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This team is full of great guys. Flawed and human and, well,hockey players—with the foul mouths and the women and the egos—but still great.
There’s Van—way too into the ladies, who are into him right back. Watching his behavior off the ice makes me want to bathe in hand sanitizer. Nathan is a total grouch with a teensy, tiny bit of an anger problem. One that might be helped if Larry would listen to me about requiring weekly or even monthly therapy sessions for the guys. The whole team would benefit, even if Nathan is the one who needs it most. From what I’ve seen, Logan would be a close second.
Felix would spend his time alone with a book just as easily as he’d have the whole team over. I’m still trying to decide if our goaltender is an introvert or extrovert.
“Things are just the same old?” Javi says. “Really?”
“Yep. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Logan Barnes.”
I ignore the way hearing his name makes my heart skip, and instead adjust my phone to move into landscape mode. I haven’t gotten much footage for YouTube lately. TikTok is our main focus, especially with the younger demographic, but we have several hundred thousand followers on YouTube, which I need to keep fed with new, longer form content in addition to the shorts.
Yep. Let’s focus on content creation and not Javi’s baiting.
I’m not even sure how Javi couldpossiblyknow what a big deal Logan’s arrival is for me personally. No one but Brandon and my best friend, Mia, who have both known me forever, should be aware.
But just like Javi’s magical ability to portal himself around the complex, the man seems privy toeverything. Including my stupid heart and its back-from-the-dead or never-actually-died crush.
“He looks good,” Javi says, leaning against the rail.
Yeah,he does. My internal teenager rears its immature head.
“He’ll be a good addition to the roster,” my mature, professional self responds, ending the video only to flip my phone vertically and start another. We usually overlay trending sounds or purchased music over the videos so my conversation with Javi won’t matter in the background.
“If he can keep that temper in check and be a team player.”
“He will.” I say this with the utmost conviction, masking my fear that Logan willnot, in fact, keep his temper in check or be a team player.
Javi snorts but doesn’t say anything else as he watches the guys, massaging his bad hand. From what he’s told me, it got skated over in a game when he was a teenager. Severed nerves and bone damage mean chronic pain—and the end of hockey for him.
His parents, whom Javi says hoped he’d play soccer like a good Mexican boy (their words), still support his sport of choice. Even if Javi’s not playing. They have season passes to the Appies, showing up to every game decked out in black and gray and turquoise, yelling insults that Javi assures me are far worse than what I hear in English. And believe me, you hear somethingsshouted at a hockey game.
I wonder how often Javi thinks about what could have been.
When I look down at the ice, it reminds me of my figure skating days with a cloyingly sharp bittersweetness. Not that figure skating wasmydream. It wasn’t. I wanted to play hockey like Brandon.
My father, being the master puppeteer he is, refused to pay for me to play hockey. Even more, he wouldn’t sign any parental consent forms when I told him I’d just use my babysitting money to cover the cost. Brandon even offered to help chip in.
My mom, bless her sweet soul, is always on Team Dad and wouldn’t cave when I begged her to sign the forms. Even though I suspect she silently disagreed with Dad about this.
So, it was either figure skating or no skating.
There were things I ended up loving. Mostly the sensation of flying across the ice and launching my body into the air. It’s truly magical to leap and then to land—when I landed correctly. There were plenty of times I didn’t, and the flying preceded a painful fall.
But the moments of pure freedom and perfect landings ended all too quickly. The pressure was immense. Being watched and judged for the tiniest of technical mistakes. Not to mention all the unwanted attention on my body, my outfits, even my expressions. When you’re going through puberty while wearing skintight sparkles under a spotlight, it’s impossible not to feel self-conscious.
For the first time in years, I wonder if I could land some of my old jumps. My muscle memory still retains the knowledge of how to do a lutz, but I question my current ability to land it without ending up eating ice.
“You okay?” Javi asks, his eyes still on the action below.
Before I can answer with something trite and probably a lie, Van checks Logan. They crash into the plexiglass with the kind of sound that makes my blood hum.
“Ooooh,” Javi and I say in unison. Then we both laugh.
But only because this time, Logan doesn’t react badly. The two seem to be laughing as they skate away.
There you go, Logan! More of that, please. Happy hitting. Not angry hitting.
