“So let’s fucking do that,” I growl, and he nods and butts the side of his helmet against mine.
We have twelve minutes to make this happen. It’s not impossible, but if the rest of the team could get their shit together and try even half as much as Ty, then we’d have better odds.
I’ve reviewed all my teammates’ stats from previous years and other teams and they all have potential. They all earned their spot on this team, so why the fuck can’t they get it together and make this team a contender? Ty stands and goes over the board with his line but not before giving me a reassuring nod.
Before his shift is over he’s scored. “FUCK, YEAH!” I bellow, which turns the head of everyone on the bench, including the coach. Guys swear on the bench all the time, just not me.
The scowl on my face slips a little and I bounce, eager to get out there and add another one. It takes two shifts, but I score one, too, and we end the third tied, no thanks to fucking Echolls, who gives away the puck right in front of our goalie. On the quick pause, Coach writes up the shoot-out players. I know I’m on it. I always take the shoot-out. I have a seventy-six percent success rate.
“Larue, Echolls and Westwood, in that order,” he commands, and my jaw drops. Echolls?
“No.”
I don’t realize I’ve spit the word out of my mouth until the whole bench turns and looks at me. The coach is glaring, as he should. “Got something to say, Seventy-Eight?”
He’s calling me by my number. Never a good sign. “Sidebar?”
“No. You can say it in front of everyone.”
I swallow. “Parsons played his ass off tonight and he has a fifty percent success rate in the shoot-out this season.”
“Yeah. And…” I don’t fill in the blank for him, so he fills it in. In front of everyone, including a furious Beau Echolls, because he knows what’s coming. “And Echolls is only at forty percent.”
I nod.
“Fuck you!” Echolls roars, skating across the ice and shoving Alex out of the way to get right in my face. “You’re a fucking self-righteous bag of shit, you know that?”
“I’m the captain. I’ve studied everyone on this team, and I know you are underperforming. I also know we need to fucking win, so suck it up, princess.” I put my hand on the front of his jersey and give him a shove. He shoves back.
Beau raises his fist. It almost feels like slow motion, but then everything speeds up as Alex grabs Echolls and yanks him backward, Ty gets in between us, and the coach bellows, “ENOUGH!”
He could bench me and give my shoot-out spot to someone else. He should. Never ever should a player question the coach’s decision, especially not on ice, especially not in front of the player. And if I were any other player, I would be benched. But I’m not. Coach grimaces and growls his orders. “Larue, Parsons, Westwood. Echolls, you’re fourth if we need a fourth.”
Beau looks like he’s about to turn into the Hulk. His face is red, his eyes are bulging out of their sockets and his lip is snarling like a rabid dog’s. If he could froth at the mouth he would. He’s not directing his anger at Coach; he’s directing it right at me. And if looks could kill, I’d be in little pieces all over the blue line right now. But fuck him. I’m right. And I am so sick of fucking losing.
Ty doesn’t score. But Alex does and I do and only Sebastian does for the Winterhawks, so we win. We actually fucking win. I realize it came at a huge cost, though. If our team morale was bad before, it’s going to be worse now. But I needed to fucking win. I watch Echolls storm down the tunnel in front of me, hurling his stick into the wall with such force it snaps in half. He chucks his helmet across the room and storms into the medical room instead of the locker room. I actually appreciate that he’s trying to avoid another confrontation.
Despite the win, the room is bleak. Everyone has their head down and no one is speaking. Larue isn’t playing his usual crappy music on his iPod like he does after a win. I know I can’t leave things like this. I know I have to be the bigger man. The leader. I also know that the mood is my fault.
I pull my sweaty jersey over my head and dump it in the laundry bin. As I sit to unlace my skates, I say, “I shouldn’t have singled out Echolls.”
Everyone looks up. Every single one of them. Some have stunned looks on their face. Some are scowling. Some, like Ty and Alex, look empathetic. All those expressions are justified. “I’ll apologize to him when he calms down. But the thing is, guys, I’m not the robot everyone makes me out to be. I didn’t get here by having no heart. I got here by having too much, just like the rest of you. And we desperately needed a fucking win.”
Almost every head in the room nods at that. I pull off one skate and then the other and continue. “I’m well aware that Echolls and a few others aren’t thrilled with my appearance on this team. And I am even more aware that I haven’t shifted the team’s trajectory all that much since I arrived. Not as much as people want. But I believe in all of you. Echolls included. So I apologize for ruining the win. I won’t do it again.”
There’s a rumbling of responses. Everything from nods, grunts, to “no worries” and “okay” and, thankfully, a few “it’s all good, Captain” and “apology accepted.” Out of the corner of my eye I see the coach in the doorway; his expression is much less furious than it was on the ice.
He clears his throat. “We’re not doing press tonight, boys.”
He disappears, but what replaces him is a face with more fury than Coach showed all night. The face of Don Westwood. What the fuck is my dad doing here? There’s no saving this night now.
I stand up and walk over to him. Without a word I pass by him and continue down the hall. Beau is still in the medical room, the only other private space, so I walk into the training room. A few guys will come in to use the bikes to warm down in a couple minutes before their showers, but it’s empty right now. And that’s a good thing. The interruption will mean the conversation with Don will be cut short, and I already know that’s a good thing.
When I stop, just inside the door, and turn to face him, he is so angry he essentially hisses and spits his words. “What the fuck was that down there? You’re fighting with your own team now? What kind of leader does that?”
“I didn’t start it,” and just like that I feel like a whiny teenager again. For someone who has never acted much like an actual parent, he sure has a weird way of doing that to me. “And I fixed it.”
“What caused it?” When I don’t answer right away, he clarifies, even though I don’t need it. “What made Echolls go after you? On national television. You know this is a nationally televised game, right, Avery?”
