“Will do,” Jacob replied. “After the spanking I took last night, this is easy.”
“I should have known,” Ricki snickered. “I do admire how you put yourself out there and have fun. But… I’ll say it again… you have to focus on your fitness. You’re in a good moment on the ice right now, but as the season goes on you just won’t be able to keep on partying like this. Not unless you want to be spending more and more time in here rather than on the ice.”
Jacob didn’t respond.
Part of Jacob knew that Ricki was talking perfect sense. But admitting that was a whole other thing. As far as Jacob was concerned, he was riding high – and his already stellar performances on the ice were only going to get better as he got used to his teammates and the coach’s tactical outline.
As Ricki continued to work his magical fingers into Jacob’s back, Jacob cast his mind back to high school. He might not have been the biggest, and he certainly wasn’t the strongest, but the second that Jacob picked up an ice hockey stick for the first time had truly been a gamechanger – quite literally.
Despite only being a freshman, Jacob had danced a merry dance around the seniors and established hierarchy. Some of the roughest, toughest kids had quickly decided that some strongarm tactics would put the cocky junior in his place – but Jacob had seen them all off in his very first practice session.
From that day onward, Jacob was his high school’s hockey star and pretty much untouchable around the school. From being a quiet boy who kept to himself, Jacob had been catapulted to a whole other level.
And this journey had only continued, Jacob’s unstoppable upward trajectory now bringing him to the Enforcers.
I play fast, I party hard.
I’m too good to try and control.
I’m Jacob freakin’ Gosling.
With that, Jacob told Ricki that he was done with the massage. It was time to hit the practice ice and show all his new teammates that even when he was late, Jacob Gosling was still the number one pick in town.
* * *
“Hell yeah!” Jacob hollered, cutting inside and firing another deadly accurate shot past the goalie. “Andanotherone!”
“Well done, Jacob,” Mitch Vale, the assistant coach shouted from the sideline. “Now hustle back into position. We need to be quicker in transition. It’s been happening too much in matches. And I’m talking to everyone here, not just Jacob.”
Jacob looked around and saw that not all his teammates welcomed Mitch’s comment.
The truth was that Jacob didn’t enjoy tracking back and covering defense. Jacob loved to attack the opposition goal and either score or assist. Doing the dirty work wasn’t Jacob’s calling as far as he was concerned. Far from it, in fact.
“Coach, I thinkmostof us do hustle back,” Connor said, his gruff voice carrying some hefty weight to it. “And there’ssomeof us who really need to step the fuck up in defense. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Jacob.”
Jacob shrugged.
And Jacob could see that it was likely only the presence of some of the Enforcers board of directors watching practice that wasstopping Connor Valley powering over and making his presence felt.
“Coach, I need to hit the locker room,” Jacob said, the fixed glare from one of hockey’s most feared players in Connor Valley proving enough to make his back niggle seemingly flare up again. “My back… I want to make sure I’m good for the game on Saturday.”
Jacob could see that he was causing some consternation amongst his teammates, but he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. As long as he produced the goods when it mattered, it really would make little difference what his training standards were like.
“Fine. Do what you need to do, kid,” Mitch said, quickly moving on to barking orders at the remainder of the squad.
With that, Jacob skated off the ice and hit the locker room.
Jacob stripped, showered, and was just taking his seat when the rest of the squad came in from practice. The atmosphere was somewhat on edge, no doubt fueled by Connor’s minor outburst to Jacob only a few minutes ago.
“Guys, good practice,” Jacob said, standing up in nothing but a fluffy white towel around his waist. “We’ll nail the Ravens at the weekend. You just need to feed me the puck and I’ll rack up those numbers.”
Jacob was feeling good.
No one could dispute how quickly he had made an impact on the squad. And every single one of the players in the locker room would rather have had Jacob on their side than face playing against him, that was for sure.
But that didn’t mean that Jacob’s cocky demeanor was going to go down well.
Locker room politics and hierarchies never bothered Jacob much. He was going to do what he wanted to do regardless of what others thought. And the sight of a snarling Connor Valley and some of the other grizzled veterans on the team did little to put Jacob off.
