Page 11 of Breakaway Hearts

“Don’t listen to him, he’s just jealous,” Mike assures me with a pat on my shoulder before doing the same.

I know he’s right, that Danny’s been pissy with me ever since he found out my dad brought last year’s team to game four of the Stanley Cup finals to celebrate our Frozen Four win. But I don’t think I was the most deserving, either.

After showering, Mike, Dave, and I go back into the stands so we can watch the tryouts. We only lost five players in the spring, but one of them was our goalie, and judging from how Carl, a.k.a. Baby Spring, fared the two games he wasn’t riding the bench, we’re screwed.

“You know you’re going to be a great captain, right?” Dave tells me as Coach runs the prospects through drills. One of the guys can’t keep the puck – at all – but he’s faster than everyone else on the ice.

“Either of you would have been better,” I argue.

“I’m happier with the A,” Mike assures me. “I get to keep it right?”

“Depends what everyone else tries to bribe me with,” I tease him right back, but his smirk just gets bigger.

“Should I be worried?” Colt asks, plopping down on the bench above us with a gigantic bowl of Lucky Charms.

“That they’ll replace you or that we won’t make it to the NCAA finals?” I sigh, because at this point, we might not.

“No one can replace me, Brooks, no matter how badly you wish they could.”

I roll my eyes. There were a few years in high school where I would have wanted absolutely anyone else on my right, but things changed since we came here.

“What we need is a goalie,” I point out.

The guy currently in nets hasn’t stopped a single thing. Which would be understandable if he was against me or Donovan…even Dave and Mike, who are D-men, but so far, I don’t think a single one of them is making it onto the team. Maybe Vale, but I told Coach to let him go first, before the team had the chance to come out and watch, so I have no clue how he did.

“You know who I saw this morning on campus?” Holden comes up, biting into a full cucumber. “Fucking Hargraves.”

“No clue who that is,” I tell him as he drops his bag on the bench below us.

“He’s a goalie I played against in high school. They called him The Wall, but he was more like a mountain. I nearly shit my pants when I found out the scouts were coming when we were playing him.”

“You still made it,” Cormac points out, taking the seat beside him.

“Hargraves dropped out right before the game. I’m not saying I’m not awesome enough to get in regardless…but I might have asked them to come another day if he hadn’t. We played against each other a few times every year for a decade, and the only time I ever scored against him was when he’d just had his tonsils removed, but his coach insisted on using him before he was cleared.”

“What team is he on now?” I ask, mentally preparing myself to face them. And clocking that Holden might need a little extra encouragement that night.

“That’s what I’m saying, he goes here.”

“Freshman?” Pretty sure Coach wouldn’t let anyone miss this much practice without a damn good reason.

“No, he’d be a sophomore like me.”

“A transfer?”

“No clue, but I saw him and thought how much easier it would be to play with him for once. Not that I don’t think you guys could score against him, but I also wouldn’t bet money on it.”

“Thanks, asshole.” I nudge him, but his words have me thinking.

An hour later, I’m the only one left watching the tryouts, and there have been a handful of potentials, but not a single goalie. Regular Owen would sigh and go to his next class, determined to score so much that it doesn’t matter how good the rest of the team is, maybe pray Mike and Dave don’t let anyone anywhere near the crease, but Redding’s words stop me. Coach named me captain, and though I’m definitely not the best choice, I can still do a damn good job of it.

Noah Callahan, who was captain last year, would go back and ask Coach how tryouts went. He would try to find ways to fix this. He’d take on the extra responsibility and kill it.

So that’s what I do.

“That was brutal,” I say when I walk into Coach Benson’s office. He looks like someone who wishes he could be smoking a cigarette. Or punching someone.

“No worse than other years,” he argues. “I thought you were supposed to be the optimist?”