“Take a drink,” Coach urges, discreetly nudging a box of tissues across the desk. “It’ll help. I’m going to call Edison, butwe don’t have to do this right now if you’re in the middle of a hormone surge.”
“No!” I shake my head fiercely. “Let’s do it now.” I swipe the back of the hand holding the protein bar over my eyes, then, as Coach picks up his phone, I open the Gatorade. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe it’s going to get better.
I can’t believe I could have had help all along. Son of a bitch! Rage courses through me, and I force myself to bite viciously into the protein bar instead of saying something or doing something I’ll probably regret later.
Coach finishes his call. “Edison’s on his way. While we’re waiting—and your mouth is full—this might be a good time to set some expectations.”
I swallow hard, the suddenly too-dry protein bar a hard ball in my throat. “Yes, sir,” I mumble. Is he going to fire me anyway?
“While it’s a relief to understand why your style of game play has gotten so much rougher recently, not to mention why you’ve been assaulting your teammates”—I flinch. Ari accused me of assaulting my teammates too. I hate that word, even if it is technically correct—“it doesn’t excuse you completely. Going forward, I’m going to have higher standards for you than for any of your teammates. You will not fight, ever. I don’t care if you’re provoked; I don’t care if someone drops gloves and the whole damn arena is chanting, ‘Fight!’ You will skate away—with a fucking smile, if you can manage it—and let someone else handle it. Your job on this team is to score goals. You’re good at it, and with better coaching, you’re going to be the best goal scorer in the whole damn league, but I will cut you loose if you can’t control yourself. Is that understood?”
My eyes are wet again, and my jaw is clenched. This combination of gratitude and anger is a new one for me. I nod, not trusting myself to speak. If the team can help me manage the hormones, I can damn well stop myself from hitting people.
I really, really hope.
There’s a brief knock on the door, and then it opens and Edison enters, stopping short when he sees me. “Oh. Sorry, I?—”
“Come in and join us,” Coach says, and Edison closes the door and obeys, eyeing me cautiously. I’m suddenly conscious that I must look a little unhinged, clutching my Gatorade and the remaining half of the protein bar, my face tearstained and probably red. I muster a smile, but I don’t think it’s all that reassuring.
“Felix tells me you’re aware that he’s currently undergoing reproductive puberty,” Coach begins. “We’d like your help setting up a diet and training plan to manage it.”
Edison’s mouth drops open in shock. “Wait, you don’t have a plan? But… fuck, Felix, I’m so sorry! When Coach Franks didn’t ask me to put one together, I assumed you’d decided to handle it privately. Do you mean this whole time you’ve been just… riding it out?” He looks horrified, and something inside me unclenches.
I have support here. Work has always been a maelstrom for me. I love what I do, but as an organization, the Warhammers haven’t been the most supportive—not in any way. The few people I like here are the exception to the toxic culture, not the norm. Learning that things are starting to change, that some people here are looking toward a better future for the club… that’s going to make me cry again.
Sniffing back the tears, I incline my head to Edison. “Thanks. Uh, Coach Franks thought the hormones added to my game, so…” I shrug. Normally I wouldn’t verbally bash a coach or anyone associated with my career, but Franks got fired for a reason, and we all know what he was like.
Edison snarls. It’s an actual snarl, his shifter side coming out. “That’s abuse.”
“It is,” Locke agrees. “And you can be certain that the people who need to know about it will be finding out.”
“I don’t want to make an official complaint,” I say. That sounds exhausting and complicated, and I just want to play hockey.
“You won’t have to,” Coach promises. “Unofficial will work just as well.” He returns his gaze to Edison. “Before we dig into the details, could you hit the highlights of what the plan will look like? Felix isn’t familiar with the information on how adrenaline impacts reproductive puberty—only with how it feels,” he adds dryly, and I almost choke on Gatorade. Coach has a sense of humor. Who knew?
“Sure.” Edison turns to me. “At the most basic level, what we’re going to do is keep your hormones fed. We’ll adjust your PT to include things that will appease your instincts—sparring, for one. We’ll need to find a specialist coach for that, but the theory behind it is that you’re training your instincts to think of fighting as something measured, logical, and balanced, so that when you have a surge of hormonal rage, your instinctive reaction won’t be to violently fly off the handle.”
No way. “And that works?” I can’t keep the disbelief from my voice.
Edison nods. “Yep. I went through it myself, ninety or so years ago. The research was a lot more rudimentary then, but it’s been proven over and over since. Trust me, Felix. With the right training plan, your life is going to change for the better.”
I put down the Gatorade and the last bite of the protein bar, bury my face in my hands, and weep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ari
I wantedto wait in the dressing room for Felix, but as the other players started coming in after their practice and looking at me funny, I relocated back to the office instead. I probably could have come up with a reason for needing to be in the dressing room, but my presence might still have made the players uncomfortable.
So I send Felix a text asking him to please come and find me, or call me—whichever he prefers—and then busy myself with some of the technical details for one of the upcoming planned events, wondering how long it’s going to take our PR department to free up someone to take over from me. I see the value in what I’m doing here, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.
I last only fifteen minutes before opening a browser and accessing one of the better community information forums. We were introduced to this part of the internet at the same time we were taught how to use the internet, and I’ve been grateful for it over the years. While CSG were diligent about putting together information we’d need to know about our new world and the species that live here, some things are so entrenched in their lives and beings that it didn’t occur to them that we might notknow about them. Hence my attachment to search engines and online sources.
Plus, I know what it’s like to only get information from one source, and I’ll never fall into that trap again.
I type inshifter reproductive puberty, then, after one glance at the thousands of results, begin refining my search parameters.
The first few sources I read through confirm what Felix told me and add a few small details. I make notes of things I want to look into further, including the fact that endorphins can help to moderate the effect of puberty hormones. Shouldn’t that mean that Felix is in a better place than most other shifters going through the same thing? Exercise releases endorphins, and Felix, as an athlete, exercises all the time.
