Chapter One August #3
“Uhhh…” He looked around for help, always mindful of Mags’s eyes boring into his head while he stalled.
He saw several defensemen watching him with interest, the other forwards with encouraging smiles, and then he caught Brady whispering something under his breath to Gail.
Nick’s cheeks colored and he looked away, not sure he wanted to know what Brady had said about him. “I mean… I guess I—”
“Stop acting like you know shit about how to play up,” Gail drawled. “You scored on your own net once, so maybe leave the forwards alone? They seem to at least find the other team’s net just fine without your help.”
Mags went pale and choked on his surprise. The forwards snickered, the defense withdrew their silent support in embarrassment, and Nick was free from having to answer.
The tension didn’t dissipate until Lexi grabbed a beer, shook it unnecessarily, and then opened the can with the spray aimed toward his mouth. That earned laughs and groans at his antics, and Nick had a feeling Lexi made a spectacle of himself often for the sake of ending an argument.
Right now, he really appreciated it.
Nick rushed out of the locker room (while trying to make it look like he wasn’t rushing) and the muggy night air hit him. For the first time, it meant relief instead of that small disappointment that hockey was over.
As he walked briskly to his car, Nick was startled to hear footsteps falling into stride with his.
“You want advice?” Brady said, shocking Nick so much he nearly dropped his stick.
Nick swallowed and nodded. As long as it wasn’t anything drastic like “quit the team,” he could probably handle the criticism.
“Just practice. Play more. You’re new, right? You’ll figure it out faster on your own than with people trying to curate your play in a way that suits their own interests.”
Nick found his voice again. “So no ulterior motives from you? You’re not looking for an extra pass?”
Brady snorted. “I can get the puck just fine if I want it, thanks. Get better at controlling the puck the way you want to.”
And with that, Brady turned to the far end of the parking lot, leaving Nick with the soundest advice he’d gotten all evening.
Even if it was from the least likely source.
*
A week later, Nick was still mulling over how he could get better.
He’d started the season on a high note, and it’d given him a much-needed confidence boost. The more recent games were a mixed bag; there were team losses and team wins, but it was Nick’s personal gameplay that bothered him.
There were moves he’d practiced so hard that he could do in drills but couldn’t quite get a handle on during a game.
Brady was right: he still needed practice.
His teammates’ advice could only get him so far; he needed to work on his muscle memory.
He wasn’t terrible, and sometimes he flattered himself that players on other teams (and sometimes his own) were worse than him, but he was nowhere near where he wanted to be. Where he could be.
Playing was fun.
Winning was more fun.
Personally contributing to that win? Definitely the most fun.
He’d done sports during high school, and in the back of his mind, he’d assumed this whole hockey thing would run the same way. He’d sign up for a team, they’d have practice, and there’d be a coach, or at least someone distinctly in charge who would make decisions.
Benns was captain and all that, but Nick was fairly certain that role was more to front the money for league fees and be the go-to guy between the commissioner and the team.
Sure, Benns made the lines and wrote the team emails about upcoming games; he gave the occasional pep talk and appeared very captain-y when he talked to the refs.
He was “in charge”… but that in no way stopped people from starting their own email chains or switching up lines on the fly.
Team practice? Definitely not a thing. Not only was there no (cheap) ice time available, no one seemed to want it.
They showed up for games, talked in the locker room and on the bench, played some hockey, maybe downed a beer or two, and then went their separate ways.
That was about as much time investment as people seemed to be ready to make, and a drastic contrast to how Nick had structured his own schedule while he was learning to play.
It made sense, really. In high school he’d done cross country, and aside from practice and homework, what the hell else was he doing?
As a semi-functioning adult, he had work and other hobbies that he could devote his time to instead.
For the rest of the team, hockey was just another hobby and maybe a source of weekly exercise.
“So practice on your own,” his cousin Terry said as he snatched the popcorn out of Nick’s hands. The movie hadn’t started yet, but an older couple a few rows down glared at him.
Nick and Terry ignored them.
“How the hell do I practice hockey on my own?” Nick said. He reached for the popcorn, which Terry only allowed when he saw Nick was grabbing a handful instead of the whole bag. “It’s a team sport. I can’t practice passing by myself.”
“I thought you were still worried about skating,” Jenna said. “You can do that on your own. Plus you were doing all those clinics before; those have other people to practice with, right?”
“Yeah, and I’m still doing the clinics,” he said around a mouthful of popcorn. “It’s just hard to find time now that I’m playing games too.”
“Sounds like you’re making excuses,” Terry said. “You said there’s a rink, like, right by your house. Go on the weekends in the morning or something.”
“I run in the mornings.”
“Ew,” Jenna and Terry said in unison, weirding him out the same way it always did.
Jenna and Terry weren’t even related, and yet no one would ever know it from how they acted.
Jenna was his cousin on his mom’s side, and Terry on his dad’s, but they’d all been in each other’s lives so much that Nick hadn’t realized how everyone was or wasn’t related until he was nearly in high school.
Nick rolled his eyes at them. “Fine, I’ll go to a damn stick-and-puck to practice.”
“Every weekend,” Jenna said.
“After your run,” Terry added.
“Instead of your run.”
“No running. Skating only. Slow skating. Lazy skating. Really just sliding across the ice like a slip ’n slide would be ideal.”
“Seconded. Let’s remove skating altogether. No exercise.”
“How the hell are we related?” Nick grumped, not for the first time.
“Says the weirdo who exercises,” Terry said and then dumped the remains of their popcorn into his mouth.
“So aside from this terrible ‘working out’ and ‘being in shape’ nonsense, how’s it going?” Jenna asked more seriously. “Is it everything you were hoping it would be?”
“Yeah, actually,” Nick said with genuine excitement. “I have a few assists, I almost got a goal, and I haven’t taken a penalty or gotten into a fight, so I must not totally suck.”
“Pssh tell me that when you have a hat trick.” She paused and whispered, “That’s a thing, right? Hat trick? I’m not making that up?”
Nick gave her a thumbs up.
“Or maybe get a goal,” Terry added helpfully. “Just one.”
“Thanks guys. Love you too.”
“The team any good?”
“Like… at winning?” Nick rubbed the back of his neck. “Not so much. We’re at five hundred so far. But I don’t think any team is doing significantly better.”
Terry nodded along sagely, but Jenna asked, “What does five hundred mean?”
“Oh.” He’d never been good at number conversations, and he tried to think how to frame this.
He could go into all the statistics involved but figured they wanted the more succinct version.
“It means we’ve won half our games. If you’re above five hundred, you’ve won more. Below, and you’ve won less.”
“So you’re basically winning as much as a coin flip?” Jenna teased.
“I mean, you’re not wrong—”
“And the people?” she continued. “They any good?”
“…at hockey? Or at people-ing?”
“People-ing isn’t a word,” Terry said suspiciously. “…right?”
Jenna waved him off. “All of the above?”
Nick took a moment to consider. “They’re pretty nice. And crazy, some of them. Oh, and one of the guys is like… both unfairly hot and unfairly good at skating.”
“Hot and straight or hot and… other?” she asked pointedly.
Nick tried not to blush and was thankful that the lights in the theater were dim enough that she probably couldn’t see anyway. She’d assume the blush was there anyway.
“Ehhh,” he said casually and knew Jenna wouldn’t buy it for a second. He’d indulged in an errant thought now and then trying to answer that very question. “No idea, but don’t think he’s interested either way.”
“Boo,” Jenna said. The lights went down even more as the projector whirred to life, and the older couple in front of them immediately shushed them. “Oh my fucking God, they did not.”
“They were totally waiting for that exact second to shush us,” Nick confirmed, a little relieved that the conversation had turned away from him, hockey, and Brady.
“They’re previews,” Jenna whisper-yelled. “Get over yourselves!”
Terry sighed. “Can we not get kicked out of another theater?”
“Yes, please,” Nick said. “I’ll even go get us more popcorn.”
“…I accept your offering and will in fact hush until the end credits.”
“Atta girl.”
*
Nick did not, as his cousins had recommended, skip his Saturday morning run.
He did, however, go to the rink by his house, gear in tow, and buy a pass for the early stick-and-puck session.
“Got the rink mostly to yourself,” the guy at the register said. He passed over the neon wristband that they both knew Nick wasn’t actually going to put on. “Only eight of you today.”
That was a relief. Practicing at clinics or classes, where everyone came to work on their skills, wasn’t as intimidating as a stick-and-puck, where people came for the ice time more than any specific purpose.
Fewer people meant fewer eyes judging him for just wanting to skate back and forth with the puck for an hour.