Page 8 of Call the Shots (For The Arena #1)

BEAR

LEARN TO TAKE A JOKE

Back in North Dakota, I bounced between places to live while I worked two jobs and played hockey. I used to think unpacking my suitcase yet again was a pain. I should’ve been grateful.

Living with June Basil was driving me insane.

Our dorm smelled like what I could only assume fairies shit out. There was no hot water with the homecoming queen’s showers, and the kitchen was hostile territory, stolen from me. The counters were covered in weird food scales, and her weight-loss shakes took up an annoying chunk of the fridge.

Did I have groceries? No, but it was the thought that pissed me off.

I held up one of her shakes. “If you get any skinnier, you’ll disappear.”

“Comment on my weight again and we’ll have a fucking problem,” she said.

“Learn to take a joke.”

“Learn to make one.”

June and I snapped at each other on the walk to the arena.

And then— goddamn— the Colo, that had the charm of an abandoned, festering building after a natural disaster. I strode to the locker room, avoiding the pitfalls in the hallway tile. I yanked open my locker to find two used condoms, squeegeed out on the top shelf.

“This fucking place.” I slammed the door shut.

There was no schedule for our rink, no time sheet for accountability, and no other hockey players in sight. I left a championship-winning team and signed up for the fucking zoo. Not even a zoo, at least the fucking zookeepers showed up for their shifts.

Muttering under my breath, I laced my skates and stepped on the ice.

Relief poured over my muscles, cooling me down.

Some people are meant to sit behind a computer screen or design Lego sets or fuck on camera.

I was meant for the ice. I breathed out the tension and pushed from the boards, picking up speed.

Every angle had to be accounted for, but I knew how to ease into the turn.

Heart pounding, I came to a hard stop, cutting the ice like it was meant to be.

“Bear!” Montoya’s high-pitched voice took me out of my concentration. “Great stop!”

I wiped away the sweat. “Are we the only ones out here?”

“No, this is Fridge!”

I didn’t need an introduction for Felix Fowler—the goalie from Florida who dwarfed everybody at six-foot-eight, a clear fan favorite.

The first Black goalie for the Southeast Prospect Award, Fridge was known for his uncanny ability to stop record plays.

There was a running joke that if you thought you’d go into overtime with Fridge—no, you wouldn’t.

His school wasn’t part of the USAC, but we’d been up against each other a handful of times in other league games. The way I saw it, he was the singular good decision made by Marrs—I was actually kind of surprised to see him.

“Bear,” Fridge greeted. “Want me to drag out the net?”

“Nah, we can do warm-ups until everybody arrives.”

An hour passed and I could feel the rust wearing away. The coldness of the arena didn’t mean anything to me, because I was fucking good at this. But I could only get so good with two guys to practice with, neither of which were defensemen.

“Where is everybody?” I finally demanded.

“I’m here because Denali saw me at Gianna’s .” Fridge shrugged, passing the puck to Montoya with a sharp swing. “I didn’t think we’d start since Coach is absent.”

“Does anyone have an update on that?” Nick Kurosawa’s voice boomed over the rink. “Every time I call him, it’s the Muppets.”

I narrowed my eyes. Nick was another great player, like Fridge, but I refused to have begrudging respect for the professional playboy.

He proudly proclaimed that he had a natural six-pack— sure— and had a reputation for calling up players’ girlfriends the night before a game to rile them up.

I never believed the rumors until it happened to me.

I could still remember it, doing homework on the couch and Paisley walking downstairs in my hoodie, one of her infamous pouts on full display. Beaaaar, you won’t believe this. Do you think Nick sent it by mistake? Beaaaar? Are you jealous? Why aren’t you more jealous? You should be more jealous.

Jealousy and I didn’t mix, and I earned a forty-five-minute lecture from Paisley over it, ruining my night. I put half the blame on Nick. I narrowed my eyes at him and his slicked-back hair at six in the morning. Like we needed hair gel for goddamn hockey practice.

My lips curled. “ Nick .”

“No bad blood from playoffs, Bear.”

“You DMed my goalie’s girlfriend, earned us a penalty and cost us a point in the second period. You’re a scumbag?—”

“Oh, come on, you’ve never hit up somebody’s girl?”

My jaw twitched. “No.”

“You’re missing out.”

A laugh broke the tension and the four of us glanced to see Denali watching June’s laptop while she worked in the bleachers. Great. We were practicing while our team captain giggled with some blonde on staff.

“So, June…” Nick finished tying his skates. “Am I the first one to hit that or did someone call dibs?”

I abandoned practice with the guys. “You fucked June?”

“Not yet, but you know how much fun PR girls are.”

A cold feeling gripped me that had nothing to do with the arena, and I ground my back teeth, holding back every pent-up threat. The walls in our dorm were paper thin, and I didn’t want to hear Nick moaning when I went to take a piss at two in the morning.

“You can’t fuck June,” I decided. “That’s not allowed.”

“What? Why?”

Fridge grimaced. “Seems like a conflict of interest.”

“June’s nice,” Montoya added.

“June’s off-limits,” I warned.

Nick smirked. “We’ll see what she has to say about that.”

There was nothing I could do to stop him and what then? I saw June’s profile. She didn’t care about the details; she just wanted to get laid. I waved Montoya away when he tried to involve me in another warm-up.

“Nick?” I rested my arms over the side of the rink. “You’re right. You’ve got the best shot with June.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We don’t need any bad blood between us.” My eyes flickered to June, swiping her hair up for a high ponytail. “I’m living with her. Tell her I’m your wingman. I sent you over.”

His eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. I misjudged you. Thanks, man.”

“No worries.”

I watched as Nick swaggered to June. He rolled back his shoulders, taking the seat next to her with a classic move. The casual recline before his arm relaxed on the back of her chair.

June turned to him, her face impossibly tight.

They were too far away to hear, but I watched as Nick’s grin all but fell off and he left her side in a hurry.

“ Bear! ” she snarled.

I feigned ignorance when I passed Nick. “Didn’t work out?”

“She told me to shove a hockey stick up my ass and use it like a pogo stick.”

I clapped him on the back. “Tough break, buddy.”

I could hear Nick’s shoes stop behind me, finally figuring out what happened. “You asshole, you did that on purpose.”

With a glance over my shoulder, I shrugged. “Told you she’s off-limits, dickhead. Now I don’t need to tell you twice.”

Denali whistled for everyone to come over and I was the first to get to June. She glared, her green eyes fiery. “If you ever send one of your cretins to me again, you’ll regret it.”

“Good to know, I was going to send them in a conga line.”

“I don’t sleep with hockey players.”

“Your profile said?—”

“I said I’m down to experiment,” she snapped. “Not vomit in my mouth.”

Denali hunkered down with her. “Can you show the design you made?”

June threw me one last scowl—ending our personal conversation—before she flashed what she made for Denali. A black shirt with BIGGER IS BETTER printed on it and an outline of a mountain below. Which wasn’t bad.

“Fantastic work,” Fridge complimented.

“I have one for you too.” June clicked the next one. “Ice ‘em out. And the back has Fridge, all in caps. Montoya, I had some favors people owed me, a friend helped me with this one, it’s your face…”

Montoya’s face was imposed with the word MONTOYA in a straight line down, zoomed in just enough to make him not look like a toddler with a haircut that was a minor snip away from being a bowl cut.

“Wow,” Montoya whispered. “I look cool.”

Nick nodded. “First time for everything, Kid’s Toy.”

“You worked for the Romans, right, June?” Montoya leaned forward, inspecting the design. “Is this what you did for them?”

June cleared her throat. “Um…not exactly. They have an entire graphic design department?—”

“While we get the scraps,” Denali finished.

“What we really need is a catchphrase,” June contemplated. “Cleo and I have been trying to figure it out…”

“It’s ‘Glad for the Gladiators,’” Denali said.

“No, this is an opportunity to rebrand. We’re ditching the old saying and coming up with…something. I don’t know.”

“What about my shirt?” I asked.

“Yours?” She smiled. “Hope you love it.”

At the next slide, the guys burst into laughter, and I stared, dumbfounded, at the cartoon teddy bear holding on to the tree branch with the words bearly hanging on! over it.

“What is that? ” I made a noise of indignation. “I’m not wearing that.”

“You don’t like it? Make your own.”

The guys laughed harder, but I ignored them. “You’re like my assistant. You work underneath me.”

“Your assistant? ”

“Make another one—” I glared at the guys, wheezing with laughter. “Stop laughing. It’s not funny.”

June smirked. “Learn to take a joke, Bear. ”

“Comic sans!” Nick grabbed his sides. “That’s the best part about it!” I elbowed him in the ribs, and he fell off the bleachers, crashing to the ground. “Fuck, Bear!”

“Are we practicing or what?” I snapped.