“Maybe.” He walks away laughing.
In the dressing room, I head for my locker. It’s right where it used to be, between Drake and Campeau. I’m so ready to buckle down and skate. And I won’t stop until we win the cup in June.
“You’re late, Baby Bayer!” O’Doul calls. “Change, already.”
“Sorry,” I say, preferring not to explain where I’ve been. “Let’s do this, boys!” I slap Drake on the back. “Who’s ready to skate until we puke?”
“You talk a good game,” my friend replies, pulling up his socks. “But I bet you’re really just planning the first big prank of the season.”
“Nah,” I say, tossing my T-shirt into my gym bag. “I’ve retired the whoopie cushion and the rubber chicken.” This will be the year that the hockey blogs know me for my stats, not my reputation as a party boy.
It’s time to settle down. Hell—it’s past time. “Where’s my jersey?” I ask, glancing around the room. It’s not at my station. And I feel an honest-to-God shiver, like the hockey gods are reminding me one more time that nobody owes me a seat in this room.
“Oh, uh,” Drake says, frowning. “Jimbo only made it half way around before something came up.” He points at a rolling laundry cart in the center of the room. “I found mine in there.”
“Thanks, dude.” I slap my upper body pads on and then cross to the cart. Sure enough, there’s my practice jersey right on top. BAYER it reads, number 70. “One better than 69,” I used to tell the ladies in the bars after games.
I reach for the jersey. But just as my fingers close around the fabric, a hand comes shooting up from beneath the other laundry in the cart and grabs me by the wrist.
I shriek like a teenage girl at a Taylor Swift concert.
The room erupts with howls of laughter.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I yell as Castro stands up in the cart, shedding a pile of jerseys. Then I clutch my chest, where my heart is beating wildly. “You will PAY, asshole!”
He doubles over laughing. “Anyone get it on video?”
“Oh ya,” says the rookie Wilson in his big Wisconsin accent. He’s clutching his phone and laughing. “That’ll be a classic. You jumped a yard, Baby Bayer. Shoulda gone out for basketball.”
“Assholes,” I grumble, lifting the damn jersey over my head. “You all think you’re so funny.” The whole room is still laughing, even Ivo, the Finnish kid who barely understands anything we say.
I stomp back to my gear and put on my hockey shorts.
“Oh, man,” Drake says, wiping his eyes. “What a way to start the season. How you gonna pay Castro back?”
As soon as I hear the question, my subconscious is making plans. I could steal that lucky peanut-butter sandwich he eats before every game. He might open it up and find a damp sponge in there instead. Or—since we live in the same building and share a laundry room—I could put a new purple T-shirt in his whites laundry and turn all his underwear lavender.
But wait. No.
Slowly I turn to Drake. “I’m not.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to get him back. I’m done with jokes and pranks,” I tell him. Even if revenge does sound nice, because my heart rate is still elevated from Castro’s jump scare, my focus needs to be elsewhere.
“Sure you’re done.” Drake rolls his eyes. “You can tell me all about it tonight when we go out.”
“Where?”
“Some warehouse party in Long Island City. Doors open at midnight but the real fun doesn’t start until one, prolly.”
But I’m here to skate. I didn’t bust my ass all summer to get drunk at a warehouse party. “Maybe next time,” I tell Drake. And then I pat him on the shoulder and grab my skates.
The first thing I see when I walk out to the main practice rink is a whole lot of journalists and photographers. They’re here to preview the new team roster and check out the new, expanded practice facility.
“Bayer! Over here!” a photographer calls. I give him a wave and a smile. I’m so juiced for the new season and a new chance to prove myself. The circus-like atmosphere only feeds me.
The second thing I see is our head coach.
“Anton!” Coach Worthington lands his piercing gaze on me. “Good showing yesterday at the track. I had no idea you could sprint like that.”
My chest practically expands from this compliment. “Thank you, sir. I worked hard this summer.”
“It shows. I was impressed. This is the year you settle down and put up the stats you’re capable of.”
“Yes, sir. That’s going to happen.”
“I have some ideas.” There’s a glint in the older man’s eyes. “We’re going to practice a couple different defensive pairings this year. You’ll skate with O’Doul in some preseason games and Tankiewicz in others. Gotta keep ’em guessing. We have so much strength on the blue line. Let’s make it all count.”
“Yes, Coach. I can’t wait.” His optimism is contagious. Everyone is buzzing about how this will be a big season for us. It was only a few years ago when the Bruisers were moved to the city and rebranded as a Brooklyn team. The GM got fired, and then the coach, too.
Everybody said Nate Kattenberger was a fool, that an internet billionaire couldn’t make a world-class hockey team out of his pricey investment.
They were wrong.
Nate is only part of our story now. Now there’s Rebecca Rowley Kattenberger—his wife—who owns the team. We’ve got a terrific GM, a great staff, and twenty-three players who are determined to get back to the finals this season.
Thank you, Jesus, for making me one of them. And I’m sorry about that dirty joke earlier.
I know I’m lucky to be standing here in this state-of-the-art practice rink in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It’s a bit of a zoo today because the team is holding an open practice. There are little kids in the stands wearing purple Bruisers jerseys. And photographers angling their giant cameras toward the ice.
Practice hasn’t started, and most of the guys aren’t out here yet. But out of the corner of my eye, I see an unfamiliar skater in full goalie padding. My attention is snagged by the fluid, strong strides of his skating. Goalies have to be phenomenal skaters, but there’s something really stylish about this one. I wonder who he is. Some college kid getting a tryout? A draft pick I haven’t seen before?
“We’re going to run a lot of back-checking drills,” Coach says. “Our whole season could hinge on how many fractional seconds it takes us to recover a lost puck.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I agree.
The goalie has reached my end of the rink now, where there is a little girl smiling and waving at him. He comes to a fluid stop in front of the plexi. He scoops a puck up off the ice and then shows it to the little girl, sending her into paroxysms of joy. He tosses it over, and the little girl lets out a whoop and leaps for it.
I smile as a reflex, because I was once that kid, desperate for a moment’s contact with one of my idols at the rink.
But then? The goalie unclips his helmet and hauls it over his head, revealing a head of long, thick hair. Hold the phone—this goalie is a girl. No—a woman. With rich brown hair and lush olive skin. She shakes out her hair, which seems to be in the process of escaping whatever braid or ponytail that had confined it. Then she smiles, giving the little girl a wave.