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Bellamy grinned, chest heaving from the exertion. “I try.”

A few minutes later, Eli left his Werther’s Original on the bench for safekeeping—his uniform didn’t have pockets—and got back in the game. He couldn’t help but notice that he’d been playing fewer minutes per game recently. Not a surprise. But it still sucked. It was like going out for a strawberry milkshake and arriving at the restaurant only for them to be sold out of every flavor except boring ol’ vanilla.

Or going to the bakery and discovering the only baguette left was whole wheat.

A disappointment.

Which meant he was a disappointment to his team, and ugh. He seriously needed to step up his game.

There were less than two minutes on the board though. His chances left to impress tonight? Not great.

But that was okay. He could impress next time. Tonight, all he had to do was spend the next minute and eight seconds preventing Dallas from scoring.

And if coaches Madolora and Friedle wanted him on the ice for the last minute of the game, that had to mean they had some faith in him, right? Protect the team’s lead—that was literally his only objective.

Hughes and Prinnie were on defense, and fellow forwards Zanetti and Cotton were on the ice with him. Him, “sophomore slump” Eli Parker, together with Zanetti and Cotton—the two remaining OG members of the Trailblazers—was unreal. He tried not to make an ass of himself, but of course, he tripped over nothing almost instantly and hit the ice hard. He didn’t take it to heart—ice was slippery and players fell all the time. He hauled himself up and chased after his teammates.

In the defensive zone, the puck ended up on his tape. He wanted it out of the defensive zone, so⁠—

“Watch it, Eli!” Matty Coates called from the crease, his all-seeing goalie eyes spotting a threat Eli couldn’t see.

Eli swung left on instinct and narrowly avoided a hit into the boards. The Dallas player clearly hadn’t anticipated Eli’s move because he ended up in the boards instead, which was mildly satisfying.

“Fucking fuck, you fucker,” he growled as Eli passed the puck to Zanetti.

A clean pass that landed right where he wanted it to. Small victories were still victories.

“Don’t call my rookie a fucker, you asswipe,” Matty Coates shouted after the Dallas player.

Even though Eli wasn’t technically a rookie anymore, he still grinned, because hockey was awesome, even during a slump.

Five minutes later, with a win under the team’s belt, Eli was chewing on his Werther’s Original and shucking his uniform in the locker room when a PR intern walked in and headed right for him.

“Eli, can you talk to the press in a few minutes?” the intern shouted over “Pour Some Sugar On Me” blaring from the speakers—the team’s victory song this year. Not a choice Eli would’ve made had he been given a say.

Eli motioned at his mouth and made a show of chewing his candy to give himself a moment to come up with a response that wasn’t fuck those assholes and their sophomore slumps. “Look. In general, I’m a yes-man. But if they want to ask about my sophomore slump or about what I could’ve done differently to prevent myself from basically handing Dallas the puck in the first period, which ultimately led to them scoring, or about my second period penalty . . . then, no.”

“Uh . . .” The intern—Eric? Ethan? Elliot?—swallowed hard. “Okay. Sure. Uh, thanks.” He walked back out as quickly as he’d walked in.

“Look at you.” Deeley clapped Eli on the shoulder. “Exercising your right to say no. Good for you, man. Hughes will be proud of you.”

Well, there was that, at least, because Eli was already feeling guilty for turning the intern down. Still, he quick-stepped into the shower before someone higher up on the PR food chain could order him in front of the cameras like he was a small fish in a very big pond of piranhas.

No, thank you.

When he emerged a few minutes later, it was to find that someone had significantly lowered the volume on the music—Dabbs, probably. Eli dropped onto the bench of his stall and waved a hand grandly at Deeley, who sat in his own stall next to Eli’s, clearly too busy texting to shower. “Okay,” Eli said. “I’m ready. Read it to me.”

“Read what to you?” Deeley asked without looking up from his phone.

“Whatever they’re saying about me online.”

That brought Deeley’s gaze up, and he looked from Eli to Zanetti, who was several stalls down. “Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” Deeley said. “The last time I did, Zanetti read me the riot act. So if you want to know what they’re saying, take it up with him.”

Eli grimaced. “Fine,” he grumbled. He could look it up himself, of course. But when someone else read it, when Eli couldn’t see the black-on-white text, it was almost like it existed only in another universe.

He grabbed his phone from the shelf in his stall and tapped on the text from his agent.

Tom: