Page 11

Chapter Eleven

“I saw you, Mr. 19. Don’t think I didn’t. Heard you, too. I’ll give you this one, but I’ve got my eye on you now. Just what are you up to?” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Boh

I twisted back toward the door to confront whatever asshole spoke, wobbling on the fucking crutches and a second from falling on my ass. Novy hustled past me, though, and the door closed on the ignorant words. The urge to spin around and confront the asshole rode me hard. I’d set the idiots straight about the playoffs. I’d fucked up, but one person didn’t make a team. A refrain burned into my brain by coaches since my earliest days playing the game, the only thing saving me from spiraling into a complete mental shutdown this off-season. Because, yeah, I did blame myself, but some fans took it to another level in their need to blame someone.

I grit my teeth and crutched along in Novy’s wake. We passed through a breezeway into a large open room the size of a school gymnasium and laid out pretty much the same. Bleachers dotted with spectators paralleled both sides with a concession area at the far end. The sounds of laughter and hollering bounced off the walls. I needed a spot to pause and dig out my earplugs or there would be no stopping the headache. I swung along between my crutches, dodging all the people swarming the place.

When she paused to scan the area, I steadied myself on one foot beside her, digging in my pocket even as I demanded an explanation. “Who were those people out front?”

“Dahlia’s book club.” She didn’t look at me to answer, her eyes on a corner of the room.

As if that meant anything to me. One of her teammates, from the conversation out front, but why would a book club come to a derby game? “Book club?”

“They call themselves ‘The Shameless Readers’ and with the way they carry on, I know they must have some seriously good stories, but they have rules .”

She finally faced me with a grin, her eyes dancing, pretty color lighting up her cheeks. I tightened my fingers around the handles of the crutches. She made it hard to stay angry. “Rules?”

“You know, the usual. ‘The first rule of Book Club is: you do not talk about Book Club.’ You can probably guess the second rule.” She finished her words with a nod and a smirk that reminded me of the day I met her. But I didn’t feel the flash of annoyance I’d had then. Instead, her quirky look tempted an answering smile to my lips.

“Novacaine Nellie!”

She whirled around to face whoever had shouted out the name, her ponytail swinging out, the silky strands feathered against the top of my chest with her movement.

“Sugar Rush!” Novy yelled back in a loud voice I barely recognized.

A moment later, a brunette wrapped Novy up in a hug, the two of them talking at once.

“I stopped out to see Scooter yesterday. Those stitches above her eye, oh man, looks savage!”

“Did you guys go check out the new site?”

“Is this him?”

And then they spun to face me. I straightened up to my full height, bristling under their inspection.

Novy nodded. “Sugar, meet Bohdan Zacha. Boh, this is Seeley Reed, known on derby days as Sugar Rush.”

She reached out a hand to shake, a smile parting her lips. A painted-on, sparkling gold star covered her right eye. “Boh, that place you hooked us up with is perfect. Absolutely perfect. You definitely saved us.”

“Glad to hear it.” I leaned in, angling to see Novy’s expression, matching her smirk with one of my own. “Glad someone’s getting something out of this deal.”

Her eyes shot wide. “You’re getting exactly what you asked for, mister! I’m holding up my end of our arrangement perfectly fine.”

Her eyes still danced with laughter despite her display of fake outrage and I slumped on my crutches, ready to poke a little more. But then she slid her fingers under the strap of her athletic bag that I still had lodged over my shoulder. I shifted the crutch and let the bag slide free. “I’ve got to go finish getting ready.” She pointed to the far side bleachers. “That’s our side. Find somewhere to sit and I’ll catch up with you after.”

She didn’t wait for my agreement, but whirled around and took off with her friend to a corridor at the back of the room. Skaters rolled in and out in a steady flow. The hall must have led to locker rooms.

I swung-walked to the side of the building she’d indicated. With each lunging step up to an empty seat, the metal of the bleachers gave up a loud crunching sound. I was over these crutches. Damn accident. Adding insult to injury, I could be soaking in some sunshine like Marek or exploring some northern woods like Dalton.

Instead, I sat on a hard-ass metal bench in the equivalent of a high school gym. An oval track took up most of the center of the room, with two rows of chairs flanking each side. Spectators soon dotted the seats around me. When two women sat beside me, a curl of uneasiness unfurled in my stomach. That last comment from the hloupy “book club” crew had me eyeing everyone for signs of attack. All I needed was someone else to recognize me. And here, of all the random places. I didn’t want to think about how my presence at a roller derby event would be interpreted by the influencers and fans. The attention never used to bother me. Now, it felt like living under the microscope of public opinion.

I ducked my head down. Should have at least brought a cap.

After an eternity, the assembled voices in the gym morphed into an echoing cacophony as a string of skaters burst free of the corridor and cut through the crowd. While not filling the big room, the supporters made up in noise what they lacked in numbers.

Sensation prickled at the back of my head, dull and barely there. Not worth noticing over the course of a hockey season. But I wasn’t playing hockey and I wouldn’t be playing anytime soon if I didn’t shake the last of these concussion symptoms in time for training camp. I leaned into my crutches and dug the earplugs out of my pocket. They didn’t cancel out the sounds in the room, but dampened them to a point where the warning tingle in the back of my head disappeared.

The two teams streamed out from the back where I’d seen Novy disappear earlier. One headed to the row of seats below where I sat, the other to the far side. Novy’s team, led by a blonde woman dressed similarly to Novy, but in black bootie shorts and pink top. They all dripped pink and fishnet, skimpy suspenders and tutu skirts, rolling around with their hands in the air, giant smiles on their faces, spinning in skillful twirls and dips as they showed off for the fans.

The crowd ate up their theatrics, screaming and barking with as much enthusiasm as the loudest hockey fans in Algonquian Arena. The pair next to me knocked against my shoulder as they maneuvered a poster high over their heads. They shouted greetings down to the skaters as they settled into the chairs at the foot of the bleachers.

“Rush! Rush! Sugar Rush!” The women beside me swayed and shook their sign.

“Novacaine! Destroy them all, girl! We love you!”

I couldn’t see the person that shouted for Novy, but my roommate waved to the far end of the bleachers with a wide grin, her dark chestnut ponytail swinging around her shoulders. A smiling, happy, tempting package as she shook hands with some of the fans on the lowest bench.

A knee punched me in the back before a man’s voice called out, “Hell Berry! Woman, you stole my heart! Marry me, Hell Berry!”

I grunted, but had to shake my head. The excitement of the crowd bounced off the walls of the gymnasium. The words of Brightside’s occupational therapist whispered through my head like a nagging mosquito. Avoid loud sounds, noisy rooms, bright lights… on and on. The list of things to avoid stretched as long as my hockey stick. But how would I ever get back to normal if I didn’t push myself?

My pocket vibrated with an incoming message. I lined up my crutches between my legs, holding them with one hand and dug my phone out of my pocket with the other. Texts from Shep and the latest one from Coach, checking in. As if I had anything new going on. Unless they wanted to hear about the lunatic behind me wearing more beads than a drunk sorority princess on Mardi Gras, I had nothing to report in.

The woman to my left elbowed me between the ribs, sharp and pointy. “Don’t mind him. He comes to every bout. Beads are his thing. Gives ‘em to the girls after each bout.”

I nodded, as though giving beads out at a derby game made perfect sense, before skimming the room for the hundredth time.

Across the way, the opposing team faced their bleachers, pumping up their fans with waves and shouts. They wore basic black uniforms. A couple of the competitors spiced up their ensemble with patterned leggings, but they were definitely playing the ‘Serious Athlete’ to Novy’s ‘Sexy Hillbilly Slaughterhouse’ team.

A chant started up from the other side. By the third shout, I finally made out the words: “Danger! Danger! Danger Dolls on top!”

But no sooner had they finished their chant, than my side picked up the challenge. “Shake! Rattle! Roll! Killbillies in control!”

The dueling battle chants echoed, louder and louder until they shook the old building. I popped my jaw in satisfaction. The energy of the cheering buffeted me, but the noise held to a tolerable level due to the earplugs. I could discern the sounds, but the volume didn’t jab into my brain like an icepick. Thank god.

I’d missed this. The energy, the excitement, the joy of the spectators supercharging the air. I’d have rather been down on a sleek sheet of ice, but I’d take this crowd over another dull day in my apartment.

Everyone around me stood as all the competitors skated and stretched and danced in time to the chanting to warm up. The blonde woman who’d led Novy’s team in danced to the chant, shimmying her hips and twirling on her skates with the ease of a seasoned performer, riling up the spectators on the bleachers even more. Soon the two sides were battling for volume and the smile that’d been threatening my lips broke free. Novy moved with liquid grace on her skates, somehow conveying serious swagger in her bootie shorts and cartoon backpack. My smile morphed into a laugh. Buoyed by the earplugs, I added my voice to the chant.

By the time I’d shouted my third “Killbillies in control”, the blonde with a skull and crossbones across her back assembled half her team at the edge of the track while the rest of the skaters claimed the chairs. They huddled into a circle, asses out. My gaze glued to Novy’s peach-shaped rear. The women high-fived, before whirling to take their places on the track. A couple of the skaters from each team pulled a fabric cover over their helmet and the crowd settled into an eager hush as they waited for the race to begin.

Not a race. Match? What was this competition called? I’d have to get the rundown from Novy on the way home.

A woman wearing the striped black and white of a referee moved into the center, hand held high, whistle wedged into her mouth. Novy formed a row with two other skaters behind a similar row of the opposing team. Two more skaters lined up behind Novy’s row, these with stars on their helmets, and legs bent into position to launch them the instant they were given the signal.

The woman nearest to me on the bleacher, elbowed my side again, despite the fact that a whole person could fit between us. I slanted her an impatient look. “Yeah?”

“First time, right? Who’s your girl?”

At her question, my gaze shot back to Novy, a flash of some emotion knocking me off center. I fumbled it over in my head, teased out the details and with the strange woman’s pointy elbow in my side, I gave the sensation a name. Intense curiosity with a healthy dose of sexual interest.

The woman beside me shoved her chin up, demanding an answer.

“Novacaine Nellie,” I said, daring her to challenge my words.

“No shit? Novy? You lucky bastard. She’s a blocker. The whistle’s gonna blow and they’re gonna clump up, right? That’s the pack. She’ll be linked up with two of the other skaters.”

The whistle cut through noise in the room, launching the motion on the track. I leapt up along with the pair of women beside me, steadying myself with one crutch while the other arm waved my fist in the air. I had no idea what was happening, but the excitement pulsed through me.

Novy and her teammates formed a slow-moving wall. They tussled and bobbed, pushing their bodies against one another. Suddenly Novy twisted, shoving the side of her body into another skater and pushing the woman off the track. I shouted louder than my row mates.

Somehow, I’d expected fast skating. Women whizzing around the track in a flash of color and skill. But that was not how this derby played out.

“Marry me, Hell Berry!”

The man behind me stomped on the bleachers, the sound reverberating through my skull. I tossed a look over my shoulder, but he was absorbed with his marriage proposals and in the match playing out below.

The woman who’d decided I needed a play-by-play grabbed my forearm, her long pointy nails digging in as she moved with the wild shifting of the spectators. The group that’d stopped us on the way inside took up the bottom corner of the stadium seats. They held poster board signs and yelled loud enough they could probably be heard three states over.

The seats weren’t full, but you wouldn’t know it by their enthusiasm. She tugged my arm until I bent my head down to her level. She pointed to a woman in a pink tutu skating around the track far ahead of the others. “That’s Sugar Rush, best jammer in the state. See that star on her helmet? She’s the one scoring the points.”

I nodded. Points were good.

“Your girl,” she yelled at the side of my head, “has the Danger Dolls’ jammer locked down. Between Novy, Hell Berry and Kitty Bomb, she’s not getting loose.”

The book club crew’s words came back to me then. Something about the other team out-sizing Novy’s team. The woman my girl had trapped stood a good four inches over Novy, probably a solid thirty pounds, too. Tall and solid, but immobilized by the Killbillies.

The ref in the center blasted out another whistle call and the skaters all dropped their arms and moved off the track. My neighbor knocked against my arm. “Seven-oh, baby!”

She pointed to the far end of the room where an analog scoreboard ticked up with the Killbillies score.

Over and over, the play continued. Pretty soon, I was leaning into my neighbor with questions as often as she shouted updates. The competitors battled, earning points and my respect as the afternoon wore on. I barely sat, my eyes glued to the face-off below. Novy moved with grace and power, no wasted movements and unrelenting determination. Whether wearing a dirty grin or a proud smile, she easily matched my own competitiveness when on the ice.

She soared around the track, her ponytail flowing out behind her, the muscles of her sleek legs powering her along as they reset for the last round. With all the drama of her becoming my designated guardian, I’d forgotten a fuckin’ important fact. Novy’d snagged my interest the moment I’d seen her in the Brightside lobby, both with her sexy strut and audacious attitude. Today, she cemented a place in my brain I wasn’t sure I’d ever shake free.