Page 66 of Play Dirty

Which, apparently… she had.

“Sebastian!” someone called.

The goalie reacted too late. He snapped upright in the net, pushing off hard as she closed the distance. She didn’t slow down, didn’t telegraph. She didn’t give him anything, really.

One quick shift of the shoulders — high — and Sebastian bit. In the same motion, she dropped the puck low—

Five-hole. Clean. Right through his legs.

Goal.

For a long second, nothing happened. Then the whole rink erupted.

“Holy SHIT!”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

Even Mercer laughed. Actually laughed.

But I didn’t. I just stood there, dumbfounded, watching her. Recalculating everything I thought I knew about her.

Haven skated behind the goal and turned slowly, the faintest hint of a smile playing at the corner of her pouty mouth. Then she cut across the ice — fast — and snapped to a hard stop in front of us.

A spray of ice shot up, scattering across my legs. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t need to.

Zack stared at her like she’d just materialized out of thin air.

“Where’d you play?” he asked.

She didn’t break eye contact with me.

“Lindenwood,” she said. “Division one.”

He blinked.

“Left wing,” she added. “Three years on the ice…”

She let the sentence hang for a second, unfinished.

“… and one year watching you make the same mistakes, from the bench.”

Her words carried weight now. They landed with impact. All around me, players shifted nervously. Their attention focused solely on her.

“So yeah,” Haven said quietly. “I’ve been out there.”

Another beat.

“Enough to know when someone’s not doing their job.”

She skated away, leaving us to wallow in stunned silence. Only once Mercer started barking orders again, did everyone get back into position.

I swallowed once, unable — or maybe unwilling — to say anything.

And that’s because she was right.

Haven had seen what I hadn’t, and that bothered me. Maybe because I hadn’t wanted to. I’d been too busy writing her off. Too quick to place her in a neat little box; to decide who and what she was.

But I couldn’t operate like that. Not anymore. Not if I wanted this team to work.