2. Ethan
ETHAN
“Get in the car, or I’m leaving without your sorry asses,” I bellow from the front door, keys in hand. When I don’t immediately hear the thunder of shoes coming down the stairs, I glance at my watch in exasperation. “Guys!”
They know today, of all days, it’s imperative that we are early.
Turning on my heel, I’ve just decided to leave their lazy asses behind when the hurried smack of footsteps against the stairs has me mumbling a “Finally.”
“Sorry, sorry, we’re here,” Jax apologizes, his long legs striding past me as he walks out the front door, duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. Finn is on his heels, gracing me with a remorseless smirk. I give him a deadpan stare in return.
“Where the fuck is Reed?” I growl, already marching out of the house. He’s got until I reverse out of the driveway to get his ass in the car. Otherwise, he can walk to the damn rink. Well, run, if he wants to make it on time for practice.
The others climb in, and I crank the engine. The final one of our foursome comes jogging out of the house as I start reversing .
“Seriously?” he snarks, practically diving into the back seat. “You were going to leave without me?”
I merely shrug, ignoring all of them as I pull onto the road. Initially, I’m lost in my thoughts, on centering my mind as I navigate the familiar streets toward the Steelhawks’ arena.
It’s the first day of a new year. My final one as a BSU student. My last first day as a college athlete. Yet it’s not nostalgia or longing that I feel as I flick on my indicator and turn into the arena parking lot.
No, it’s ironclad determination. Steely resolve.
To dominate. To win. To succeed.
Failure is not an option—not on the ice and definitely not off it.
“I’m telling you, man, she was fit .” Finn’s statement breaks my concentration. Doors slam as we all clamber out of the car.
Jax scoffs as we grab our bags from the trunk before walking as a group toward the back entrance. “I still think you’re making the whole thing up.”
Finn makes a noise in outrage, but Reed pipes up before he can protest. “I checked that room before we left, and there was no one there.”
Is that what he was doing when I was telling him to hurry up? Checking up on some chick who was accidentally given our house as her accommodation? My jaw tics in irritation.
“She’s an athlete,” Finn argues. “She’s probably at a team meeting or something.”
“At 6 a.m.?” Reed throws back skeptically. “No one else’s coach is a sadist.”
“It’s not my fault you guys decided to stop at a bar for a beer—without inviting me, by the way—and missed the entire thing.” Finn’s patience wears thin, that fiery redhead temper of his beginning to spark.
“You’re telling me a girl had the chance to spend the night with the best of the Steelhawks, and she tucked herself away in a bedroom?” Reed scoffs. “Yeah, I’m not buying it.”
Finn shrugs, but it’s a little stiff. “Not like she gave me enough time to tell her anything. The second she was over the threshold, she asked me where the spare room was and hightailed it up there. She probably had no idea whose house she slept in last night.”
Jax and Reed continue their argument with Finn, but I let their bickering wash over me as we step into the arena and make a beeline for the locker room to get ready for our first practice of the most important season of my life.
The one that will determine whether I get drafted into the NHL or prove my dad right—that I’m not good enough—and go crawling back on my hands and knees to his small mechanic business in butt-fuck nowhere, begging for a minimum-wage job.
I shake my head, dispelling that miserable thought.
No. This year is our year.
It’s my year.
My year to lead our team to victory. To impress the scouts and be a first pick at the draft. To step up and prove I can be the leader Coach expects. Become the player I’ve been training my entire life to be.
This is the year I’ll prove my father wrong. Prove?—
My internal pep talk comes to a screeching halt as I open the locker room door, finding…
a girl in my domain. One with a small, upturned nose and high cheekbones that look carved out of marble.
Wavy, chestnut brown hair falls past her shoulders, and hazel-green eyes, golden flecks glinting beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, bounce warily over the four of us as she lifts her head at our sudden appearance.
Her full lips are pressed into a flat, no-nonsense line, robbing them of any softness.
Nothing about her expression is welcoming, but that doesn’t stop her from being, well, beautiful. Her facial features, somehow sharp and soft at the same time, draw me in as I stare unblinkingly into those emerald depths.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The curt words are out of my mouth before I can reel them back in. But seriously? Today, of all days, some woman has to sneak into our locker room. Which one of my idiotic teammates fucked the crazy chick?
A low whistle comes from behind me, Finn craning to see past my broad shoulders. “Dylan?” He smacks one of the others. “I told you she was real! Wait…what are you doing here?”
Dylan?
My eyes narrow, and suddenly, I’m seeing her differently.
As she unhurriedly gets to her feet, facing off against us, I rake my gaze over her again.
Slower this time, noticing the details I missed before.
There’s nothing delicate about the way she stands, feet planted and shoulders squared.
Her posture is tense, chin lifted as though ready for a fight.
Those hazel eyes? They’re not soft or doe-like; they’re sharp, calculating.
Astute. Like she’s already assessed every single one of us and decided how great of a threat we are.
Her lips are still pressed into that grim line, but it’s not nervousness—it’s determination.
Then there’s what she’s wearing: practice gear.
No, Dylan has not found herself in the boys’ locker room by accident. Nor is she some puck bunny or crazed groupie hoping for a good time or an autograph.
She’s got on black hockey pants with the familiar padding, a Bermuda blue jersey with the Steelhawks logo stretched over her chest. Her elbows and knees are already strapped with protective gear, and her gloves sit on the bench beside her.
She’s not fully suited up—no helmet or skates yet—but she’s ready. Like she belongs here.
Except she doesn’t .
“If you’re looking for the girls’ hockey team, they practice at the rink in town,” Finn continues, likely seeing what I am but interpreting it differently.
“She’s not here for the girls’ team,” I state succinctly.
Those sharp eyes snap to mine, her face giving nothing away.
Silence stretches between us. The guys have stepped up beside me, forming a semicircle in front of her.
The only sound in the room is the swish of the door as other team members arrive, slipping inside and standing quietly off to the side as they take in the strange confrontation.
“Are you?”
Coach had told us we were getting a junior transfer, but the only information he’d volunteered was a name.
A name that perfectly suits the five-foot-eight storm standing before me, hazel eyes burning with fire and determination like she’s spent her entire life proving herself to people like us.
There’s a wariness there too, a guarded edge, but it only sharpens the challenge pouring off her in waves.
This isn’t just some transfer. This is a player who’s here to take what she wants, and it’s pretty damn clear she doesn’t care if she has to fight us to get it.
“No.”
That one word is delivered with crisp curtness, her tone unforgiving. Unrepentant of the mayhem her presence here is about to unleash.
I can feel the guys bristle around me, the tension only escalating when those plump lips hitch up in a mocking smirk.
“I’m your new left winger.”
Fuck. Me.
This can’t be happening.
Of all the years, Coach chooses the one where I’m the captain to bring a girl onto the team.
Chaos erupts at her declaration, the locker room falling into pandemonium.
Everyone talks over one another, shouting “Hell no” and “You can’t be serious” until the noise becomes a pounding in my skull.
The entire time, the girl— Dylan— stands there, watching it all with shrewd vigilance.
She knows exactly what sort of bomb she’s just set off, and yet there’s not an ounce of remorse in her expression.
Her eyes make their way back to mine, our gazes latching on.
I don’t have a clue what she’s thinking, her facial expressions giving nothing away.
Yet, the longer I stare into those liquid green-and-gold pools, the more distant the uproar around us becomes.
It’s almost as though I’m being pulled away—away from my team and from what matters.
Requiring more force than I’ll ever admit, I wrench my gaze away and bellow, “Enough!”
The room falls deathly quiet, everyone turning to see what their captain has to say. Scanning the faces of men I’ve played alongside for the last number of years, a lump forms in my throat at the confidence shining back at me. These men trust me to fix this. To make it right.
The problem is, I don’t have the first fucking clue how to do that.
When I woke up this morning, prepared to deliver my first speech as captain, I did not expect to face this .
“Cap,” Matthews, a second-line sophomore, starts. “Tell us this isn’t true. We can’t seriously be expected to play with a girl on the team. We’ll be a laughingstock!”
Thankfully, Coach chooses that moment to make an appearance, saving me from having to tell the team I’m as clueless as they are.
Gaze flicking around the room, he grunts, “Good, you’re all here. And I see you’ve met the newest addition.”
“Coach,” Reed interjects. “This can’t be for real.”
“What can’t be for real?” Coach challenges .
Looking at Coach as though he’s going senile—and perhaps he is; he is getting up there in years after all—Reed flings his arm out toward Dylan. “You can’t seriously be putting a girl on the team.”
“I am, and I have.”
Well, fuck. There goes any possibility that this was all one big misunderstanding. I’d really been hoping the girl was just batshit crazy or masterfully pulling off some sorority dare.
“She’ll be crushed the first time someone checks her,” Reed continues, undeterred.
“Your concern is noted and appreciated, Reed.” Clearly, Coach is not registering the hostility blazing from his eyes.
Reed is not pointing out how easy it would be for any of us to snap a bone in her lithe little body out of concern .
“However, the decision has been made. If Dylan is incapable of hacking it on the ice, then she is free to withdraw from her position. Until such a time, she is as much a member of this team as anyone else in this room, and I expect her to be treated as such.” When his words are met with stony silence, he snaps, “Do I make myself clear?!”
Choruses of “Yes, Coach,” and “Yes, sir” deafen the room, and Coach nods in approval. “Good, then get changed. I want to see every single one of you out there in five minutes or you’ll be doing suicides for the rest of practice.”
He breezes out through the locker room door as quickly as he appeared. I hadn’t wanted to question him in front of everyone else, but unable to let it go, I chase after him.
“Coach,” I call, jogging down the hall to catch up with him.
“I don’t understand.” Searching his eyes, I question, “Is this some sort of publicity stunt?” Why else would he allow a girl on the team?
“’Cause Reed is right. She’s going to get herself hurt out there.
Not to mention that she will make a blatant weak point that all of our opponents will attack.
No other team will take us seriously, and we can kiss our chance at making it to the Frozen Four goodbye. ”
There had been a hint of humor in Coach’s eyes when I started talking, but it had burnt out by the end of my little speech.
“I can assure you, Maddox, I would never put someone’s health at risk—nor the success of this team—for a mere publicity stunt.
” He practically spits the words at me. “As for our chances of making it to the championships.” He points a calloused finger at the closed locker room door.
“I believe that girl is our best shot of making it this year.”
He must see the doubt written all over my face because he turns to face me fully.
“Ethan, you’re their captain. That team in there will look to you for guidance.
They’ll follow your lead. I’ve told Dylan that she has to bring her A game, to impress not only me but all of you.
But she won’t even get a shot at doing that if every single guy in there is out to get her.
Prove to me that you’re the captain this team needs.
That you can be the captain I know you’re capable of. ”
With that hard-hitting statement, he walks off, leaving me staring after him with no idea how the fuck to move forward.