Page 23 of One-Time Shot

I wished he hadn’t told me he was gay. I’d kind of thought he might be, but now that I knew…yeah, maybe that was what was messing with me. This vague niggling idea that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be weird for us to hang out together. And talk about science. And hockey.

I wished I hadn’t uttered that stupid line about this being fate.

Fuck. What was wrong with me?

Now I just had to keep my head clear of static and not wonder if he was in the crowd tonight. We had a game to win.

“First line,” Coach Beekman bellowed.

I jumped over the boards and glided to the face-off circle, tapping my stick to Langley’s before taking my position opposite Trinity’s right winger, Nick the Prick Berdell.

“Yo, Bears. You ready to lose?”

We didn’t take the bait. Only dumb shits and amateurs would let schoolyard taunts get under their skin.

Langley ignored him and of course, won the puck.

I’d like to claim it was the beginning of a great start, but our rhythm was off. Our passes were sloppy, and the penalties were adding up. Trinity scored on a breakaway in the first period, but we connected in the second. I faked a pass to Brady and shoveled it to Oleski, who lobbed it over the goalkeeper’s head, looking as surprised as everyone else when it dropped into the goal. The stands went wild.

I hugged Oleski and tapped my stick to his before letting my gaze wander the screaming crowd. There were always a few familiar faces sitting in their usual seats, decked out in Bears’ blue and red with homemade signs. Our fans were enthusiastic and loyal. I spotted Madison from the diner, my English Lit professor, and?—

And Malcolm.

Yeah, that was him. Midsection to the right of our bench, sitting next to a tall girl with short dark hair and colorfully inked arms. I stopped at center ice and shamelessly stared. But it wasn’t weird. Malcolm was looking at me, too.

He waved and I smiled. That was it.

The problem was that I couldn’t stop smiling.

Ty poked my ribs. “Who is it? Not Tara…it can’t be. She hates your guts.”

I rolled my eyes, wiping sweat from my brow. “Who’s Tara?”

“The girl you strung along at Langley’s a couple of weeks ago,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Heads up. We’ve got a fuckin’ game to win, boys,” Coach griped.

“Yes, sir.”

It wasn’t pretty.

Whatever corrections and adjustments we’d made were forgotten. We played safe, as if we were protecting a win we had yet to secure.

Now, with one minute left in the third period, we were still tied. Frustration ate at me, and I could almost feel the wheels in my head churning in the wrong direction, overanalyzing every shot I took. And then there was Malcolm. He’d never watched a hockey game, andthiswas the one I’d insisted he should come to?

No problem. There was still time to make something happen. Anything.

We won the face-off. Ty fed me the puck and I was off, thundering along the outside lane with two defenders on my tail. I spotted Brady on the left wing and signaled for him to speed up. My pass was clean and thankfully, he didn’t bobble it. He raced for the goal, scanning for an open player. He was so damn obvious, it was painful.

This was the shit we’d practiced over and over again. No hesitation necessary. Just pass the fucking puck.

I yelled his name andboom, the puck sailed in my general direction. It was a terrible pass. I scrambled to reach it, but Trinity’s big D-man beat me to it. I raced after him, sweat dripping in my eyes, skating as if demons were riding my tail. Desperate times, desperate measures. The only way to stop his momentum was to check him, so…I did.

The whistle blew, and guess who got sent to the sin bin?

Trinity scored on a power play and got the W.

Losing sucked, but sometimes, it double sucked.