Page 18 of Puck Shots (Love The Game #6)

Cosmo

“You did this last night?”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve been working on the program for a week now, but I didn’t have real footage to run through it. It took a few tweaks to get it right, and in the future, it hopefully will look more like the person it’s mimicking. Right now, you’re all weird and blobby.”

“So you’re saying I look weird?” I ask, and he blushes.

“No. I didn’t mean… the blobs look weird. You look great. I mean, you look like you. Normal. I…”

He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and I chuckle.

“Relax, I think the blobs are fine. It shows me the joints well so I can see what it wants me to do, sort of. Anyway, can we lay over top of the first video with this so I can see if there are any other differences I’ve missed?”

He turns the laptop toward him and starts typing.

“It will take me a few minutes.”

“No worries. I’m going to see if I can figure out that double tap part, let me know when you have it.”

He nods, and I skate over to the center of the ice.

My legs are warm, muscle memory kicking in and sending me down the ice with ease.

I scoop the puck, turn and fly toward the opposite net.

When I pass Eli, he picks up his chin and watches me.

My heart pounds faster, a fire building inside, propelling me forward.

I want this to work. I want it to work for me, to land my super-speed slap shot, but feeling his eyes on me, I realize I want this for him, too.

To show him how brilliant he is. My stomach is a nervous ball of energy.

I hit the puck harder than the normal push I give it before trying for a shot, then swing my stick back higher and bring it down hard for the second hit.

Only I sent the puck too far ahead and I have to stretch a little to get it and the move sends me off balance, spinning, I bend forward, skim my gloves and stick across the ice regaining my control before standing upright again and gliding toward the puck, my face hot and sweaty.

I glance toward Eli, but he’s not watching anymore, his face is concentrated, stern as he frantically taps away. Did he see me miss the shot? It was the first go at it. I’m good, but I almost never get anything at first go.

“I’ll get it,” I call out to him as I make my way back up the ice to my starting position.

“I have zero doubts.” He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the adorable way that they do when his smile is directed at me.

It’s not like the smile he has when he wins a piece in chess, or when he folds one of his label origami animals.

It’s bigger, brighter, like I somehow make him shine.

Maybe I’m just seeing what I feel mirrored in him.

Because ever since that first day when I saw him figuring out how to knock the lacrosse stick from the tree, determined, confident and a little cheeky, some kind of switch inside me turned on and I started to see a world beyond hockey. I saw him.

“Okay, I have it overlaid, come watch,” Eli calls, skating nervously onto the ice. His legs wobble just a little as he balances the laptop in his hands, but he’s gotten so much better in just two days. He slows, and I grab his wrists to stop him completely.

“Click play,” he says, and I watch as a sort of purple blob figure starts off skating down the ice.

As it moves, it begins to separate, one faint red figure, the other faint blue.

The knees of the blue bend more through the whole scene, and the strides are shorter, with deeper knee bends, and then the blue one falls behind a little but the red one misses the puck while the blue does the double tap and sends it flying into the computerized net.

I watch twice more, picking up on a few other tweaks to the way I move in the first video.

“Okay, I think I have it down,” I say, and he clicks pause and skates to the edge.

“Give me one sec, I want to film you again so we can upload the new videos to see the progression in real time.”

“Okay, say when,” I call, and when he comes to a slow stop about halfway between me and the net, he yells out, “Go.”

I take off with my usual long strides, pushing off at about a forty-five-degree angle to maximize power, then once I’m going, I shorten my strides, bending my knees a little more than I’m used to, the muscles in my legs warm, a tight ache moving through them.

It’s not as easy as I thought it would be to get the stride shown in the video.

My legs want to fall back on what they know, what’s easy, but I turn at the net and make my way back again, this time it’s easier, but just a little.

“I’ll go for it on this run,” I say, passing him, and he holds the phone up a little higher.

The cool air zooms past my face as I lean forward, keeping my center of gravity balanced, moving the puck side to side as I go, like I would do in a real game to keep the defenders guessing and make it harder for them to poke the puck away.

That is if they can catch me. I pass Eli, my heart thumping with almost as much energy as it does in a real game.

And when I tap the puck forward, then bring the stick back and swing with full force and it connects, a rush of adrenaline sweeps over me.

The puck skims down the ice and rebounds off the back wall.

I zoom toward Eli, throwing down my stick and off my gloves before I wrap him in my arms and spin him in place.

“Woooo, fuck yeah!” I cheer, slowing our spin and lowering him back down, a lump now in my throat as his dark green eyes look up at me. “Sorry,” I say, releasing my hands.

“It’s okay,” he replies, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand the way he does when he’s nervous and he doesn’t have a bottle to fiddle with the label.

I’ve started to notice I do that a lot. Make him nervous, and I’m starting to realize, I like it.

I like being the reason his face flushes a light pink, and he smiles that bright smile that seems only for me.

***

“My legs don’t do that,” Luka complains as he tries for the tenth time to match my form and my speed on the ice.

“We’re made up of the same body parts on the inside,” I say, flying past him.

“Then tell me how you get your legs to do it.”

“You just have to watch and learn, my friend.”

He goes again, leaning forward to steady himself, hands cupped in front as he focuses on the way his knees are bending and the angle he pushes out with his skates. It’s not quite right, but better than before.

“Grab your stick and try it the full length of the ice,” Eli says, and I rush to beat Luka to the far wall, ready to race him.

“Not everything is a competition,” he chuckles as I get into starting position like a track star waiting for the gun to sound.

“Afraid you’ll lose?”

“I always lose against you, so it’s nothing new. You should be afraid your boy is about to share all your secrets and seeing as I already have a killer slap shot and am the best defensemen they have, all eyes will be on me soon enough.”

“I hope they are. It would suck getting drafted without you.”

“Are you going soft?”

“I just like having a live-in cleaner.”

“No one said we’ll be drafted into the same team, let alone be sharing a room. Fairly sure the guys in the NHL all can afford their own places.”

“You know you love rooming with me. Tell you what, assuming we get drafted into the same team, because who wouldn’t want both of us, we are clearly a powerhouse on the ice,” he nods and I go on, “If you win, you can get your own place, and if I win, we find a place together. KOKs forever.”

He reaches out a fist, and I bump it.

“KOKs forever,” he says and then gets into starting position.

“Ready when you are,” I call to Eli, who’s holding one arm up in the air like a signal flag.

“Three, two…one,” he screams, and when his arm comes down, we both take off like a shot.

I take an almost immediate lead, just like always, but as I pass Eli, I glance back and find Luka is way closer than I expected.

“Dude, you got this,” I cheer before turning back and putting in all my effort to maintain the lead.

I won, but only by about half the length I did before.

“Shit, I can’t believe that actually worked,” Luka says, and I smile over at Eli as a few of the other guys start crowding around him, asking if they can help them out, too. My chest swells at the way his cheeks flush at the attention.

***

It’s game one at our home rink in Boston, and rumor is there will be scouts there tonight, so my stomach is in knots.

I sit on the bench seat, back to the room, and draw over the lightning bolt on my wrist with a Sharpie.

The pressure of the firm felt tip against my skin and scent of the permanent ink is good at halfway calming my nerves.

Tonight will be my chance at a great first impression.

Though they would have seen me play before, not being drafted last year means if they did, they also saw what a shitshow my life was, too.

This year, I have to be better. But as I push out onto the ice, the crowd cheering, and the cool air hitting my face, what used to be like a sense of coming home, still feels off.

I’m fast as ever out there, but I can’t bring myself to try the slap shot. What if I choke? What if they get the puck and score and we lose? What if that is the only thing the scout sees and I destroy my chances at being drafted in my first game of the year?

The coach signals for a change, and I rush the side, gasping for breath as I down some water and watch my teammates out there giving their all.

“Looks like your shadow is still here,” Vinnie sneers, nudging my side and nodding up into the stands to my left. I turn and spot Eli. The second he spots me looking his way, one hand comes up in an adorable little wave, his cheeks blushing instantly before he clasps his hands in his lap again.

I turn back to Vinnie.

“Eli’s not a joke,” I say, deadpan.

Vinnie seems to be searching my expression to see if I am messing with him. I’m not. The second my eyes landed on Eli, that bundle of nerves that wouldn’t shift in my gut out on the ice disappears.

“I didn’t mean…” Vinnie starts, but I shake my head.

“Just don’t.”

I bounce my foot, waiting for the coach to signal the change up again. I need to be out there; I need to show Eli his time and effort helping me refine my moves is not for nothing.

“Flash, you’re up,” Coach says, and I’m over the rail and on the ice in a split second after Hewie leaps over.

I fly up the ice, my eyes locked on the puck, and when I manage the steal and spin ready to look for a pass, I picture Eli smiling, leaning forward in his seat watching me, and a wave of confidence washes over me.

I push off, speeding my way toward the net at the other end.

A player comes at me from my right, but I dig deep, and he misses his chance to slam me into the wall by what has to be an inch.

I line up for the shot, give the puck a tap, then swing full force and send it down the line, it skims through the air, about a foot from the ice and slips through the gap between the goalie’s arm and leg, hitting the back of the net with a satisfying sound of the horn.

Luka slams into me a second later. His deafening cheers flooded my ears. But I can’t take my eyes off Eli standing in the crowd, his arms in the air cheering, for me.