Page 115 of Hard to Get

What happened

Stella

It’s too long to text about we need to assemble

Gracie

Tomorrow night?

Lauren

I’ll tell Navid he’s on his own tomorrow night

Alexis

I’m in

Gracie

We’ll come to your place and bring food and wine

Stella

Thank you I love you all

I drop my phone on the bed and resume watching the game. It’s not going well.

What is going on with these guys?

30

JAYDEN

It’s the last few minutes of play in the third period and we’re down one goal. Frosty starts to head for the bench for the extra attacker, but then backs up when Calgary gets possession of the puck again. Bo is on the guy and manages to knock the puck off his stick for Sammy to scoop up. Sammy pivots and heads toward the Calgary net. Frosty starts to leave the net again, but hesitates as a Calgary player keeps Sammy on the outside and another guy jumps in to check him.

I’m on the bench watching this, ready to jump on.

Frosty’s still hovering near his net, unsure of whether to go to the bench.

The puck is coming back to our end. Frosty can’t leave now. But we need to get the extra player on to try to tie this up.

Calgary has the puck. The player shoots from the point and Frosty makes the save, thank fuck, giving us a miniscule chance. Bish gets the rebound but instead of heading up the ice, he turns back with it.

“What are you doing?” I shout from the bench.

“Go to the fuckin’ bench!” Bish yells at Frosty, pausing behind the net.

“Fuck you!” Frosty yells.

Bish yells again and gestures to the bench, and when Frosty still doesn’t move, he whacks his stick on top of the net.

“Jesus,” I mutter.

Finally, Bish carries the puck up the ice, passing it to… not Sammy, as per usual, but to Bo, his left winger. Frosty’s at the bench now, and LG jumps on the ice and sprints toward the net. Moose and Rocky come off and Cammy and I hop over the boards to replace them. I plant myself on the blue line. We’ve got control of the puck. We cycle the puck a few times now with the extra man, and… the horn sounds, ending the game.

“Fuck!” I shake my head. Another fucking loss. It felt close, though, especially in this last period.

Frosty disappears down the tunnel. We all follow him, wasting no time getting off the ice. In the room, Frosty tosses his stick down and stomps over to his cubby. He looks around and spots Bish. “What the fuck, man?” he shouts. “What the fuck was that?”