53. Penn
fifty-three
penn
Exercise clears my mind.
Sort of.
Normal exercise, like playing hockey, doesn’t. I’m focused, sure, but my mind whirls at the next level above genius. I am one with the puck. I am a body language reader, predictor of shots and angles. My cat-like reflexes are unmatched.
We won our second game in Michigan. The plane ride home was energized to everyone except Ollie, who seems to be growing more distant by the second.
And now that we’re experiencing true pain through exercise, I’ve turned to scheming.
Coach blows the whistle, and there’s a collective groan as we go again. My skates aren’t built for speed, my pads too cumbersome. It’s fucking irritating to come in nearly last every time we have to go down and back—but then, there’s a shift. And I start coming in second to last, then third to last.
We go again.
Guys puke on the ice.
We go again.
There’s a way to fix Oliver and Sydney. I just need to think of it. And while my brain is wiped clean, like a glossy, freshly cleaned ice rink, a solution has yet to manifest. Other than locking them in a room together…
We go again.
We already tried locking them in together, and it didn’t exactly work. Maybe it made him understand, but it sure didn’t put any fight in him. I get back to the goal line and struggle to catch my breath. My mouth is dry, my lungs are screaming.
I run for fun. But these sprints are way, way past fun.
RIP to the ice maintenance guys who’ll have to deal with the vomit on the ice. Although from this angle, there’s not much substance to it.
I glance at Coach, who stands on the bench with the whistle in his mouth and his arms crossed. There’s a point to this, I’m sure there is, but I haven’t put much thought into that.
Not until I catch Ollie’s guilty expression.
We go again, and I aim to end up beside my best friend.
“What’s this about?”
He grunts. “Messing with Sydney.”
“Like messing with her, or messing with her?”
“Is there a dif?—”
Whistle.
My muscles are slowly turning to jelly, and my stomach clenches as soon as we cross the goal line. I swallow a few times, sharply, to keep from joining the pansies who’ve already thrown up.
My captain seems in worse shape than me, his elbows on his knees. Sweat drips off his nose, and he spits.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” I ask, forcing cheer into my tone.
He glares at me. “He warned me that I had my whole life ahead of me to date girls. But not that one.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re not dating her.”
“Coach thought we were.”
It’s my turn to glower at him. “Fuck off.”
Whistle.
I push off, my legs screaming. My lungs need to catch a break, too. Too much talking and not enough deep breathing. Oliver skates out ahead of me, his movements quick despite his exhaustion. He leads the pack, and that’s what makes him a good captain.
And yet, I have a feeling we’re not stopping until he collapses.
Twenty minutes later, even I’ve puked twice.
Oliver stands straight and tall on the line, his chest heaving.
“Coach,” someone calls. “You’re killing us.”
“Your captain will tell you when to quit,” he replies.
The first words he’s spoken since he put us on the line. An hour ago? Two?
“Sir,” Oliver says. “I?—”
Whistle.
“Fuck,” I groan.
Our lap is pitiful.
“I won’t go near her," Oliver gasps. “You made your point.”
Coach hops over the boards and strides across the cut-up ice.
“I made my point?” He laughs. “No, I don’t think I made my point . Because while you all have been living in the land of the fucking delusional, you’ve allowed my daughter to become a mockery of this school.”
Silence.
“You think I give a shit that she gave plays to St. James?” He throws his hands up. “Not so much, gentlemen. What I would’ve expected was for you to play better . But no—you realized what happened and you all threw in the towel. It was a bloodbath you deserved.”
Well, he does have a point.
“Instead, you blamed a girl who had nothing to do with the game. Not the SJU coach who authorized the use of it. Not the player who brought it to him in the first place.” Disgust colors his tone. “You hold this grudge through to a new year, and you still blame my daughter for your past failures. Enough that a fucking gossip column writes about her almost daily.”
“Coach—”
“QUIET,” he roars. He points at the player who spoke. “If I want your opinion, Bradley, I would fucking ask for it.” He pauses. Eyes us. Then asks, “Do you respect me?”
“Yes, Coach,” comes the unanimous reply.
“And how is disrespecting my daughter respecting me?”
I press my lips together. My gaze slides to Oliver, who seems equally disheartened.
“If any of you want to skate for me again, you’re going to do better.” He meets each of our gazes one at a time. “To be perfectly clear: I am horribly disappointed in how you all have handled yourself. But your captain has set the tone. So the responsibility of making things right falls to him.”
Oliver opens and closes his mouth.
Coach lifts his eyebrows, almost like he’s expecting him to argue. When no words come out, Coach nods once and heads for the bench.
“Dismissed,” he calls.
I blow out a slow breath. When everyone else moves, scurrying for the doorway to the locker rooms like Coach might change his mind and call us back, Oliver stays on the ice.
“What is it?” I’m dying to get out of these pads, but I’m not going to leave him out here alone.
“He wants me to make it right.”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t know the full story.” His gaze lifts. “I can’t make it right , I just need to stay away.”
I grimace. “Hate to break it to you, dude, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Walk her home and apologize again, then you can tell Coach you tried.”
He grunts. His hand flexes on his stick, and he finally nods. Turns out, my scheming was unnecessary. Coach solved my problem for me.