Page 112 of Full Body Hit, Part 1

Chase rolled his eyes as Noah snorted. “Wow, thanks a lot.”

“You’ve been playing for three months. No one is looking at your stats that closely. You are not the main character of the NHL. Just do your thing. No one is judging you.”

They rounded a corner leading to their changing room, and as if called by the devil himself, there was Auston, talking to one of the equipment managers.

The trio fell silent as they passed, Auston not sparing them a glance, the icy fucker.

Chase threw Sammy a meaningful look when they were out of sight.

“He doesn’t count,” Sammy protested.

If only Sammy knew how wrong that statement was. Chase was eternally grateful Sammy didn’t know how much of a fanboy he used to be.

Chase didn’t really have the energy to spend on Auston, though. He wanted to figure out why he was contributing so little to his teammates’ goals. There was a lack of chemistry between him and his line…he just didn’t know why.

If he voiced that particular concern to Noah and Sammy, they’d probably tell him to talk it out with his linemates Jimmy and Grigory, but Chase was too afraid to.

Was scared the answer was going to be his weird scent.

There were times when he considered forgoing the synthetic smell and telling the team about his condition. How he was taking medication to shut down his pheromones in order to protect both them and himself.

His mom had always insisted on the scent, though. Had said he needed to fit in. Having no scent would just make him stand out in the worst way.

The shame that bubbled up at the concept of telling anyone was difficult to handle. He didn’t know exactly what the feeling was tied to, which bottomless well it rose from, thick and murky and staining everything it touched, but it was impossible to control.

He didn’t want people to know he was defective. That there was another reason not to love him.

Maybe revealing he didn’t have a scent would be the thing that tipped people into realising they didn’t want to be close to him. Which was so dumb—he knew it was dumb. It wasn’t like Sammy had suddenly been disgusted with him.

But that didn’t stop the shame, the bubbling, the staining. Was it so bad that Chase wanted to protect those deep, soft parts inside?

So he didn’t say anything about his scent, and he didn’t talk to his linemates about if he was doing something wrong, focusing on proving himself in a league that had turned out to be a lot colder and unwelcoming than he had imagined.

Chase hated losing games, obviously, but he especially hated it when they were at home. Despite the New Orleans Spirits not being in a particularly hockey-crazy part of North America, as well as the fact that the team had been pretty shit for like twenty years now, there were a good amount of generational fans that were passionate and vocal. The arena wasn’t full, but the attendance thrummed with energy, feeding the urgency, the desire to win.

Being down by one against the Saskatoon Comets in their own barn was not a position Chase wanted to be in, especially when there were two minutes left on the clock and their own goalie was pulled so they could have an extra skater out.

Chase wasn’t sure why the fuck the coach had put him on the ice at such a critical time, but the confidence in him made his blood sing. He was going to fucking do it. He was going to tie this game and send them to overtime and then win it there, too.

He’d been trying to get to the dirty places lately, battling hard against the boards, managing not to be knocked off, faster than the bigger guys he was surrounded with.

He snapped the puck up behind the opposition’s goal as Grigory rimmed it on the boards. None of the Comets went to get him—with the Spirits having an extra skater, they had too many passing lanes to cover, and Chase had too many angles to shoot from to go after him.

Jimmy was in front of the goalie. Chase could see that he was battling for position, swallowing crosschecks to the spine from a Comets’ defender. The goalie was splayed out in the middle of the goal, pads spread out so he could stop the puck if Chase tried to go around one of the goal posts and slide it in.

It was a split-second decision. He didn’t think about it. It was just two impulses—try to get the puck through the sticks and the legs of the Comet and to Jimmy, or…

He whipped the puck back and forth on his stick, picking up momentum so he could pick it up. He lifted the blade, puck stuck to it, and tried the infamous Michigan goal—trying to ram it to one of the top corners from behind.

It would be amazing if it worked. A highlight-reel goal.

It didn’t fucking work.

The goalie stuffed himself against the corner of the goal as he spotted what Chase was doing. The puck bounced off his shoulder, off his blocker, and bobbled away, right to the skates of one of the Comets.

The player was off before Chase could even think, out of the Spirits’ zone. He shot it from centre-ice and straight into the fucking goal.

And just like that, the Spirits were down two with barely a minute remaining.