1
ELLIE
“Did you just ask me what my favorite sex position is?”
“No!” I shriek at the huge hockey player cornered in front of me. “That’s not even close to what I asked you.” I wave my phone that’s recording in his face. “I asked, ‘If you were a Christmas cookie, what type would you be?’”
“What kind of stupid question is that? No one on the internet wants to watch a video of brain-dead idiots answering questions posed by another brain-dead nepo baby idiot.”
“I’m not a nepo baby.” I glower up at him.
“Candy Cane, your father works for the NHL, and this is an NHL team, so, you know, nepotism.” He smirks. “Or you’re sleeping with someone.” He hefts his stick and brushes past me, his massive six-four frame magnified by the pads and heavy hockey skates.
One of the forwards sees me with my phone out, and his eyes widen. He curses and practically sprints for the rink, almost crashes into the plexiglass divider, and then he’s gone, racing away over the ice.
“Why doesn’t anyone want to participate in my PR videos?” I demand.
The rest of the players have already bailed for the ice, starting their morning workout.
“It’s part of your contract!” I yell at them as Fletcher Sullivan walks by, thin blades of his skates thudding on the rubber flooring, then silently glides out onto the ice.
He spins on his outside edge to toss one more acidic comment at me. “You should just take videos of the players naked in the locker room. Know your audience, Candy Cane,” he shouts to me, effortlessly skating backward. “See? I can do your job and mine.”
“You’re called up from the minors, buddy. You don’t have an NHL contract. They can and will send you back down any day now, especially if the team keeps losing games,” I shout back.
He gives me the finger.
“Loser.” I plunk down on the bleachers of the Rhode Islanders’ brand-new stadium to get some footage of the guys on the ice.
I only have one player who actually answered the question, and the guy spoke excitedly in Finnish the entire time while gesturing to a picture of a raccoon on his phone. The rest of them ran, gave me deer-in-the-headlights looks, rolled their eyes, mumbled “I dunno” around their mouthguards, or like Fletcher, complained—loudly and bitterly.
I cannot afford to lose this job. Fletcher is right. The only reason I have it is because of my dad. I should be at the Sunshine House Daycare leading story time right now, prepping organic snacks, or ushering my tiny young charges on a fun educational field trip.
Thanks to the Apache helicopter moms of Maplewood Falls, I lost my job, was blacklisted from all the preschools in the town, and now I have to chase after man-babies to try to drum up somesort of interest for hockey’s newest and worst-performing team in the history of the NHL.
“It’s not my fault,” I whisper as I videotape the guys on the ice.
The Rhode Island Hockey Club has only been an NHL team since October. And here it is—the Thanksgiving turkey carcass is still warm—they have not won a single game. Zero. Zilch.
And it hasn’t even been close.
I coach U6 girls, and honestly, these guys need to get back to basics. I think my little girls could give them a run for their money.
Their coach should be on them. Instead, he’s sitting in his folding lawn chair in the middle of the ice rink, half asleep, snoozing off a hangover.
I decorated the ice rink for the holidays, with garland on top of the plexiglass dividers and snowflakes on the glass. But the Rhode Islanders are anything but festive.
Surly, no sense of camaraderie, no holiday-inspired kindness—they’re all off in their own little worlds. They are just toddlers—gigantic six-foot-plus toddlers who are two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle—but still toddlers.
Look at them squabble over who gets which of the identical pucks.
The assistant coach has zero control. He reeked of weed when I ran into him earlier. He also tried to get me to lend him money.
“Keep your head up!” I finally yell as Ziggy, a D-man, sends the laziest pass in the history of the sport to Cookie.
Cookie spooks, misses it, starts crying, then the GM—who looks like he’s one dose of blood thinner away from a massive heart attack—screams at him.
My video is ruined now. No one wants to see the rookie crying.
