Page 3 of Her Player

“Only if you can reach my face, Short Stack!” Jett bellowed out as he skated around us.

“Let me at that string bean motherfucker!” Moose roared beneath me.

“Hey!” I barked as I grabbed the bars of his goalie helmet and tapped it against the ice, shaking his head. “Moose! Snap the fuck out of it!”

His wide, furious eyes landed on me, but not before Coach grabbed his jersey and practically yanked him off the ground. It sent me flying, stumbling to get back up onto my skates as Jett kept skating around the outside of the rink like he was some fucking playboy in an ice magazine somewhere. Like the ice version of Tony Fucking Stark.

Hate to break it to him, but he’d need some damn muscle on him for that.

I grabbed my stick and stuck it behind me just in time to hear Jett curse beneath his breath before his skate hit my stick and he collapsed into the ice.

Coach looked furious as he shoved Moose away toward the goal. “Is this how undefeated champions conduct themselves before a game against the rival team?!” He drew in a deep breath, and it only served to bolster his voice. “What?! You lookin’ at me like a bunch of cocky fucks who know exactly what they’re getting into, so tell me, Jett!” Coach barked as he whipped around, grabbing the man’s stick and yanking him forward. “Huh?! You think it’s cute, breaking our fucking goalie only days before a game with our rival team? You think that shit’s funny?!”

Jett shook his head quickly. “No, Coach.”

“What?!” Coach bellowed into his face.

Jett raised his voice. “I said NO, COACH!”

Coach shoved him away. “Get in your fucking sprint formation. You’ve got fifteen seconds. Go!”

When his whistle rang out, I’d never seen this team move quicker to one side of the hockey rink in the months we’d slaughtered our opponents.

It was true, we were a couple months into the season. Each and every game up until this point had been ours. We fought tooth and nail for every win. We blew no one out of the water. We left it all out on the ice with every game, earning us more and more patrons filling those empty stadium seats. Now we were only nine days out from our biggest game of the season: our game against the Detroit Pirates.

Who were also undefeated this season.

SHHHHINK!

SSSKERSH!

FWOP FWOP FWOP FWOP FWOP FWOP!

We flew around the bends of the ice rink, wrapping around its outside over and over again. I shouldered some of the guys out of the way. It was clear who had trained their legs seriously and who hadn’t been. I’d ride those fuckers hard during gym hours. I had finally convinced Coach that we didn’t need him in the weight room every single time the guys got together. It was nice having that time to break away from the formalities of practice so that we could bond as the team Coach groomed us to be over the last several months.

But with how some of the guys lagged behind in laps, it made me wonder if Coach needed to creep back into our gym time.

His whistle chirped. “Reverse!”

I stuttered my skate across the ice, and in a heartbeat, with the pick on the tip of my blade, I shoved myself backward. I weaved through the crowd of men behind me still trying to move their trajectory forward while I soared between their bodies.

I led the charge with the guys skating backwards around the outside of the rink.

That was until I heard the clicking of those heels.

Thank fuck, Coach bellowed into his whistle again. “That’s enough!”

The slicing of skates across the ice gave way to the heaving and coughing of my team, but my eyes followed that succinct little sound. Tick, tick, tick, tick. A familiar cadence to which my ears had grown accustomed.

Only her shadow emerged, however, before I felt someone grab my shoulder and whip me around.

Jett was lucky I didn’t break his fucking hand for ruining my morning view.

“All right!” Coach bellowed over our heads as he clapped his hands. “We’ve got nine days until our game with the Pirates! They’re undefeated, like us, but unlike us, this isn’t the first undefeated season they’ve had. Third in the PHL overall standings. These are the men that give the Canadians a run for their money! These are the men that…”

While Coach jabbered on with one of his many speeches, my eyes found their way back to the edge of the ice. I watched as Victoria clip-clopped along in her heels with one of her silken, ruffled blouses tucked into one of her impossibly tight pencil skirts. I swear to hell on high, someone had the privilege of painting those damned things on her.

I wanted to wring the neck of whoever had such a privilege.