Lilly follows her mom a few steps before yelling, “Wait!” and spinning back to face me.
“Can you please sign my jersey, too?” she asks.
“Me?” I ask. “But it’s Kane’s jersey.”
“It’ll be more special if it’s both of you,” Lilly says. “Especially when you win The Great Yeti Challenge.”
Kane hands me the permanent marker. “Definitely more special.”
I sign my name on the four on the sleeve, and with one last fist-bump for both of us, Lilly and her mom leave.
After waiting long enough to make sure they’re gone, I leave the family room, blinking fast as I force myself to maintain my composure. Kane catches up to me as I go.
“So, I guess we know which nonprofit we’re going to pick, huh?” he asks.
I look toward him to agree, but he interrupts me, “Oh, shit.” He reaches out to stop me, his touch sending shockwaves where it brushes against my arm. “You all right, Queenie?” His voice is so soft as he asks that it’s even harder for me to hold on to my emotions.
I swallow hard. Where’s my dad’s gruff “you’re fine” when I need it?Never let them see you cry. It’s literally the first rule of being a woman in a man’s field. As soon as they see you cry, you’re done. You’ve lost.
“Of course,” I reply, forcing myself to ignore both the puddle building in my lower right eyelid and Kane’s warm hand that’s now rubbing circles on my upper arm. “We should definitely go with Wishes and Wings for our pick.”
“Good.” Kane steps back with one last long look at me. “I agree.”
Chapter 10
Beckett
“Didyouseetheemail from Sabrina that just came through?” Li asks from the locker next to mine.
“No.” I keep my attention wholly on the stick I’m retaping.
“It’s a reminder about The Great Yeti Challenge. The second event is coming up.”
“What are you and Coach going to do for your talent?” Larsen asks from a few lockers over, a slightly evil tug to his smile.
“Do you think arguing about who the greatest defenseman of all time is will do the trick?” I ask, remembering the conversation Coach Blake and I had after the Vancouver game a few days ago. It hadn’t started as anything. Just the two open seats in the team dining area, celebrating a win against a good Stormriders team.
We were deep into a discussion about the best players. She’d been halfway through a bite when I’d said Stevens was the greatest. She’d stopped chewing and set her fork down like I’d just insulted her grandma. “Absolutely not,” she’d said, arguingthat he was aggressive, not elite. “Sacrifice doesn’t win games. Decision-making does. Positioning. Discipline.”
“I’m fucked, then,” I’d joked, thinking about the way I’d sacrificed my body over and over again during that game to make sure we walked away with the victory. She’d laughed, and so had I. Then there’d been this pause, just a beat too long, and it hit me that I liked the way she got animated when she cared. It was fun, and I was relaxed in a way that I hadn’t been in a very long time. But then, when the staff stopped by and asked whether we needed anything before they left, the room around us now empty, the feeling had, thankfully, vanished.
There are two quick raps on the locker room door and a long pause—the signal Queenie uses to let us know she’s about to come in, so we should throw whatever we can over any exposed penises. Or at least that’s how Larsen explained it to me when it happened on my first day, when I’d looked with confusion at the door. According to Larsen, she “doesn’t need her eyes burned by the sight of our flaccid dicks.”
“Ah, hey, Coach,” Larsen greets when she opens the door, and I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that I don’t have a shirt on. And, inexplicably, of the fact that Larsen is only in compression shorts.
Damn it. No. She’s just another coach. Coaches walk into locker rooms all the time. She has seenallthe things. And just like every coach I’ve had before her, she has zero interest in seeing anyone here naked.
“Larsen.” Coach nods at the rookie. “How’s the rib?”
The rookie took a nasty hit during our game against the Seattle Tempest and almost had to sit out the Vancouver game. Luckily, he has the recovery benefits of essentially being a child, so he was cleared to play.
“Looking real pretty these days.” He shows her his left side, where the bruise is starting to yellow.
“Well, I’m glad there’s finally something pretty about you.”
Larsen laughs before saying, “We were just talking about what talent you and Kane are going to do. My guess is singing.”
Queenie’s eyebrows pull together in a way that makes itveryclear that she will not be singing. “It’s so hard to pick just one talent when you’re amazing at everything,” she deadpans, causing Li and Larsen to both let out chuckles. “Unfortunately, we have to filter out the things Kane can’t do, so we’re quite limited in our options.”
