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CHAPTER ELEVEN
AIDAN
Itug a baseball cap down over my wet hair before climbing out of my truck. I got it back yesterday—finally—and just in time.
The rest of the team is at Gaffney’s, enjoying discounted beer and wings.
I should be annoyed I’m missing it. I’m not.
For one, practice since Saturday’s game has been uncomfortable. I have no clue how Hart has dealt with this attention for four years, because I’ve had my fill after four days.
Although it’s not so much the attention as the expectations, I guess, and Conor puts those on himself.
He steps out on the ice, determined to score and have an impact on the game.
I’m there for a fun time and hoping we win because of a group effort.
Since Saturday, everyone’s been acting like whether we win is dependent onme.
Responsibility I don’t want, and something I should have considered before pulling a hat trick out of my ass. I’ve scored ahat trick in a game once before, back in high school. Never in a college game, and not against Smithdale, who we were expecting to be a challenge to our almost perfect record.
I’m extremely nervous about Thursday’s game, knowing the expectations that are in place now.
The thing is, nothing about Saturday felt different. I’m not superstitious like some athletes are. I don’t have a special pre-game routine and I did nothing unusual before our latest game. I wasn’t pissed about anything or riding a high.
I just saw opportunities and took them, and that somehow resulted in me scoring the game’s only goals and the guys now referring to me as the team’s secret weapon.
A few people call out to me as I walk toward the campus coffee shop, a mixture of hellos and congratulations. A few good games.
At least Thursday is an away game.
If I revert to my usual mediocre performance, there won’t be a home crowd to disappoint. Of course, all the people I care about disappointing will still be there.
Like Coach, who gave me an approving, proud smile that had Sampson freaking the fuck out because Coachneversmiles.
And Hart, who’s got trophy-shaped stars in his eyes. He could be after a fourth championship this season, if hockey was an individual sport. It’s the rest of us who have let him down year after year. Me delivering a Hart-worthy game takes a lot of pressure off of him. Increases our low odds of getting all the way to the final.
Unfortunately, I have no clue what the fuck happened on Saturday and have even less of an idea how to replicate it.
So I’m hoping another guy on the team will have a great game and no one will notice when I go back to contributing an assist or two but nothing more.
I cover a yawn as I pass the student center, desperate for a joltof caffeine. I got a shitty night’s sleep, since I’m stressed not only about our next game, but also about tonight’s tutoring session.
I haven’t seen Rylan since the party on Friday, and I’m fucking nervous about seeing her tonight.
As if our first tutoring session didn’t go awkwardly enough—realizing the tutor I was absolutely not going to hook up with was a girl I had already slept with was a curveball, to say the least—I didn’t avoid her at the party the way I should’ve.
Not only because she was obviously trying to avoid me, which I should have been grateful for, not peeved by, but because I love a bad decision.
I walked up to her because I was bored. Headed outside because I was feeling restless. Being at that party felt stale and predictable until I saw Rylan there.
My conversations with girls at parties begin and end with flirting.
I don’t ask them what their name means.
And I don’t fumble through suggesting we hook up, much less at myhouse, where I never bring girls.
I’d had a couple of drinks, received four different offers to fuck upstairs, and I ended the evening jerking off in my room to memories of Rylan in that hot tub.
