The crowd is counting down the seconds as Cookie races through the players and darts around one final defender who crashes, tripping over his feet trying to keep up with Cookie. He leaps over him with the puck, does a pirouette, pops the puck up, and passes it to himself.
“Four… three…”
The goal horn blares as Cookie flicks the puck off his stick and it slams into the net, sending the Orcas goalie’s water bottle that had been resting on the net flying, spraying water everywhere.
“Cookie!” I scream, throwing up my hands as the Barbie song blares from the speakers.
“They had that cued up because they thought we were gonna lose!” Fletcher’s laughing, coughing around his bruised lungs.
“I fucking love this song!” I wrap him in a hug.
“Of course you do.” He stares down at me. “Of course you love this horrible song.”
I cup his bruised face.
“We won. Goddamn, we won, Ellie.” He looks like he wants to kiss me for a moment.
I choke on the smell of him—the sweat and the ice—then he’s gone to join Cookie, who’s dancing alone to the Barbie song at center ice before the players all rush him, singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs as they jump around and hug Cookie.
The pink spotlights wash the stadium in pink while lots of drunk people in the crowd sing along off-key. I join in, dancing on top of the bench.
“Shots!” Granny Murray hollers, handing me the bottle of tequila. The camera pans to me, and I’m on the jumbotron right as I take a swig from the bottle of tequila.
Whoops.
The Orcas players glower as they file into their tunnel while their coach screams obscenities and throws his clipboard at them.
“That’s the power of pussy!” Granny Murray has a bottle of rum in one hand and a bottle of Jack in the other as she yells at one of the cameras focused on our box. “These guys won game seven after a brutal slog with the Direwolves, only to get their balls handed to them by a girl! Who’s on her period now, motherfuckers!”
We can’t even make it to the locker room with the crush of media swarming us. The players are giddy as the sports reporters pepper them with questions.
A reporter sticks a microphone in my face. “Ellie, Ellie!” The sports media are grabbing at me. “Was that a planned strategy, to save Cookie for the very end?”
“Zayne Murphy’s playing better than he has in a year. How did you do it?”
“What made you call a time-out?”
“Is that your new lucky suit?”
“I’m fromVogue!” a young woman screams at me. “Is that suit Givenchy?”
“Uh, actually, my mom made it.”
“Slay!”
“Your equipment manager made a statement that made it sound like you’re sleeping with your players.” One man is right up in my face.
A big hand shoves him away. “Back off.” Fletcher’s there behind me. I can feel the heat from the exertion during the game steaming off him in the cold air of the stadium.
“Fletcher, that tie-breaking goal—how did you feel when your shot went wide but happened to hit Alexei Vidic’s helmet and go in the net?”
Fletcher huffs out a laugh. “I wasn’t aiming at the goal. I was aiming at his fucking head.”
The reporters clamber. “Was this a revenge play for the Orcas players throwing tampons? Did it get under your guys’ skin?” a smarmy reporter asks.
I just laugh at him. “Are you kidding me? No one’s offended by that. I almost went out there and picked them up myself. These things are expensive! I put them in my bag. They bought the nice ones too.”
Fletcher smirks. “Guess the Orcas players should have spent less time shopping and more time practicing. They might have won.”
