4. Icebreaker
Icebreaker
“ H igh-sticking my ass. My stick never went anywhere near their head, much less hit them,” Cassie grumbled as she sat fidgeting in the penalty box.
It was a terrible call, but the brief reprieve turned into a blessing in disguise.
It had been a long game with way too many minutes on the ice and way too many fast line changes due to a couple of players not being able to make it to the game.
Ugh. Thank God the other team is short some players too.
Cassie wasn’t a slouch when it came to staying in shape.
She exercised regularly, ran a few days a week, and did strength training on most other days.
At five-foot-seven, with an athletic build, she was physically strong with sculpted arms and an ass that looked good in her favorite tight jeans.
Or so she had been told. But even she had to admit that tonight’s game was well…
kinda kicking said ass. Spending twelve hours painting her spare bedroom on Saturday certainly hadn’t done her any favors .
It was the first game of the season. What season, she wasn’t entirely sure as this one seemed to start arbitrarily on a random Tuesday in the middle of the summer and extend well into the winter if your team made the playoffs.
When she asked about the start of the next season, the answer had been two to three weeks after this one ended.
So, depending on how quickly the playoffs went, the next season could start at the beginning of next year or six weeks after that, or anywhere in between.
Kellan had been pushing Cassie to get back into hockey since she broke up with her ex.
Cassie’s argument that it wasn’t in her budget at the moment, with no roommate and no promotion, fell on deaf ears.
Kellan knew it would be a great way for Cassie to let out some aggression regularly in a safe and sane way.
And when they gave Cassie a handmade gift card for the season—complete with little players made out of toothpicks and a hand-painted hockey rink with way too much glitter as ice— saying it would be her birthday and Christmas present from them this year, she couldn’t come up with any more excuses, valid or otherwise.
Besides, waiting another six months or more wasn’t appealing.
Six months. Damn. So here she was, playing with equipment that was partly borrowed and partly new.
She hoped that the rest of the gear she ordered would arrive by the end of the week or at least before her next game on Saturday afternoon.
But for now, she was stuck wearing someone else’s pants, shin guards, and shoulder pads with outside temps over 100°F at 8 p.m. “Playing ice hockey in the summer is weird,” She muttered, before shaking her head to focus on getting her mind back in the game.
She was breathing heavily and feeling the strain in her overtaxed legs.
She hadn’t expected her body to rebel quite this much from this new extracurricular activity.
Mainly because it wasn’t exactly new. More like renewed.
Thinking back, it had been at least a few years since the last time she played.
Wow, I didn’t realize it had been that long.
She had quit the game, just as she had quit many of her favorite hobbies, in just another wasted attempt to please her ex.
To say her former girlfriend hadn’t been a fan would be a gross understatement. In fact, she hated the game. Well and truly hated it. She thought the game too violent and the rink too cold. But Cassie loved it for both of those reasons and many others.
For Cassie, the game combined fun, teamwork, and competitiveness, wrapping them together in one perfect package.
Not to mention the physical demands. It was one of her favorite stress-relieving activities.
Despite the common belief that many adult-only leagues were simply excuses to get out of the house twice a week for beer, the adult-slash-women’s-only league was highly competitive and allowed her to push her body to the limits.
But her feet burning from the newness of her skates just sucked.
“What the hell was I thinking? Fucking new skates,” she groaned, wiggling her toes as much as possible in an attempt to dispel the fiery sensation.
It had been a hard-fought game so far and Cassie had the sweat to prove it beading on her forehead, and dripping down her face and the back of her neck.
At least she remembered a second water bottle to keep in the penalty box.
Just in case. Like her main bottle, this one was covered in Wynonna Earp stickers making it easily recognizable from the rest sitting in a row just below the inside top of the boards.
Grabbing the bottle, she downed several mouthfuls of the cool liquid and splashed some down her back while she waited to be released from the sin bin.
Catching her breath just slightly during the past couple of minutes, she leaned toward the glass to check the game clock counting down on the large scoreboard on the other side of the ice.
Two minutes and twenty-two seconds left in the game, ten seconds left for the penalty.
Score tied. She stood up, grabbing the door release and shaking out her arms and legs as she prepared to step back onto the ice.
Three. Two. One. You got this. Just don’t think about your aching feet…
The noise level in the locker room after the game was much louder than Cassie expected.
Sure they had won their first game of the season with a late third-period goal, but the cacophony of hoots and hollers seemed more akin to a championship win.
These women took the game very seriously.
That suited Cassie just fine. She was competitive by nature and looked forward to meeting and playing with some like-minded ladies.
The fact that the percentage of women hockey players that happened to be of the women-loving women variety was higher than in the general population–well, that was just a fortuitous bonus.
Cassie sat on a bench near the back of the locker room slowly changing back into her street clothes.
Unfortunately, showering at the rink wasn’t an option.
This wasn’t unusual since showers took up space that could be used for money-making amenities instead.
Her teammates seemed to have a variety of methods for their post-game cleanup.
Some simply changed back into the clothes they had worn to the rink; some used a towel to wipe off before putting their street clothes back on; and some gave themselves full towel baths before putting on fresh clothes, undergarments, and all.
Cassie wasn’t ashamed of her body, but going full monty in a room packed with people wasn’t something she was comfortable with.
Thankfully, she had come prepared with some wet wipes and an additional small towel so she could clean off most of the sweat and grime, and maintain her modesty.
A shower would be priority number one when she got home.
She sighed with relief as she used a few of the wipes on her sore feet .
“Great pass, Flashy!” Aly shouted from the far end of the room, getting Cassie’s attention.
Quirking an eyebrow that would put Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to shame, “Flashy?” Cassie questioned back loudly.
“Yeah. I’ve been struggling to come up with your hockey nickname and you just handed it to me on a silver platter. You flyin’ up the wing and then one helluva pass. I didn’t even have to work for that goal. Flashy makin’ me look gooood!”
The confused look on Cassie’s face prompted Aly to continue. “You know. Like a camera flash. Shining light on what needs to be seen,” Aly said, laughing and pointing to herself. “And it rhymes with Cassie, obviously.”
Does it though? I mean it’s close-ish. “Huh? Okay,” Cassie conceded. As far as nicknames she’d been given, there were a lot worse.
Aly was short for Alyssa Mowser, the unofficial captain of the team and the purveyor of nicknames apparently.
She appeared to be a few years younger than Cassie’s thirty-two years but her leadership on the ice was immediately apparent when they’d met at practice a few days earlier.
She introduced herself as “Alley Cat” explaining she was given the nickname at an early age based solely on her name.
She then adopted it for her hockey moniker since, in her words, “I’m sassy, hot-tempered. And, oh yeah, I can strut.”
“I thought that it was stray cats that strutted?” Cassie pushed back, her tone clearly teasing.
With a smirk and a wink toward Cassie’s water bottle, Aly quipped, “Tomato, potato,” and Cassie knew they were on the same team.
“You joining us? We’re headed to Foxy’s to celebrate our first win of the season,” Aly asked, placing the last of her gear in her giant, rolling hockey bag.
“Sorry, school night. ”
A look of total confusion contorted Aly’s face. “You’re still in school?”
“Ha. No. I just meant I have to get up early tomorrow for work,” Cassie said, chuckling. “What about after the game on Saturday? We could celebrate or drown our sorrows depending on how the game goes.”
“We don’t do sorrows, Flashy!” Aly countered. “But I do like planning a celebration in advance. I’m going to hold you to Saturday,” she said with a stern nod before adding a wink.
“Aye, aye, captain!” Cassie responded with a salute and a smirk.
Aly held her hand out for a high-five as she walked past. “See ya Saturday, Flashy.”
Cassie had fully changed and was redoing her ponytail when the first couple of folx for the next game started to filter into the locker room.
Grabbing her stick and her hockey bag, Cassie said goodbye to her remaining teammates and exited only to smack directly into something—or someone—very, very solid.
Thankfully, being knocked back into the locker room door had prevented her from falling back on her ass.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry,” Cassie said as she regained her balance and looked up into some of the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen.
Those eyes locked on Cassie for several seconds before blinking rapidly.
“N-no… um no, I mean, I’m sorry. My teammate shoved me into you,” they said, turning around and pointing to someone behind them.
Turning back towards Cassie, their eyes went wide, “N-not that they meant to shove me into you. You were just there when they did it. Shoved me, I mean.”
By this time, their eyes were as wide as humanly possible, and their eyebrows had nearly disappeared to the top of their forehead. A deep blush was taking over their cheeks as they let out a nervous chuckle and ducked their head.
Before Cassie could reply, someone grabbed the stranger’s arm, dragging them away. “Come on, Lexie, the drinks are calling my name, and the first round is on you!”
Turning back over their shoulder, they gave Cassie a sheepish grin and waved the hand carrying their hockey stick. “Good game,” they called out, disappearing around the corner.
Cassie stared at them, watching them walk away, still unable to form words.
She stood there for several seconds before adjusting her bag on her shoulder.
She squinted slightly as her brain came back online.
Wait, were they the one she supposedly high-sticked?
Blowing out a breath, she whispered to herself, “damn.” She shook her head and then looked both directions before finally heading in the same direction and out the front doors of the rink.
She scanned the parking lot as she walked to her car, but “Lexie” was nowhere to be seen. She may have taken the long way to the exit to see if she could spot a particular short-haired brunette, as well, but she would deny it if anyone asked.