3. Tennant #2
This is going to sound stupid, but I sensed the coaching staff entering the dressing room way before they arrived.
It was like fingerlings of static electricity snaked out ahead of Mads stepping into the room and ran up my arms, prickling the hairs at the tender nape of my neck.
His gaze flickered to me. I met his look.
He glanced away quickly. I sat there, half-naked, brand new yellow Railers training sweater draped over the bench beside me, staring at his profile while Coach Benning gave us the usual speech about teamwork, dedication, diligence, and so on.
We had a short video presentation, followed by the coaches splitting apart to talk to the men under them.
Goalie coaches with goalies, defensive coach with the D-men, and we forwards got to listen to Associate Coach Colin Pike laying out what the organization wanted from us over the upcoming season.
Like we needed to be told? Every hockey player has one goal, and that’s to hoist the Cup over his head.
Everything we do from the time we first lace up those tiny skates as kids is geared toward reaching that goal.
We all dream the same dream. So, sure, I got it that the coaches were all about the pep talks, but I for one didn’t need them.
And if anyone on this team didn’t have that goal as his number one priority, his ass needed to be sent off to the ECHL or something. I was done with coming in second.
We were split into four groups for this first session on the ice.
Part one of the testing was skating from goal line to goal line at top speed for three minutes straight.
No stopping. We wore straps under our sweaters next to our chests to measure heart rate, breathing frequency, body temperature, acceleration and deceleration.
This was all done to see where we could improve our performance.
I was part of the second group. Coach Madsen and Coach Pike were running the show.
The head coach was reading the information as it fed into his laptop over at the timekeeper’s table.
“On my mark,” Mads shouted, his voice echoing off the steel girders of the training rink.
I bent down slightly, stick on the ice, and set my sights on the far end of the rink.
The sharp trill of a whistle, and the four of us were off.
The trick was to power into a good lead before you were tanked, because three minutes on ice is a killer.
It doesn’t sound like a long time, but hockey is about quick bursts of speed.
Typical TOI, or time on ice, is forty-five to sixty seconds for forwards.
Defensemen can go longer, but it varies per player or depending on the situation.
That’s why a good team rolls four solid lines one after the other.
It gives us time to catch our breath and rehydrate.
I hit the goal line first, spraying ice, and spun.
Both coaches on the ice were shouting encouragement to the men skating.
Four times back and forth had us all winded, legs and lungs burning.
Mads and Pike continued yelling at us, pushing us to keep going.
When the whistle to stop finally came, my thighs and calves felt like pudding.
I was sucking air like a Hoover, and sweat ran into my eyes and down the crack of my ass, but I had smoked the three others in my group, one being our captain.
“Good job,” Mads said as I passed.
I gave him a nod, since speaking was not happening quite yet. I felt his gaze on me as I hit the boards in front of the home bench and draped the upper half of my body over them.
“That… sucked,” I gasped to the guys waiting to take their turn.
Ten minutes later, the four of us who had the fastest times were back out for another three minutes of hell.
Yay. Playing hockey was so much fun. It was close, but I eked past Troy Hanson, the first line left-winger.
He was smaller than me, and lighter, but I managed to smoke him by a full two-tenths of a second.
Then, after we caught our breath, it was more testing.
Forty-meter sprints forward and backward, slalom pylon tests, and another round of endurance laps.
When my skates hit rubber, I was spent. There was not one little puff of energy for me to pull up from deep within.
I desperately wanted some chocolate milk.
I wobbled down the hall outside the Railers dressing room and rounded a corner to find Mads trying to feed a dollar bill into the coffee machine.
He glanced over his shoulder. Our gazes met and held.
The machine spat his buck back out, and he cussed as he bent over to pick it up.
“Need a little zip?” I asked as I padded up to the cold drinks machine.
“Something like that.” He turned the bill around and tried again.
“Got a buck I can borrow?”
Mads looked at me as if I’d asked him to loan me a kidney.
I patted the back of my sweaty hockey pants. “No wallet on me.”
“Oh, sure. Here, use this one. Maybe that machine will like it better.”
“Thanks.”
I took the wrinkled bill and tried flattening it on the side of the soda machine. Mads dug into his wallet and pulled out a less tattered bill.
“So, what did you think of the runs?” I asked to make conversation. Standing beside him, his elbow bumping mine, and not talking seemed weird and awkward.
“You know I can’t discuss that with you,” he replied, then smiled as the machine sucked his buck in.
Man, that smile… it changed him. The fine lines around his eyes and mouth deepened a little.
It made him look a little more mature and ten times hotter.
My body tingled, a rush of desire igniting in my belly and spreading out like one of those controlled burns the forest service does.
If I touched him now in some flirty way, that contained blaze would roar to life and engulf me as if I were dry tinder.
Mads glanced at me when the stifling silence went on.
“Oh, yeah, uh, no, I mean, that’s not what I was asking,” I stammered as my exhausted body dredged up enough energy to heat my cheeks and plump up my dick a bit.
“Well, good. You did well, but you already knew that.” He slapped me playfully on the back of my sweaty neck.
I winced and hissed.
“Did you injure yourself during testing?”
“Nah, it’s just new ink work.”
“Oh, so you got a new tattoo.” He stared at me oddly.
“Yeah, Stan and I went last night and got them. It’s my favorite Pokémon. Want to see?” I turned around and let my chin rest on my chest.
“It’s a pony,” he said. “With flippers and rubies in its mane and tail,” Mads stated so dryly it was a wonder his comment didn’t blow away like talcum powder.
“No, it’s not just a pony.” I spun to face him. His expression said he found my tattoo humorous. “It’s Ampharos, which is Mareep’s most highly evolved form. This ‘pony’ will kick your ass to the Capitol building and back. I’ve been training a beast like it for ages.”
“And this is what you do in your spare time? Evolve cartoon animals?”
Wow, he’d sounded just like the big brother I was pissed at right there.
“Just FYI—Pokémon is huge on college campuses. I also do some fantasy hockey, play video games, watch RWBY and Doctor Who, and read comics. Oh, and jerk off.”
I arched a brow. My carton of chocolate milk dropped to the bottom of the machine.
Mads stood staring at me like I’d spoken in a foreign language.
I doubted he would know that RWBY was a very popular anime, but he had to know who Doctor Who was, right?
The shouts and laughter from the dressing room rolled past us.
“I have to go.” He spun on his heel and stalked off, leaving his cup of coffee behind.
“Hey, if you think Ryker would like to train his Pokémon with me and the guys, tell him to hit me up on Snapchat or Instagram.” I ran after him as best I could on skates while carrying a cup of hot coffee. “Or, you know, I could give you my cell number and you could pass it along to him.”
He hit a dead stop. A rear-end collision nearly occurred. When he turned around, I held out his cup of coffee and gave him my most disarming smile.
“My son Ryker?”
I snorted. “No, Captain Picard’s second-in-command. Of course, your son Ryker.”
“Your phone number?”
Was he always this slow? I didn’t recall him being so dim. Had he taken a hit to the head that I wasn’t aware of?
“Yeah, it’s a series of numbers that you dial and it connects you to—”
“I’m familiar with the concept of what a phone number is, Rowe.”
Ow. Last names. “Sure, yeah, of course you are. So, uh, you want my number… to give to Ryker?”
He took the coffee with care to ensure our fingers didn’t touch in any way.
Which was probably for the best, because things had gotten really crackling hot back there for a second.
Getting hooked up with Mads would be bad for so many reasons.
I couldn’t think of one at that moment, but I was sure there were plenty. His blue eyes had darkened just a bit.
“So, what do you say? You want my number or not?”