Granted, it’s a tiny puck the size of a dog turd, and I do it while zipping around a frozen pond with death blades strapped to my shoes, but it’s the way I’m allowed to feel as primitive as possible.
Plus, I’m really good at it.
Well, I’m good at parts of it. The skating? Sure. The puck-handling? Not so much. The ramming the other team into the glass and breaking noses with my head? Fucking brilliant.
That’s the part where myKteerkept me alive; my coaches have said I have an instinct they’d never seen before, the ability to know which direction the other guy is going to break and how, exactly, to stop him. My secret is that I don’t ignore myKteer, I trust it.
Only this time, it really fucked me over.
In that last playoff game—two minutes on the clock, tied score—I should have used my head instead of my instincts. And I don’t mean to ram it into someone else’s stomach.
So no, I didn’t need a counselor to sit me down and talk about my feelings. I knew I’d fucked up, and I knew what kind of feelings I had in response to that fuck up. And I knew I’d do just about anything to make it up to the team.
Apparently, in our world, there was once a tradition of the outcast male approaching the chief with his throatbared as a pledge of humility, respect, and begging to be forgiven. But Bardon was our team captain, and he was too civilized to know what to do with me if I tried such a thing, so I was going to have to come up with some other way to get them to forgive me.
I’d decided to start by showing up at the ice complex instead of avoiding anyplace the guys might be. Yeah, it was officially offseason for another month, but most of them had returned from whatever travel they’d planned, or the time they’d taken off to be with their extended families, and were now starting to congregate for workouts or daily scrimmages.
The Teal Terrors were the Orc Hockey League’s most rookie team, and we had plenty to prove. Now we had even more, and it was my fault.
Stepping back inside, my bag over my shoulder, on that first day had beenrough.
But when I’d stepped into the gym, Dakvaar had looked up from his weight bar, nodded to me in his taciturn way, and gone right back to sliding on another twenty pounds. Jord—he wasn’t a rookie, but was the youngest of us—had bounded past, slapping me on the shoulder, and welcoming me back. At lunch that day, three of the other males on the team had sat at the table where I’d chosen to eat.
Not a damn one of them said anything about that disastrous last game, and how it was my fault we’d lost. In fact, when theydidspeak of last season, it was with pride in their tone that we’d gone so far as such a young team.
Didn’t they realize we could have gone farther?
The next four days went much the same way, to my surprise. No criticism, no blame from my teammates or the staff who had started to trickle back into work. Coach Ellis was the only one who seemed to understand why I might feel guilty, and he’d never brought it up again.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why the fuck was everyone being so welcoming instead?
MyKteerbuzzed constantly, keeping me on edge. Didn’t matter how many times I tried to convince myself that there wasn’t danger here, the damn thing wouldn’t shut up. What did it know that I didn’t?
Nothing you should pay attention to.
Right. The last time I’d given it free rein, I’d lost the Teal Terrors the cup.
Better to use mybraininstead.
I needed to focus on my teammates, the guys I could make shit up to. But instead of hanging out with them and laughing loudly and acting out whatever sex act Jord was too embarrassed to ask about, I found myself sitting quietly at the table, watching.
Waiting.
That shoe finally dropped on Tuesday. On my way to the facility, I got a text from one of the coaches.
Maddie in PR wants to meet with you today at 4.
I’d sat in my car in the parking lot and frowned down at that message. Public Relations? I knew the female who’drequested the meeting—she always seemed to be smiling as she thought up some plan or other. She was part of the reason I’d become so popular with our female fans, frankly, and I suppose—were I the sort of male who didn’t believe in my own superior cunnilingus skills—I owed her thanks.
Still, knowing she wanted to talk to menow, after that last game…my lips twisted into a frown. I hated to think what she had in mind.
If it can redeem you in the eyes of your team and the eyes of the fans, you’ll do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would.
No matter how humiliating.
