Page 69 of Puck Your Feelings

"Holy shit," I breathe, skating a lazy circle near center ice. "That's like, the population of Boston. Or Seattle. Or whatever city has seven hundred thousand people."

"Focus, Becker!" Washington barks as he skates past. "Stop checking the view count and finish your warm-up."

"I am focused!" I protest, backwards-skating toward where Mateo sits with his laptop. "I'm just, you know, monitoring our reach."

"You've checked seventeen times in the last five minutes," Mateo says without looking up from his screen. "I'm keeping count for anthropological purposes."

"Seventeen is a perfectly reasonable number of times," I argue, then notice he's wearing his "GROOVER'S REAL BF" jersey. I poke him right in the print, and say, "Nice touch."

"Thanks. I'm establishing my territory for the viewers." He adjusts his glasses. "Did you know that in many primate societies, males will publicly mark their mates to deter potential rivals?"

"Are you calling Groover a monkey?"

"I'm saying you're all primates with sticks."

I can't argue with that assessment.

Coach Martin appears beside Mateo, adjusting his own microphone. "We're live in two minutes, Becker. Get your ass in gear."

"Yes, Coach!" I salute and push off, skating toward Kane, who's been attempting to help with the technical setup and failing. Earlier, he spent five solid minutes trying to untangle a cable before Petrov gently took it from him, muttering something in Russian that I'm pretty sure translated to "useless pretty boy."

"You ready for this?" I ask, spraying ice as I stop beside him.

Kane looks up from where he's frowning at a small black box with blinking lights. "I think I broke the internet."

"That's not the internet, that's a power converter," I explain, taking it from him before he can cause a blackout. "And you look like my grandmother trying to program a DVR."

"Your grandmother sounds technologically advanced."

"She once called me because her iPad wouldn't turn on. It wasn't charged. Or an iPad. It was a cutting board."

Kane's mouth twitches. "Okay. Technology isn't my strong suit."

"Really? I hadn't noticed. What with you trying to plug the HDMI cable into a phone."

"That was one time."

"It was ten minutes ago."

Kane opens his mouth to retort when Coach's whistle pierces the air, signaling us to gather at center ice. As we skate over, Kane adjusts his mic, which is clipped to his practice jersey.

The bloopers are gonna be fire.

"Don't worry about the mic," I say. "Just play like it's not there."

"Easy for you to say. You never shut up anyway."

"Exactly. I'm in my natural habitat. This is like filming a penguin in Antarctica."

"Are you saying you’re a penguin now?"

"I'm saying I'm majestic and built for this environment."

Washington’s voice echoes around. "Alright, ladies, enough flirting. Blue team on this side, white on the other. Full-contact, three twenty-minute periods. Let's give the viewers a show."

Kane and I are both on the blue team, paired as defensive partners. Over the past few days, we've developed a surprising chemistry on the ice. It's like some weird hockey telepathy—I always seem to know where he's going to be, and he anticipates my moves before I make them.

It's fucking spooky, honestly.