.
“My grandmaisyour grandma.” The deadpan look on his face was a little frightening, but Cammie just shrugged. Meanwhile, Paige was struggling not to laugh. I personally would have thought twice about laughing at a guy who was glaring like that, but Paige’s eyes were shining brightly.
“It’s not funny, Pidge,” he grumbled.
“It kind of is,” she replied.
“Stop going easy on us,” Cammie demanded as she skated back to the center of the makeshift rink.
“Yeah,” Max teased. “Did the Darling Devils come to play or not?”
Reed, Grayson, and Parker shared a look. And, suddenly, the teams didn’t seem so fair. When the game restarted the boys attacked with a vengeance. They were so quick across the ice and skillful with the puck, and it was like they could read each other’s minds. They were constantly moving and swapping positions; it felt as though we were playing against ten of them. Every pass connected with its intended target and every shot hit the small wooden goals. Maybe they did deserve their nickname, after all.
“You do have one extra player,” Cammie pointed out after the three boys combined for yet another goal. “It’s kind of an unfair advantage.”
“Unfair advantage?” Reed scoffed. “You told us to take Paige.”
“Yeah, well, I thought she’d distract Gray for a bit longer than she did.”
“Nothing can truly distract me when it comes to hockey,” Grayson said. “You know that.”
“Whoops!” Paige yelped as her skates flew out from under her and she fell on her butt.
Grayson was by her side barely a heartbeat later, helping her back to her feet.
“You were saying?” Cammie called to him, but Grayson was too busy checking on Paige to hear her.
“We’d still beat you even without Gray,” Reed said. “Hell, we’d probably still beat you with me only skating backward, Paige playing at center, and Parker with no stick.”
“Let’s do it,” Parker called, happily ditching his stick to the side.
Max laughed. “This ought to be good.”
The game descended into chaos after that. Reed did as he suggested and exclusively skated backward. Max played with his eyes shut whenever he got the puck. Cammie got bored and started elegantly spinning in circles at center ice, while Paige simply tried her best to remain upright, and Grayson stayed within inches of her at all times to make sure she did.
After a while someone suggested getting home for dinner, so Reed called out “next goal wins”, and everyone suddenlyfocused on the game again.
“Heads up, Kenzie,” Max shouted as he fired the puck down the ice toward me. I suddenly realized I was close to the goal, and when I collected Max’s pass, I charged toward it. It wasn’t often I got a chance to try my hand at offense.
I was just about to shoot, when Parker appeared between my target and me. He was completely blocking my path and shielding the goal as I raced closer. Should I take the shot? Or should I try and go around him?
I chose the second option and faked as though I was going to skate left. The second Parker started to shift his weight in that direction, I slid hard to the right. But he read me like a book.
I should have stopped. He should have backed down. But I guess we were both too stubborn for our own good, because just as I flicked the puck toward the goal, we collided. The two of us toppled to the ice. His arms wrapped around me. And the next thing I knew, I had landed firmly on Parker’s chest.
