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A Bear that likes to write checks his mouth can’t cash skates up the middle of the rink, dodging my teammates left and right. He’s getting entirely too close to scoring, but Draven knocks the biscuit out of his crease when Rivers shoots it at him.

“Let’s go!” I yell, glaring at my teammates as I slam into Rivers.

We jostle, jab, and struggle for the puck, drifting toward Draven and the crease, who glares fiercely at us. We’re in the second period, and Alastair joins in to push us away from Draven.

“Fuck,” Rivers grits out under his breath. The dickweed has the puck again miraculously, and only barely manages to weakly shoot it.

Fuck. That’s too close.

Draven easily catches it on his blade, punting it way down the ice in the other direction, and I immediately dance back on my skates, smirking at Rivers.

“You really should get your ass moving,” I tease, watching as my teammates are already skating hard after it.

Rivers scowls at me, and I tense, waiting for him to launch himself in my direction. I love a good brawl.

“Please make my day,” I laugh. When he pushes himself away, I jump back in to play, my skates digging in to gain momentum.

Seeing an opening where someone is coming for Alastair, I push the other guy away.

“Fuck, it’s like you’re everywhere!” he yells angrily.

“Kind of my job,” I taunt him. The Bears are so damn easy. It’s like they constantly walk around with their panties in a bunch.

The ref blows the whistle as the second period ends, and we all head back to our own sides. Clambering in to speak to the coach, we all listen to him as he talks about what we need to do to ensure the Bears won’t score again.

We’re currently tied, and I pat Draven’s helmet as he looks dejected. This shit always hits him hard. It’s not his fault we didn’t cover him well enough. He’s knocked out a lot of pucks tonight.

“For God’s sake, guys. No one should be in Draven’s space. The Bears are assholes. I thought they were going to knock into him,” Coach Helm growls.

“Sorry, Coach,” I sigh. “I tried to stop us from drifting.”

“It’s like they’re trying to piss me off,” Alastair grumbles.

“Keep shit-talking them, Ciaran,” Eamon, our assistant captain, tells me with a chuckle. “They’re making stupid mistakes. We got this. Keep pushing.”

I notice the coach turn to look for someone, and he waves before continuing to discuss things while we have time on the clock.

I glance at Asmos as she makes her way onto the bench, and watch as Coach Helm hands her skates to her.

Yeah, this will be interesting. She quickly gets her skates on and adjusts them before tying the laces. Noor has to take her gloves off to do it, and I notice how fucking tiny her fingers are. I go back to listening to the coach as she pulls on her gloves again, which are oversized to make her hands appear bigger. I have to admit she kind of looks androgynous in the costume.

“Let’s see what you got, Asmos!” Eamon calls out goodnaturedly.

The only time I expect anyone would be nice to her is when she’s in this get up. I hope she enjoys it.

Someone opens the door that we usually just jump over for her, and I watch as she glides out. Noor is moving a lot easier across the ice, and my jaw drops as she jumps and half turns in the air so she’s skating backward for a short time.

“That’s ballsy in that get up,” Draven mutters.

She returns to face forward easily, arms raising to the crowd as they cheer, making me roll my eyes. The last mascot has only made it to a handful of our games over the last four years, and looked like a baby deer on skates.

Draven and I gave the principal a long list of demands for her, and he easily agreed. I suppose he emailed it to her for her perusal. One of the demands was that Noor skate and hype the school during our intermission before our last period. I refuse to accept how graceful she appears on the ice, or wonder why she’s able to skate at all.

We have holes in our information. Even as I dig for more, there’s still not enough to quell my growing obsession with Nope.

My lips twitch at her new nickname, and I imagine what it would be like to come inside her with that name on my lips.

“We’re nowhere near done with her,” Alastair murmurs under his breath to me.