You Had Me at Hockey (Bears Hockey #2) - Kelly Jamieson Page 0,45
net. It’s a fucking late play. I have barely a second to prepare myself and I drop to my knees, pain radiating through my body, all my breath knocked out of me. I’m okay. I’m okay. That could have been a fucking disaster, but I’m conscious and I don’t think anything’s broken. I stay down, trying to get my breath back. The whistle blows and fuck yeah, he’s getting a penalty.
The guys all swarm around me to see if I need help.
“I’m okay,” I wheeze, pushing to my feet.
Robby greets me at the bench. “You okay, Hellsy?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“Didn’t look like you hit your head.”
“Nope.”
The league watches for that and if it looked like I had, I’d be heading down the tunnel to get checked out, but I’m good.
It’s time for our power play unit again. Fuck yeah.
The Bruins still aren’t getting it, still aren’t respecting me. This time when I get the puck and shoot, JBo, planted in front of the Bruins’ net, tips the puck in for another goal. I shout and stretch my arms wide, skating toward him to grab him in a hug. “Fuck yeah! Nice tip in, dude!”
The Bruins are pissed now, but we’re up three–one, and that’s how the game ends, a nice home win for us.
The locker room is filled with pumping music. Our team DJ is Bergie and I learned quickly nobody else touches the music. Right now, our win song is “Wow” by Post Malone. I fucking love this song. I bop my way over to my stall in the corner, arms up, and get high fives from Gunner, TK—our backup goalie—and Wendy, who sits next to me.
Jammer points at me, arm extended, and starts dancing too. He has better moves than me, but that’s okay. I’m feeling so fucking fantastic tonight I don’t even care if I’m making a fool of myself. Everyone’s laughing, but they’re not laughing at me, we’re all just high on the win.
The music changes to a rap song, but only a few seconds in, everyone goes silent.
I blink and jerk my head to look around the room.
“Fuck!” Bergie jumps up and runs over to the computer. “Fuck, sorry guys. I thought I deleted that one.” He stops it, shaking his head, and quickly starts another song. This time it’s AC/DC “Thunderstruck.”
“What’s that about?” I ask Wendy.
He grimaces, swiping a hand over his dripping face and hair. “We had an, uh, incident…with our last coach. So we all voted that we shouldn’t play music that uses that word.”
“Riiiiight.” Shit, I remember hearing about him using a racial slur against Jammer. “Respect, man.” I nod.
“If it weren’t for Millsy, we might still have an asshole coach.”
“Millsy?”
“He was the one who finally had the stones to do something about it.” Wendy shakes his head.
Huh. I take off my jersey.
I saw my name on the whiteboard out in the hall listing players to be available for media tonight. Guess that’s what happens with a smoking-hot power play and a goal, which turned out to be the winning goal, and an assist. So I mop off my sweaty face with a towel and answer their questions. “I’m just trying to give the guys the best options I can. If that means shooting the puck in to give them more options, that’s what I’ll do. My goal is to open as much space for them as I can.”
After I’ve showered and changed, I walk the few blocks from the arena to my hotel. Tomorrow morning, I have a one-on-one meeting with Coach Shipton, which he’s doing with all the guys. Then I’ll pack my stuff. Tuesday is the hospital visit the Bears have set up for me, Murph, Axe, and JBo. I’m looking forward to that as much as I look forward to taking a slap shot to the nuts. But it must be done. Wednesday morning, we fly to Chicago, then Raleigh. When I get back late Saturday night, that’ll be my last night in this damn hotel.
In my room, the first thing I do is take off my suit and put on a pair of sweats and a hoody. I turn on the TV to watch some hockey highlights and prop myself up on the bed with a pile of pillows.
Wendy’s comments about Millsy push back into my head. How he was the one who did something about their coach.
I guess I’m not surprised. He was a leader on the Warriors