Austin
AUSTIN
A lot of the team do their homework in the player’s lounge at the rink, but when I really need to knuckle down and get shit done, I go to the library. It’s hard to focus when they’re all talking about hockey and girls and what they’re doing on the weekend. I need to be around the hard-core students. The ones who came to college to actually get an education.
I get myself set up in the library before practise and put my phone on silent for the next hour. Just enough time to get some work done and make sure I actually keep up with the school part of being in college.
I text my ma just to let her know I’m okay. I could hear the stress in her voice after last night’s game. I forgot I’d even been hurt. As long as it doesn’t result in a lasting injury, it doesn’t count. But to my ma, every little scrape and bruise is like someone breaking something important to her.
There’s a message waiting for me from Alyssa, but I ignore it until I’m on my way to the rink. Grabbing something to eat on the way, I wolf down a breakfast wrap and send her a casual hey before putting my phone away again.
Do I even want to be in contact with my ex? Ma was right, we didn’t end on bad terms, but every time I think about her, it’s like an old wound opening up again.
I put it out of my mind for now and focus on practise. Coach has a lot to say about our disorganization in the first two periods of last night’s game, but he goes surprisingly easy on us.
“Go and rest up,” he tells us after practise. “Be fresh for our game against Harvard on Saturday.”
Yale is uncharacteristically quiet as he changes at the end of my bench. He’s just taking his pads off when I glance over and I get that twisted feeling in my gut I used to get when he’d taunt me over the puck. Grinning and winking at me. Does knowing he’s gay change how fucking annoying that always was?
I think about Gray joking that he must have a crush on me and my stomach drops. If he had a crush on me, there’s no way he’d act like that. You don’t joke about that shit with people you actually like. Surely?
He hasn’t acted that way since he joined the team, but then I guess I’m not the enemy anymore. I try to remember if I’ve seen him taunting anyone else with the winking and shit, but I can’t think of a single one.
He looks over and catches me watching him and I pretend to have my attention caught by something on the wall behind him. He grins and that same bubble of anger resurfaces and I have to remind myself he’s on my team now. I am not allowed to hate him.
Coach asks me and Hayes to see him in his office. Is he chewing us out over last night’s game? Hayes didn’t play his best, and he made a few mistakes, but they didn’t cost us the game.
I might be the captain, but Coach outranks me, and I have to defer to him on this stuff and just be there to give Hayes a pep-talk after if he needs it.
“Take a seat please gentlemen,” Coach says, gesturing to the two chairs put out in front of his desk. I’ve always liked how he calls us ‘gentlemen,’ not ‘boys’ like I was used to being called on junior teams. This school likes to remind us any time it can that we are men now, and that we have to start acting like it.
Coach clears his throat. “We all know our last performance wasn’t up to our usual standard, and despite the win, I’m worried the lines are getting a little stale out there.”
I glance at Hayes, his face bright red. I try to mentally tell him to keep his cool. Blowing his top at Coach isn’t gonna make anything better.
“Captain Donoghue,” Coach turns to me now. “What do you have to say?”
“We had one bad game Coach, but we managed to pull it back, I’m proud of our performance in the end.”
He sits back in his chair and smooths out his tie. “I’d like to try something for our game against Harvard, shake things up a little.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to try Huntington on the first line with you and Gray.”
Hayes shoots forward. “But Coach, I’m first line, that’s the line, me, Gray and Donno, you can’t change it now.”
Coach stays calm like always, his voice low and even. “It’s just an experiment Hayes. Good practise for when you’re playing pro next year.”
Hayes huffs and slumps back in his chair. If he bothered to look at me, he’d see me giving him the signal to calm the fuck down, even though I wanna go off just as much as he is right now.
Coach excuses Hayes and he practically storms out of the room, just short of slamming the door.
“Coach,” I say when he’s gone. “Is this some sort of punishment, because-”
“It’s not a punishment Donoghue, you’ll be playing in the NHL some day.”
I drop my eyes, because nothing is guaranteed, and he knows that, surely?
“This is just something you’re going to have to learn to deal with. You have to fight for your spot on the first line every game.”
“I know Coach.”
“I have faith in you as team captain to keep moral up, remind those gentlemen why we don’t get complacent.”
“Yes Coach.”
Hayes isn’t in the locker room when I go back in. The guys are looking to me for some sign of what was said in there. I ignore them for now and put my stuff in my bag with my back turned.
“What’s wrong with Hayes?” Jordan pipes up eventually.
“Yeah,” a few other guys chirp in.
“Coach wants to change up the first line, that’s all, just an experiment for our game against Harvard this Saturday.”
“What do you mean, change it up? Who’s he putting in? Is Hayes out?” Our second-line left-winger, Silver, asks.
“No one’s ‘out,’” I say. “Coach wants to give the new guy a chance to prove himself, that’s all.”
“New guy?”
Huntington’s head shoots up. “Moi?”
I had been silently praying he wouldn’t be a dick about this but… who was I kidding?
Everyone starts talking at once and I’m about to tell them all to calm the fuck down when Coach comes in and says one word. They all fall silent.
“I suppose your captain told you about our little experiment for the Harvard game on Saturday?”
A few tentative nods.
“Good, now everybody hurry up and get out, you don’t want to bump into the women’s team on their way to their locker room, they’ll only taunt you about their 5-0 win last night.”
We all do as Coach says and clear our shit out.
I have a business class, and unless he decides not to show up, Yale is gonna be there, probably sitting in my favorite seat.
I catch up to him just outside the building. I’m sure he pretends he doesn’t hear me calling his name. Asshole.
When he turns around, he’s wearing that smile that says nothing can touch him.
“Hey, I just wanted you to know, just because Coach wants to give you a shot, it doesn’t mean you’re taking Hayes’ place on the first line.”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Sounds a lot like that to me.”
“So you played first line at Yale, you were a center, doesn’t mean you’ll be a good left-winger.”
His grin widens and I’ve never wanted to smack someone as much as I do right now. “Maybe I won’t be playing left wing,” he says.
“What?” My heart pounds and my stomach drops, and before I know it, I’m pushing him against the wall and pinning him to the red brick. His grin has faltered, but only a little. His cheeks flushed.
“You’d better back the fuck off Yale. Your bullshit might have worked at your Ivy League school, but here, Daddy’s money won’t buy you whatever you want.”
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his pale throat.
“Did you hear me?”
He nods. His brown eyes wide as his chest heaves with his heavy breath. I let up the pressure and back off. Shit, what the fuck am I doing?
He dusts himself off, regaining his composure, though his grin doesn’t seem as certain now.
“I was just kidding Donno , I have no interest in taking your spot, you’re the captain for fucks sake, you don’t need to be so insecure.”
He walks ahead of me and I hang back so I don’t end up saying, or doing, something I’ll regret… again.