Page 14

Gwen

S cratches woke me up. A rat maybe? Certainly it wasn’t Lucky-the-imaginary-cat.

Rolling over, I turned on my phone light. It continued to move. But not fast. Getting up from my blanket bed, I looked over among the cardboard cutouts.

Staring at me was some sort of small, beautiful, black and orange lizard. He looked made of beads.

A quick photo search told me that he was not native to New York. I didn’t know how he got here.

Getting a popcorn bucket from another closet, I made him a little home with a water dish and fed him a few tidbits the internet told me he’d eat.

“There you go. I’m going to call you, Gary. ” After my favorite grandpa who’d passed away in a car accident along with my nonna and other grandparents. They were my mom’s parents, and I’d loved them fiercely.

Using the computer and printer in the small conference room, I made a couple of flyers and put them up around the rink. If no one claimed him soon, I’d take him to the reptile people at the zoo when I went to visit Marty.

I was up and ready to go, despite the early hour. So, like I’d been doing, I grabbed some coffee and an apple, did the land drills my nonna’s neighbor had taught me, then made my way to the ice.

Time to bring the sauce.

Finished with my workout, I laid down on the ice, reviewing the footage I’d taken of myself using a stand I’d found upstairs.

I got an alert from insta-chat, not from Clark the early bird, but Mercy. While she’d been posting pictures of her adventures abroad, I hadn’t heard from her specifically.

“Oh my fuck, Gwenifer, are you fucking okay?” she drawled on the video she sent. Mercy wasn’t a hockey player. She was a skate smasher and had lived in the south before being drafted by the Maimers.

Her brown hair was loose, something I didn’t see much, since she wore her hair in Dutch braids constantly during the season.

“You’ve been listening to the sad girl playlist over and over and not the good one, the weird one. You don’t respond to your messages on Musify. What. Is. Wrong?” she demanded.

For some reason, she called me Gwenifer. Which was pretty funny. I also didn’t know you could message people on Musify, where I listened to the playlist. Sometimes she made me feel old, given she was barely eighteen.

If I had a younger sister, I’d want one just like her.

“How do you know I’ve been listening to it?” I insta-chatted her back. The weird one? I loved every song on there.

She answered immediately.

“I finally checked my metrics. I haven’t been online much, because we’ve been traveling. Now what’s going on?” Her tan face was full of worry.

I made another message. “I broke up with Austin.” Absently, I rubbed my forehead. “It’s been rough.”

“I’m sorry. I know you loved him. If he broke up with you because he got signed, I’ll take the ultra-bullet to Philly and kick his ass,” she replied immediately. “Or hold him down while you beat the shit out of him.”

I’d love to see that. Mercy was an alpha, but a baby alpha, only recently awakened and still learning to handle her alphaness. However, she was strong and muscular. Skate smashers were as athletic and fit as hockey players. She was also a crusher, which was the most violent of the three positions.

Yeah, she could probably hold her own against Austin. She knew all sorts of neat moves from her team and her sister’s packmates. The skate smashers always let me join them in the weight room and sometimes taught me things.

Yeah, I’d like to punch my ex.

“I broke up with him. ” I gave her the short version.

“I’ve been a shitty friend and haven’t been around. Promise I’ll make it up to you when I get back,” she told me.

“I’m happy you’re seeing your family and having a great time.” It would be nice to take off and see the siblings I liked. But that took money, and well, talking to them.

We chatted a little longer. I took off my goalie skates and put my hockey skates on. I’d been considering Tenzin’s idea to put my silly routines on the internet. It would be fun. I had a few ideas.

My headphones had broken, so I’d been using a small speaker I’d borrowed from the little weight room. Positioning the stand and my phone, I did a couple of moves, figuring out how to stay in the frame.

Mask in hand, I did a few moves, including a layback spin, and a couple jumps, then ended with a sit spin.

Laying back down on the ice, I watched it, adding a couple of simple effects in the app. That sort of sucked, but it was a start. I sent it to Clark to get his opinion.

“Are you dead? Should I call Steve?” a sweet, female voice said.

“I’ll get off. Whoops. I’m so sorry.” I scrambled up from the ice. Steve? Who was Steve?

“You are one of Steve’s, right? One of the goalie interns?” The small, red-headed omega in figure skates, a hoodie, and beanie stared at me with big green eyes.

Oh, that Steve. I never thought of Coach Atkins, the head coach for the Knights, as Steve. Sometimes we explained the goalie development program as goalie interns.

“Hi, Cait. Um, yes, please tell Coach Atkins I’ve been working so hard in the off-season that I’m dead.” I grinned. Coach Atkins’ omega was half of one of the most beloved figure skating pairs ever. She was very busy coaching skating, but sometimes she came to the Knights’ games and sat in the family section.

Her head cocked. “Why were you figure skating with hockey equipment? I was spying. One of my pairs canceled, and I was bored.”

“Being silly. It’s just something I do for fun sometimes. My friend wants me to put them up online, so I was feeling out some stuff.” I was a little embarrassed that she’d seen me do that.

“Go on then. I have time.” She leaned against the glass and took a sip of her water bottle.

“Um, sure. I mean, yes, Coach.” What else could I say?

I did the routine, then stopped and looked at her, nerves bouncing around. This had been choreographed haphazardly, and my technique was no longer perfect.

“You were one of Klavdiya’s? Because, wow, those jumps.” She eyed me and took another sip of water.

“Vail Russo,” I told her a little too quickly. I’d hated skating for Klavdiya and it irked me that you could still see her in my technique.

“Oh. You’re one of theirs? I didn’t know they trained betas. Huh. I’ve never met you.” She frowned.

“I stopped in high school. Anyway, I was always running off to play hockey with their mates.” Those had been a good few years, living with my grandparents, playing hockey, training with Vail, and living my best life away from my dads.

When my mom got sick again, I came home. After she passed away, everything went to shit.

“Oh, right. They have two retired hockey players as mates.” Cait nodded. “I forgot that. Why figure skate if you wanted to play hockey, or could you not decide?”

“My dads thought it would make me an omega if they forced me to learn all the things my omega sisters did. Didn’t work.” I grinned, but that grin hid pain. Because of their disappointment and their expectations; not to mention the expectations of others.

“Oh.” Her face softened. “I had a student like that once. Watch your knees. Also, your prop is messing with your momentum on the turn. You might want to change the placement.” She waved at the ice. “From the triple. No music.”

Cait ran me through the routine over and over, critiquing my technique, fixing the choreography, and working my ass off. Sweat ran down my face and my calves burned.

Then we ran through another one of my potential routines. By then, Connor, the other half of her pair, who was also in Coach Atkins’ pack, had joined her. Both of them were changing my choreography, and telling me to tuck my chin, extend my leg, and watch my elbows.

“Good job. You should put them up. Remember what I told you.” Cait patted me on the shoulder.

“Yes, Coach.” I wiped my face with the hem of my T-shirt. “Thanks for the lesson. I appreciate it.”

I knew how much a session like that cost.

“Happy to help,” Cait told me. “Please, let me know when you put up the videos, and I’ll repost.”

“Really? Thank you so much. Both of you.”

“You’re going to put it up? I’m proud of you.” Tenzin stood there in his hockey skates. “Let me know when you want to film it.”

How long had Tenzin been there? He was proud of me? Aww. My whole body got warm and fuzzy.

“Thanks.” I smiled at him. “I think I will.”