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Jesus, now Hajek was adding his two cents, and since the goalie had more than a few screws loose, putting in his two cents was more like someone throwing a handful of pesos into the change bucket.
“The fuck it isn’t.”
The bickering continued until it felt like my head was going to explode. Practice hadn't even started yet and I felt like I went three rounds in a cage fight with an angry bear.
“Maybe your American guitar music is weird, da? All those… those song about sad love.”
“Shut up, Hazey. Country music is the bomb.”
I ignored the ice pick that stabbed holes in my skull, shot to my feet, and crossed to where four of my dumbass teammates wrestled over control of the dock. Too busy slinging insults to pay attention, I shoved my way between them and plucked it right out of Yates’s hands.
“Hey! Give it back,” Yates, a rookie center, whined.
“Over my dead body,” I snarled. “You're screeching like a bunch of howler monkeys with gonorrhea and now I have a fucking migraine.”
“So what?” Yates replied, a little too snidely for a newbie. I didn't appreciate his attitude.
“So, what that means is I don't want to listen to you bags of dicks bitching over music.”
Yates tried to snatch the device out of my hand, but just like he did on the ice, the dumbass telegraphed every move. I held it over my head. Since I was not only taller, but already wearing my skates, I kept it out of reach easy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hajek circle around behind me. Sneaky fucker thought he could steal it while Yates kept me occupied. I dodged Hazey’s attempt to grab the dock and nearly face planted when I tripped over Jonesy’s fat foot. Lucky for him, my blade didn’t slice off a toe. I caught myself and managed to stay upright.
In retrospect, it might’ve been better if I just gave up the damn thing, because the speakers chose that moment to blast the cringiest high-pitched feedback I'd heard in my life. Even worse than when my stereo… oh fuck.
Everyone in the room shouted and covered their ears, including myself, which meant I had to let go of the portable sound system. It hit the floor and cracked. Plastic components splintered and flew in every direction. Typical. But at least the feedback stopped.
“Son of a bitch, St. Clair. You know not to touch our electronic shit,” Yates complained.
“Da. Agree. You are bad luck for all the device,” Hazzy added.
Yeah, I was.
I stared at the now deceased dock. If Paul Bunyan weren’t splitting my head with his eight-foot axe, I probably would have laughed. As it stood, between my crappy mood, last night’s revelation about Kylie over beers with Ev, and three hours of practice to get through, when all I wanted to do was to find a couple aspirin and wash them down with a Jack and Coke, the assholes were lucky I wasn’t already throwing punches.
“Oops,” I said, smirking. “At least now you won't argue over music.” With that, I turned and headed for the tunnel.
The barrage of curses flung at my back bounced right off. Dealing with angry teammates was way easier than dealing with that god-awful Russian music. Jonesy was right, it was weird and it sucked.
“St. Clair!” Coach’s bark sent a rusty iron spike through my eye. “You’re fucking late!” Scowling, he glanced around. “Where’s the rest of your slacker teammates? Everyone else is already on the goddamn ice.” Coach gestured in the general direction of where most of the team was doing warm-up drills.
I winced, wishing to god I wasn't wearing gloves so I could rub my aching head. “They're coming, Coach.”
He grunted and turned back to the ice. “Speed drills, four at a time, sixty-seconds each! Get your lazy asses in gear!”
The shouting, combined with my ear’s close proximity to Coach’s air horn of a mouth, sent an ice pick into my eye socket.
Twitch,
twitch, twitch.
Ugh. It was going to be a long, painful practice.
The elevator doors slid open on the fourth floor of the arena, home to the Comets business offices. I could count on one hand how many times I’d there. Locker room, rink, and sometimes the media room—those were more my speed, for the most part. Surrounded by slick, expensively dressed professionals, made me feel like an elephant swing-dancing with a herd of gazelles.
“Can I help you?”
Startled, I jerked my head up. A middle-aged woman seated behind reception smiled politely, but her eyes questioned my presence.
“Um, yeah. Sorry,” twitch, twitch, “I'm looking for Amanda Brooker. She’s, um,” twitch, “one of the corporate sales managers.”
