Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Because Jayden Sinclair will kick you off his team faster than his slap shot, and I’m pretty sure that sucker clocked in at 103 miles per hour the other day.
So yeah, no one fucks with him.
With this drill, I’m supposed to pass the puck to my winger, but I don’t see ReVerti anywhere. I have open ice, a breakaway, really, and I am already loving the pure dread filling the face of my goalie, Odder. Poor bastard. He may be the son of a hockey goalie god, but he knows just as well as I do, I’m about to score on his ass. I fight back the grin, the excitement, from trying one of my trick shots as I focus hard, and soon I’m holding my breath.
I slide the puck back between my legs, catching it behind me with my blade. I pass the puck to the left, as if I am trying to go to his left leg pad, and Odder moves to block it, as he should, and as I expected. But instead of shooting the puck, I snatch it out of midair with my blade and toss it into the open net I created when I pulled him left.
Goal.
Sick-ass fucking goal.
I am a hockey-scoring god.
Odder’s head falls, he calls me a fucker, and I can’t even contain the whoop of excitement that bursts out of me.
“Don’t worry, buddy. I betcha your dad couldn’t even have blocked that.”
“Fuck you.”
“You know that was sick,” I call to him, and even he fights back his grin. ReVerti taps his glove to mine, but before anyone can agree about how sick that goal was, Coach Sinclair blows his whistle.
“Jeannot!”
Ahfuckbuddy.
I cringe as Coach Sinclair’s voice rings out through the rink. Everyone goes silent as the gazes of my teammates snap to where I stand. They know I’m fucked. I know I’m fucked, but I couldn’t help myself. I shuffle my blades against the ice in a nervous tic as I force myself to look to where he’s standing in the middle of the ice. He does that to me. Makes me nervous, that is. No one else can instill pure fear in my soul the way Coach can. He has been riding my ass since day one, and I know it’s to make me better, but man, he scares the hell out of me. You don’t come to play for the Bellevue Bullies and suck. It’s that simple. If you’re trash, you’re out, and he doesn’t even bat an eye if that hurts your feelings.
Coach Sinclair played for the Nashville Assassins, was the captain, was one of the best, and he doesn’t do losing. I feel like he has a chip on his shoulder from being medically retired from the NHL, even if, in doing so, he then came to Bellevue to make us a winning team. If you’re not a winner like him, don’t trip skating off the ice when he sends you away. In the three years I’ve played for him, we’ve made it to the finals every time. We haven’t won yet, but it’s gonna happen this year. I feel it in my bones.
If Coach doesn’t kill me first.
Or make it so that I’m not drafted.
Both are huge possibilities.
On his own skates, a stick in one glove and his other on his hip, he glares at me. I smile widely at him and wave. “Yes, sir?”
“Come here.” I feel everyone silently laughing at me as I skate toward him, my head hanging low. When I reach him, I meet his gaze as he asks, “What was the drill?”
“A drop pass to ReVerti, but—”
“The drill?” he cuts in, and I swallow hard.
“A drop pass to ReVerti, and then I was to go around the barn to the crease to tip in.”
He nods. “So, you did understand the assignment?”
“I did.”
“Then please explain to me why you did that trick shit that would never work unless you were on a pretty extensive breakaway, which doesn’t happen in the college league because everyone is fighting to get into the NHL?”
I press my lips together. Oh, I’m about to get it. “Because I was on an extensive breakaway, and since it was practice, I knew I could make it, and I knew it would be sick.” I shuffle my skates in good faith, but it doesn’t help. Coach’s glare only deepens. I feel like I’m the only one who can make Coach turn the color of a tomato.
“It was pretty sick,” he agrees, and then he leans in. He blows his whistle and then yells, “But it wasn’t the fucking drill, eh, buddy!”
Being that Coach is from Nashville and grew up here, I know he is mocking my accent. “No, sir. It wasn’t.”
“Was a camera on you? I know you show out for your TikToky, but last time I checked, I said no cameras during practice.”